Gorris, Marleen 1948-

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GORRIS, Marleen 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born December 9, 1948, in Roermond, Limburg, Netherlands. Education: Studied drama at University of Amsterdam; University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., 33rd Fl., New York, NY 10010. E-mail—marleengorris@cs.com.

CAREER:

Film director and author. Director of such films as De stilte rond Christine M. (A Question of Silence), 1982, Gebroken Spiegels (Broken Mirrors), 1984, The Last Island, 1990, Verhalen van de straat (television series), 1993, Antonia (also known as Antonia's Line), 1995, Mrs. Dalloway, 1997, The Luzhin Defence, 2000, and Carolina, 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best Feature award from Dutch Film Days, and Women's Festival Prize (Sceaux, France), 1981, for A Question of Silence; Academy Award for best foreign language film, Audience Award from Toronto International Film Festival, best screenplay award from Chicago International Film Festival, and best director award from Hampton's International Film Festival, all 1995, all for Antonia's Line.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS

De Stilte rond Christine M. (also known as A Question of Silence), 1982.

Gebroken Spiegels (also known as Broken Mirrors), 1984.

The Last Island, 1990.

Verhalen van de straat (television series), 1993.

Antonia (also known as Antonia's Line), 1995.

SIDELIGHTS:

Dutch director and screenwriter Marleen Gorris is best known for her films dominated by women-centered stories and feminist themes, including De Stilte rond Christine M. (also known as A Question of Silence) and Antonia (also known as Antonia's Line.) While some reviewers, especially male movie critics and even some feminists, have accused the director of indulging in blatant male-bashing, Gorris has gained a wide following. Her screenplays have earned critical praise and a number of film awards.

Remarkably, Gorris wrote and directed her first successful film, A Question of Silence, with no previous experience other than her studies at the Universities of Amsterdam and Birmingham. Considered by many to be a classic feminist film, it is essentially the story of women pushed to the extreme because they are weary of a male-dominated society. Three seemingly normal, middle-class women one day beat a male store worker to death and mutilate his genitals after he catches one of them shoplifting. Not only do the three women, who have never before met, agree spontaneously to kill him, but four other women who witness the crime in the store do nothing and remain silent. Furthermore, when a woman psychiatrist is brought in by the police to evaluate the murderers, she eventually becomes sympathetic to their motivations. The case is brought before a judge, and when he suggests that if the genders in the case had been reversed—with three men killing a woman—the accused would have been treated the same, all the women in the court break out in derisive laughter.

Gebroken Spiegels (Broken Mirrors) is a dark film by Gorris about female prostitutes and a psychopathic murderer who imprisons and kills them. Vincent Canby, reviewing this film for the New York Times, found it to be an unsuspenseful "movie that means to be art" but does not succeed. The Last Island concerns a group of people who are stranded as the result of an accident. When they conclude that they may be the only human beings left on earth, the men begin to fight over the only woman who may still be able to bear children. Neither of these films was as well received as Gorris's debut.

With her fourth film, Antonia (also known as Antonia's Line), Gorris had her next hit. An artistic movie that follows fifty years in the life of the title character after she inherits a farm from her mother, the film is characterized by a combination of humor, violence, and the director's typical bent for feminist themes. Antonia, apparently disenchanted with the local people in the farming community, focuses on raising her daughter, who is a gifted artist. When her daughter is older and decides she wants to have children, but not a husband, Antonia gladly finds her a handsome man who is up for the job, much to the disapproval of the local priest. In a spiteful act, Antonia proceeds to set up the minister by luring him into an unseemly sexual encounter with a young woman she uses as bait.

Some critics objected to much of the film's plot, including Commonweal reviewer Richard Alleva. Alleva pointed out a number of plot holes and questionable motivations, including that it is never explained why Antonia makes a go of farming when she clearly does not enjoy it. Furthermore, according to Alleva, nothing is said of her previous life in World War II Germany, nor why she left her family in the first place, and it seems strange that a woman who is so opposed to religion attends church every week. Antonia's decision to set up the priest just so she can then blackmail him and get him to publicly support her daughter is also highly questionable, according to Alleva. "If there is such a thing as dramaturgical bigotry," concluded Alleva, "this movie has it, in spades." In contrast, Janet Maslin complimented Gorris for the "quirky charm" of the movie in her New York Times review. Maslin concluded: "While the film rejects and even mocks ideas of organized religion, it has a solid faith in nature and destiny, as well as in the fundamental goodness of its women. It expresses that faith with serene confidence in the cycles of birth, death and replenishment that play out during the story."

Since the release of Antonia's Line, Gorris has focused her attention on directing and producing films, instead of writing them. Among her more recent projects, she has directed Mrs. Dalloway, based on the Virginia Woolf novel, and The Luzhin Defence, which is an adaptation of an early work by Vladimir Nabokov.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Commonweal, May 3, 1996, Richard Alleva, review of Antonia's Line, p. 17.

Entertainment Weekly, October 6, 1995, Casey Davidson and Jessica Shaw, "Winners (Dutch Film Director Marleen Gorris Wins Top Prize at 1995 Toronto International Film Festival for Antonia's Line, "p.16.

Film Quarterly, fall, 1996, Karen Jaehne, review of Antonia's Line, p. 27.

Hollywood Reporter, March 28, 2003, Stuart Kemp, "Helmer Gorris Set for Bronte Brood," p. 4; April 1, 2005, Liza Foreman, "The Gersh Agency," p. 18.

National Catholic Reporter, March 13, 1998, Joe Cunneen, "The Real Blonde," review of Mrs. Dalloway, p. 17.

National Review, March 23, 1998, John Simon, review of Mrs. Dalloway, p. 57; May 14, 2001, John Simon, "Games People Play," review of Mrs. Dalloway.

New Republic, March 9, 1998, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Mrs. Dalloway, p. 28.

New York Times, March 18, 1983, Janet Maslin, "Silence of Killers," review of A Question of Silence; March 4, 1987, Vincent Canby, review of Broken Mirrors; February 2, 1996, Janet Maslin, "Film Review: A Line of Strong Women with Faith in Destiny," review of Antonia's Line; February 20, 1998, Janet Maslin, "Film Review: Truths of All Lives, Comfortable or Not," review of Mrs. Dalloway; April 20, 2001, A.O. Scott, "Film Review: A Genius Pulled Apart by Both Love and Chess," review of The Luzhin Defence.

Variety, August 28, 2000, Derek Elley, review of The Luzhin Defence, p. 30.