The most recent study by the Motion Picture Association of America showed females make up 52% of moviegoers. Two million women over 60 go to the movies once a month or more. Yet roles for women, and thus films for women, are not plentiful.
In an article written by Stephen Witty of the New Jersey Star-Ledger about the dearth of films that feature women, he quotes Maggie Renzi, John Sayles’ producing partner: “I don’t get it. I’m 50, smack in the middle of the Baby Boom, and everyone’s rushing to sell me cars and insurance and credit cards. Why aren’t they rushing to sell me movies?”
While studios are slow to take notice of this untapped market of women, independent movies seem to be giving women a slightly bigger voice. And it’s all about baby steps, right?
Namely, Cairo Time, which was released in a few cities August 6, is a one-two punch in terms of women and film. Writer-director Ruba Nadda delicately portrays the romance and danger of Cairo as the audience follows Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) through her own physical and emotional journeys there.
Clarkson is a familiar face, a character actress, and at age 50, Cairo Time provides her her first leading role.
Known for her sultry voice, Clarkson was born and bred in New Orleans, where she grew up among four sisters. She studied for two years at Louisiana State before transferring to Fordham University in New York and graduating with a degree in theatre arts. She attended the Yale School of Drama to obtain her MFA.
Her whiskey voice and classic features made it difficult for Clarkson to get cast in her 20s.
“I've always had this deep voice, so I think it was tough sometimes for directors to cast me as the ingénue. Because I'd walk in and look a certain way, then open my mouth and have this...voice! So I think I sort of grew into my voice, my face, my body as I got older,” Clarkson has said.
She tried out Los Angeles at age 28, earning a role in The Untouchables as wife to Kevin Costner’s Elliott Ness. However, Clarkson returned to New York and spent most of her time in the theater, among smaller roles in TV and film. She acted in several plays, including Eastern Standard, Raised in Captivity, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Three Days of Rain, and The Maiden’s Prayer, for which she earned an Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Award.
“Things got weird,” Clarkson, in a recent New York Times profile, has said about a dearth of roles early on. “Things suddenly just became very difficult for me. I had to dig way deep down inside and figure out: Do I have the stamina? Can I withstand this hailstorm of rejection to get what I really want?”
In 1998, Clarkson played Ally Sheedy’s drug-addicted muse, Greta, in the indie film, High Art, director Lisa Cholodenko’s (The Kids Are All Right) directorial debut. Roles in The Green Mile and Far From Heaven kept her visible, before she had perhaps her most prolific year in 2003.
Clarkson had roles in three critically acclaimed movies that year, from a callous cancer victim in Pieces of April, a grieving artist in The Station Agent, to a mom who tells her son how it is in All the Real Girls. Clarkson was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Station Agent, as well as earning a special acting prize for her work in the trio of film at the Sundance Film Festival.
“I was somewhat typecast as suburban "mom" type roles early on,” Clarkson said. “But now I look back and I realize that I really came later in life to a kind of career.”
Returning to her theater roots in 2004, she played the role many would say she’s born to play, Southern belle Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Kennedy Center.
Clarkson also earned two Guest Actress Emmy Awards for her work as Frances Conroy’s sister in HBO’s Six Feet Under.
Writer-directors seem to be especially attracted to Clarkson’s charms, as Woody Allen has recently cast her in two of his films, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and again in 2009’s Whatever Works. And director Martin Scorsese sought her out for a role in his latest film, Shutter Island.
At age 50, when many actresses are struggling to find any roles, much less good ones, Clarkson has carved out a niche for herself, playing emotionally complex women. (And maybe the occasional "mom role". She will play Mila Kunis’ mom in the upcoming film, Friends With Benefits.) But with Clarkson, even the “mom roles" have a bit of an edge to them.
Clarkson was quoted in a recent Salon feature as saying she equates her willingness to do the work with her continued success: “Oddly, I think the stronger you become as an actor, the stronger your self becomes, your confidence in who you are. I think the most seductive part of acting is to act, is to actually do the work. There’s nothing sexier than being on a set and really working your butt off, and taking a journey.”
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Sources:
New Jersey Star-Ledger
The New York Times
Salon.com
