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Author Archives: rinaross
Innocence (2000)
Innocence is a beautiful and complex film. Long before The Mother (2003) was hailed as a breakthrough in the cinematic representation of sexual desire in an older woman, and Cloud 9 (2006) widely given as an example of images of an old couple … Continue reading
Posted in Ageing, Film Analysis
Tagged affair, Ageing, death, desire, editing, falling in love, film style, flashbacks, husband/wife relationship, intergeneration, love, memories, metphores, mother, mother and son, motifs, representation old woman
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Bechdel Test and Symbolic Annihilation
Girls on Film in Partnership with Little White Lies day of panel discussions focusing on the representation of women in film. I attended two of the panel discussions of the Under Wire Festival: the Bechdel Test and Act Your Age. … Continue reading
Philomena (2013)
Brief thoughts and no spoilers. Go and See Philomena while it is still on the big screen. Make a note of it if you are not in the UK. At long last Judy Dench, in a role that uses her … Continue reading
LUMINATE FESTIVAL AND JANE GRANT’S PRESENTATION
Luminate, Scotland’s creative ageing festival ran for its second year this October. Events took place in almost every region, even the Outer Hebrides, and included exhibitions, films, and live performances (music, poetry, dance and theatre). There were also discussions, debates, … Continue reading
MIRROR MIRROR CONFERENCE
“The photo is never a mirror” Dr. Margaret Morganroth Gullette After I attended the Lumière Blanche Festival I explored with another member of the Film Group the possibilities of reaching and exposing young people to images of old women. We … Continue reading
Posted in Ageing, Conferences and comments
Tagged advanced style, Ageing, Ageism, brand culture, care home, fashionistas, grandmother, Hanna Zeilig, images of old women, intergeneration, looks, Margaret Gullette, mirror mirror, mother, photos, product placement, representation old woman, white hair
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LUMIERE BLANCHE 2013 PROGRAMME
My last post about the Festival Lumiere Blanche 2013 is the list of films shown. For me the shorts were a real revelation. I felt sorry not to have given the genre more attention. The ones I saw at this … Continue reading
Posted in Ageing, Conferences and comments
Tagged Ageing, animated feature, films list, shorts about ageing, workshops on ageing
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LE FILM PERMET DE LIBERER LA PAROLE DR. J.J. DEPASSIO
Films permit free conversations says Dr. Depassio. Dr. Jean-Jacques Depassio, geriatrician, works at the Hopital de Fourvière – Centre de Gérontology in Lyon. He is the organiser of the Lumière Blanche Intergenerational film Festival. I realised the first time I … Continue reading
Posted in Ageing, Conferences and comments
Tagged A Simple Life, Ageing, Ageism, amour, best exotic marigold hotel, british comedies, care home, carer, carers, death, directors gaze on ageing, family, films and ageing, Gerontology, hospice, intergeneration, J.J Depassio, Lumiere Blanche, Quartet, representation disablement, representation old woman
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LUMIERE BLANCHE INTERGENERATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
I am just back from attending the Lumiere Blanche Festival in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune. This is the intriguing name of a suburb of Lyon, the birth town of the brothers Lumiere and also of Bertrand Tavernier. The festival took place in an … Continue reading
REFLECTIONS ON POINTS OF VIEW
In the last few months I have been asked – as an expert on old women in films – to be a panelist at two festivals, and to present a film at a literature festival. I declined the first two … Continue reading
Posted in Ageing, Conferences and comments
Tagged academic institutions, Ageing, Ageism, Ballad of Narayama, best exotic marigold hotel, british comedies, Fear Eats the Soul, film group, film industry, film panels, film reception, grandmother, group of old women, Notes on a Scandal, Pauline and Paulette, points of view, Records of a Tenement Gentleman, representation, representation old woman, still doing it, The Grapes of Wrath, The Mother, The Whales of August, tokyo story, women over 65
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THE WHALES OF AUGUST (1987)
At the 2006 U3A/NFT Older Women in Films Study Day the focus film was The Whales of August. The film at the time was not available on DVD or Video but the film group had watched a copy from the TV. … Continue reading
Posted in Film Analysis
Tagged Ageing, blindness, braille reading, carer, caring, cataracts., death, disability, friendship, hearing aid., linear and circular time, lined faces, looks, low and high tides, moonshine, nature, representation old woman, sea, sisterhood, sisters, stroke, whales, white hair, wrinkles
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Have times changed in Hollywood?
