Narrative and Narration by Warren Buckland

Author:Warren Buckland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press

PART II

TYPES OF STORYTELLING

5     FEMINISM, NARRATIVE, AUTHORSHIP

(Gone Girl and Orlando)

“Feminism begins,” argues Jill Dolan, “with a keen awareness of exclusion from male cultural, social, sexual, political, and intellectual discourse. It is a critique of prevailing social conditions that formulate women’s position outside of dominant male discourse” (1991, 3). Second-wave feminism, beginning in the 1960s, addressed women’s exclusion and marginalization from dominant male discourse and institutions from a dual standpoint: an oppositional position that critiques those institutions, and a position of self-determination—of women constructing their own identity. This chapter examines the way second-wave feminist film theorists developed this dual standpoint. Firstly, they analyzed the patriarchal values embedded in the institution of commercial narrative cinema, but especially classical Hollywood. They argued that patriarchy is deeply entrenched in narrative structure, with the Oedipal story standing in as the prototypical narrative. Second-wave feminists also attempted to disentangle patriarchy from narrative in order to identify and create new nonpatriarchal forms of narrative. This second step promotes self-determination in the form of authorship, of women authoring their own narratives rather than conforming to preexisting patriarchal narratives. The chapter investigates the possibilities and difficulties involved in developing a theory of women directors as auteurs. Several films are discussed, including Gone Girl (2014), directed by a man (David Fincher) but written by a woman (Gillian Flynn), and Orlando (1992), directed by a woman (Sally Potter) and based on Virginia Woolf’s famous novel.

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