Bemberg, Maria Luisa (1922–1995)

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Bemberg, Maria Luisa (1922–1995)

Argentine director and screenwriter. Born in Argentina on April 14, 1922; died of stomach cancer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 7, 1995; daughter of influential German immigrants in Argentina; married in 1942 (divorced 1952); children: four.

Selected filmography:

(documentaries) El mundo del mujeres (The World of Women, 1972), Juguetes (Toys, 1974); (screenplays) Crónica de una señora (Story of a Lady, 1972), Triángulo de cuatro (Triangle of Four (1972); (produced and directed) Momentos (Moments, 1981); (directed) Camila (1984), Miss Mary (1986), Yo, la peor de todas (I, Worst of All, 1991), De eso no se habla (I don't want to talk about it, with Marcello Mastroianni, 1993).

Before the opening frame of Maria Luisa Bemberg's 1993 film De eso no se habla, there is an inscription that reads, "This tale is dedicated to all people who have the courage to be different in order to be themselves." The modest message would also apply to Bemberg.

Born in 1922 to a family of Argentine aristocrats, Bemberg grew up surrounded by servants and was educated privately by a governess on her family's vast estancia. But privilege came with strict limitations for women of that era. Though dutifully married by age 20, and eventually a mother of four, Bemberg never fit in as a society matron. Always outspoken, she claimed her rebellious, creative nature drove her to filmmaking. The films she produced, as she told writer Caleb Bach in an interview for Américas, "propose images of women that are vertical, autonomous, independent, thoughtful, courageous and spunky."

In the late 1960s, after having been deeply influenced by writer Simone de Beauvoir , Bemberg and a few women formed their own feminist group. For her part, Bemberg was working with ideas that would change the nature of films from the macho melodramas of the past to women-driven films with modern themes. But this was a dangerous time for outspoken women. For years, any effort to buck the patriarchal system was effectively suppressed by the military regime that followed the Argentine dictator Juan Peron.

Bemberg, however, was determined to speak her truth. With her own money, she financed and made two documentaries, El mundo del mujeres and Juguetes. The latter was a ground-breaking film which argued that traditional toys reinforce stereotypes: shove a fire truck into the hand of a little boy and he'll want to be a fireman; insist that a girl play only with dolls and she'll become a housewife or a nurse.

In 1972, Bemberg wrote her first feature-length screenplay, Crónica de una señora, which revolved around a wealthy but dissatisfied housewife, a story Bemberg admitted was autobiographical. Directed by Raul de la Torre, the film not only provoked great controversy but was hugely successful. Bemberg's next film, Triangulo de cuatro, concerned a man who has to choose between his independent mistress and his traditional wife. Also a great success, the film brought Bemberg her first award as a screenwriter. Though the film was well directed by Fernando Ayla, Bemberg was never fully satisfied with a male director's interpretation of her female characters, and she decided to go behind the camera herself.

In 1981, at age 59, Bemberg wrote, produced, and directed Momentos, a film about a love affair gone sour between a married couple that, at its core, explored the idea of role reversal. Bemberg felt the movie marked "the beginning of a long-lasting complicity between the female audience of Argentina and the first successful grandmother filmmaker in the country."

The success of Momentos, along with the election of a more liberal political regime, allowed Bemberg to resurrect a previously censored screenplay about a homemaker who goes on a protest strike. She had written Senora de nadie in 1972 and was apprehensive about its reception from working-class women. But when the film was previewed at a film festival in Sicily, a group of women "dressed in black, with weather-beaten faces, very cross … said 'Grazie in il nome di donne di Catania' (Thank you in the name of the women of Catania)." Their response proved to Bemberg that women from all social ranks and of all ages have a great sense of solidarity.

Bemberg then earned an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Film category for her 1984 film Camila which was based on the true story of Camila O'Gorman , a rebellious 19th-century aristocrat who eloped with her priest, Father Ladislao Gutierrez. Because the couple had the misfortune of falling in love during a particularly

repressive regime, they were caught and executed. With the Oscar nomination and the success of Camila came the recognition from the international film community that Maria Luisa Bemberg was a major talent.

Because Camila was such a success both artistically and financially, Bemberg was able to attract the internationally known star Julie Christie for the title roll of her next film. Miss Mary tells of a lonely English governess who is brought to Argentina to care for the children of an philandering estanciero. Bemberg links the personal family drama and, in particular, the patriarchal subjugation of women, with the social unrest about to explode just beyond the gates of the perfectly manicured estate.

Her next project, set in the 17th century and entitled Yo, la peor de todas, portrays the life of legendary poet Juana Inés de la Cruz , a Mexican nun who was eventually destroyed by the fanaticism of the Inquisition.

In May 1993, Bemberg completed what was to be her final and perhaps most controversial film. De eso no se habla, with Marcello Mastroianni. In the movie, the aristocratic woman Leonor, upon discovering that her only child Carlotta is a dwarf, refuses to talk about or even acknowledge her daughter's difference. Instead, she sets out to make sure that her daughter becomes the most accomplished child in the village. That the daughter ages but remains forever childlike because of her condition is a metaphor for Bemberg's own privileged but sequestered upbringing. Though Carlotta eventually marries an older worldly gentleman, and thus moves from her mother's care to the care of her husband, she never becomes "herself" until an eyeopening experience changes her life. Like Bemberg, who rebelled against her family and husband's wishes when she entered the work place, Carlotta steals away in the night to see the forbidden—a seedy traveling circus. Because "the forbidden" in Bemberg's own life was certainly the movies, the final scene of De eso no se habla is made more poignant with its autobiographical facets when Carlotta, riding a white horse, leads the circus parade as they leave the home of her childhood forever. As Bemberg said, she had found the courage to be different in order to be herself.

Bemberg was 71 when she completed De eso no se habla. By then, notes Time, she had become "one of Latin America's foremost female film directors." She died of stomach cancer in Buenos Aires in May 1995.