Today Pamela Scully tweets “Hollywood ‘Still Refuses to Let Actresses Age at all’ and gives this blog address: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/09/19/wrinkle-washed-female-faces-in-film-marketing/ In this blog Doug Barry writes about Susan Sontag and quotes her. “The Double Standard of Aging” was published in The Saturday … Continue reading
Posted in Ageing, Ageism, Conferences and comments
Tagged Ageing, Ageism, Hollywood and age, looks, susan sontag
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CHANGING TIMES
It is remarkable how things have changed in the last 15 years. At the beginning of the new academic year I am overwhelmed and recall the times when I started looking at ageing and the cinema. People were surprised and … Continue reading
Baghban (The Gardener – 2003)
66 years later than Make Way For Tomorrow and 50 years later than TS, Baghban (2003) treats the same subject of the generation gap in a changing world. But in contrast to both MWT and TS Poojah the old woman … Continue reading
THE OLD WOMAN IN ‘MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW’ AND ‘TOKYO STORY’
The film group is on holiday so I can come back to my three years old project. This is to consider the old woman in two classic films with the same story. For there is no magic that will draw … Continue reading
WAYS OF VIEWING *
*apologies to John Berger. We were invited to a film evening at some young friends of ours. I was shocked by the conditions in which the film was viewed and realised how fanatical I am about the ritual of viewing … Continue reading
IN THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS take 3
The theme of the Penzance Literature Festival was Vision. I was delighted to be invited to give an alternative vision of old women in film. I chose The Company of Strangers. ( I prefer to use the Canadian original title … Continue reading
CINEMA LE GRAND AGE D’OR
At long last an informed and researched article about ageing and films in the general press albeit in the French le Monde. Jacques Mandelbaum, journalist and film critic whose articles are sometimes published in The Guardian, writes about ageing and … Continue reading
STRANGERS IN GOOD COMPANY take 2
This month the film group met to view The Company of Strangers. I will not transcribe the notes since the pieces written by members of the group in 2007 say it all. To access these, click on resources and then … Continue reading
Posted in Film Analysis
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THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS, STRANGERS IN GOOD COMPANY (1990)
Written in 2007 We usually analyze a film because it is intriguing. Indeed this film intrigued me. The first time I saw it I was dealing with a father deep in the nightmare of dementia and a mother immobilized by … Continue reading
Posted in Film Analysis
Tagged Ageing, contemplation, cooperation, death, feminist approach, friendship, group of old women, group solidarity, serenity, time
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MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937)
La cohabitation n’a jamais fait de bien à personne. (my mother) Life flies past us so swiftly that few of us pause to consider those who have lost the tempo of today. Their laughter and their tears we do not even … Continue reading
BELIEVE ME THE IMAGE IS MORE THAN IT APPEARS. (Ovid-Heroids)
I was chuffed last week when I was asked to take part in a project about the representation of old women. The researcher was not the usual young academic looking at old women from an ‘objective’ point of view, not … Continue reading
QUARTET (2012)
SEE ALSO UNDER ‘RESOURCES’ THE FILM GROUP RESPONSES When I first saw Quartet at the London Film Festival I was as enthralled as the whole audience. We left the cinema with smiles on our faces. There were so many pleasures … Continue reading
Posted in Film Analysis
Tagged Ageing, amour, best exotic marigold hotel, care home, caring, friendship, intergeneration, La Traviata, music, musicians, opera, Quartet, representation old woman, retirement home, Rigoletto, verdi
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DEPARTURES (2008)
SEE ALSO UNDER ‘RESOURCES’ FOR FILM GROUP COMMENTS It always surprises me how a film is dismissed when people rely on their favourite reviewer’s opinions based on one viewing. Departures won the 2009 Oscar for best foreign film. Few of … Continue reading
Posted in Film Analysis
Tagged absent father, corpse, death, death rituals, encoffinment, grandfather, grandmother, grief, Japan, mother, oscars, rebellious youth, unclean
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AMOUR – QUESTIONS
ALSO SEE UNDER FILM GROUP PAGE THE RESPONSES OF THE FILM GROUP Two people have said to me: your blog is about the representation of old women and yet you do not address this in the one about Amour. This is true. … Continue reading
Posted in Film Analysis
Tagged Ageing, Ageism, carer, caring, co- housing, daughter, death, family, film reception, Haneke, looks, old woman, oscars, representation old woman
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AMOUR – A PERSONAL VIEW
At long last Amour. I was waiting for our film group to meet before writing about this amazing film. Being interested in how viewers receive a film and what is on-screen I found that above all other films Amour demands … Continue reading
Posted in Film Analysis
Tagged amour, anger, carer, caring, dead body, death, euthanasia, funeral, group of old women, Haneke, long takes, paralysis, physical disability
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MAETCHEN IN UNIFORM at the NFT free senior matinee.
The NFT free senior matinees are well worth attending. This month they screened the amazing Maedchen in Uniform to synchronise with the Lesbian and Gay Festival. An excellent article about the film is to be found in the March 1981 issue … Continue reading
Song for Marion : Singing is good for you.
I saw A Song For Marion (known in USA as Unfinished Song) in my local multiplex at a matinée, in the smallest auditorium of the complex. It was advertised as a comedy/drama. On IMDb it comes under Comedy, Drama, Music, in … Continue reading
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What is old age conference: Margaret Rutherford, Haptic Turn
I feel privileged to have attended the interdisciplinary conference ” What is old age? New perspectives from the Humanities” organised by the University of Warwick on February 23rd. 2013 ; Two keynotes addresses and 8 panels. The only frustration was … Continue reading
BALLAD OF NARAYAMA (1958) and AGEWISE
I was rereading chapter 1 of Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s book AGEWISE : The Eskimo On the Ice Floe. At the back of my mind lurked vague thoughts about a film group. I decided to revisit The Ballad of Narayama which has the same theme as the Eskimo … Continue reading
Posted in Ageing, Film Analysis
Tagged abandonment, Ageing, Ageism, Agewise., caring, death, folk myth, Gullette, Imamura, intergeneration, Kinoshita, mother and son, obasute, old woman, otherness, ritual
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Old Age and Feature Films 
The Old Woman and some British Comedies.
Whisky Galore (1949) was shown on the TV at the approach to Xmas. A very male comedy where Georges’ mother, a controlling bigot with no redeeming features, treats her adult son like a naughty child. The part is played by Jean … Continue reading →