I completely agree, that the question which is constantly posed to any college student during their first two years is, “what are you going to major in?” which is then directly followed by “and what are you going to do with that?” I also cannot even begin to count the number of students in my high school who questioned my choosing an all women’s college, and the adults and articles which have said that my major, which even at Wellesley is underrepresented, will lead to a life of struggle, especially because I am a female who wishes to enter a male dominated industry. There are very few females in film that I can look up to as role models who have really been considered successful; some of my favorites are Nora Ephron, Kathryn Bigelow, and Sofia Coppola. I try to be positive, but sometimes I can’t help but worry that should I chose to pursue filmmaking, there won’t be a place for me. I can’t say that I would be unhappy to even work on the aspect of cinema that are not at the forefront, I don’t need to be a director, in fact I don’t see myself leading, but I would love to help create a medium that has continued to inspire me and at times keep me sane.
As college students, especially Wellesley college students, we are lucky that we get to play with our identity, as in Persona, Performance, and Daisies; we do not need to be a fixed stereotype, and we can be many. Hollywood is not the only place to go to make films, and as we learned from Ang Lee, there is no one way to become a filmmaker. As CAMS students, we can break free of the structure and band together to create our own films, maybe even form an all women’s production company.
As far as my film education goes though, I feel like I have been developing it since I became conscious of what films can mean. Like many children, I could watch the same movie again and again and never really tire of it, of course, it is unlikely that I was noticing the subtly or examining the stylistic choices, I was watching for pleasure alone. The films were also mostly Disney films or other animated films; mostly anything that would capture my imagination. But strangely, one of the films which I remember most clearly in my childhood was my first rated-R film which I saw at the age of 4 or 5. The film was Farewell My Concubine and although I couldn’t tell you why it struck me in my formative years, I still clearly remember the scene in which the mother chops off her son’s six finger. The film was in no way for kids, but I was obsessed, I wanted to show it to everyone and anyone. It is perhaps what catapulted my Asian culture obsession that I had while growing up. The second film that I remember seeing at around the same time was Titanic. It was the first movie that I really remember going to the theaters for, and what a film to see. My father took me and I remember being amazed at the grandness of it all. Of course unlike Farewell my Concubine, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Titanic is much more than a Hollywood movie, but I can’t say that I don’t still enjoy it. From there, my cinematic history really took off; I was watching documentaries and foreign films with my mother and enjoying the latest feature film. A series of midnight premieres made me conscious of just how powerful cinema can be, I knew that I wanted to be a part of making movie magic. I didn’t discriminate, but I don’t think that I fully appreciated the films that I had watched until taking my first film class. As a film student, I have begun to craft my critical view of the films that I watch. I now can’t really help but analyze the methods and techniques used by filmmakers noting the aspects which I enjoyed and what I believe could be improved, when I watch any film. As I learn more though from my various film classes, I feel as though my views on films change as well, the ways in which I evaluate films keeps shifting and my taste is changing as well. Sometimes, I believe that I would like to emulate one director’s style and then I will see something else or learn something new and I will think to myself that is what I would rather do that.
As far as my own film monoliths go, I suppose that I would have to start with the first of many times that I saw Sixteen Candles, and just absolutely fell in love with John Hughes and his style and muse. As a preteen, I wanted to help craft similar films which captured these crazy moments during a time which is very confusing. My second monolith is when I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and its subsequent sequels, I realized the power of cinematography, and began to appreciate the conceptualizing and building that occurs behind the scenes. It made me want to create new cinematic realities and made me realize that adaptations could be done well. My third monolith occurred before the first two, but was not yet fully realized until my Hitchcock class, is the film Vertigo, which made me fall in love with the cinematic qualities of the city that I live right next to (San Francisco), realize how much a film can psychologically manipulate the viewer and begin to fully comprehend the power of the auteur.