For today's Female Filmmaker series, we are going to hone in on one of the coolest directors of the 21st century. Her work is shocking and iconic and you know her best as the director of American Psycho. That's right: it's Mary Harron day!
Mary hails from Canada originally where she grew up in an Ontario suburb. She was always interested in acting and directing, especially since her own father was a comedic actor. When her parents divorced, she split her time between Toronto and Los Angeles. Here's a fun fact: her stepmom was actress Virginia Leith who was the head in the 1962 cult classic The Brain That Wouldn't Die. That's a deep-cut piece of trivia for film fans!
This is all to say that Mary Harron was practically destined to work in show business. She was around so much entertainment! She is also incredibly smart. When she was a young teenager, she studied at Oxford (where she dated Tony Blair - true story) and earned a Bachelor degree in English before moving to New York City in the 1970s and joining the local punk scene. That is quite a departure from English Academia, but it wound up giving her the edge that we would see in all of her films.
She wrote for Punk Magazine and even interviewed the Sex Pistols. She wound up working in music before she became interested in the life of Valerie Solanas, the woman who tried to kill famous artist Andy Warhol. She wanted to make a documentary about Solanas and was offered instead to develop a feature film about the story. Almost by chance, Harron was suddenly writing and directing her very first feature film.
The 1996 indie film I Shot Andy Warhol is about the (mostly) true story of Valerie Solanas (played by Lili Taylor), a feminist who felt like no one in the world understood her until she met Andy Warhol. When Andy got tired of her (he did say everyone only gets fifteen minutes of fame, after all), she becomes distraught and decides to assassinate him.
Harron has said that she was drawn to the story because she was frustrated with her own work at this time and she could connect with Solanas' frustration and unhappiness with not being heard. With this inspiration, she made a fantastic film about someone that history had previously cast aside.
With a new interest in "psychos," Harron decided to adapt the Bret Easton Ellis novel that would become the most successful film of her career. Christian Bale takes on the role of Patrick Bateman, a name now synonymous with a cold-hearted killer, in the 1980s Wall Street scene. A man with that much money obviously spends his time around a lot of beautiful women...before he kills them. Sorry! That's the plot!
Her 2000 flick American Psycho balanced humor and gore in a satire that skewered 80s corporate capitalism and the fetishization of violence. Interestingly, some people criticized American Psycho at the time for its violence against women. Harron defended herself by stating that she attempted to show these murders through the victims' eyes, never glorifying the murderer.
I think she does exactly that which is partially why the murder scenes, and the movie as a whole, is SO unsettling. It's a fantastic portrayal of a, well, psycho. It also has a fantastic threesome scene featuring Cara Seymour and Krista Sutton! Who could ever forget this scene?
She followed that up with The Notorious Bettie Page which she co-wrote once again with Guinevere Turner. Gretchen Mol brought the 1950s pinup model to life in this story that shows how the fetish model became the target of a government investigation into pornography.
Harron said she viewed Page as an "unwitting feminist figure" who did not even realize how much she represented sexual liberation. If that's what posing naked means, then hell yeah! Girl power!
As a result, the film recreates a ton of Bettie's most famous pinup shoots. Gretchen Mol really is a dead-ringer for Bettie Page! This was skintastic casting as Gretchon Mol's mams look nearly identical to Bettie's. You can have yourself a very nice afternoon doing some "independent research" comparing the two.
Most recently, Harron directed the 2019 Charlie Manson story Charlie Says (with a script co-written again by Guinevere Turner). In this film, she once again turns her attention to the women in Charlie's life. The film does not focus on Charlie Manson or the murders, but on the Manson Girls who followed him and how they convinced themselves and each other to do anything that Charlie says. That includes, apparently, liking his music:
While so many young actresses go nude in this movie as they portray the most famous Manson Girls before they wound up doing jail time. One of the standouts in the movie is Game of Thrones' Hannah Murray who played Leslie Van Houten. She showed her van hooters in a campfire-lit scene that made her domes glow.
Harron's films are simply beautiful to watch, but what makes them become classics is the way that she brings these incredibly flawed characters to life. In her most recent films like Charlie Says and 2011's The Moth Diaries, she also explored female friendships (even lesbian ones!) and the ways in which women feel empowered. It appears, based on her films, that empowerment sometimes comes through nudity. That's why she's the best!
While some of her work is controversial and even violent, it's mostly beautiful - and it's always nude! That is why Mary Harron is one of the best and most skinfluential living directors we have the privilege of watching. Here's to more!
