Fearless documentary film-maker who thrived in the independent TV production sector that sprang up in the 1980s
Frances Berrigan, who has died of cancer aged 70, was a pioneering documentary film-maker and television producer. Her vivacious self-confidence, free spirit, outspokenness and feverish work rate made her perfect for the new independent TV production sector opening up in the UK in the 1980s, which she helped to develop.
From her earlier films, chasing exotic wildlife and unearthing remote tribes (she made the first radio recording of an Indigenous Australian playing a didgeridoo), to later work poking fun at British social attitudes, she combined a natural ability to find and tell a good story with TV industry savvy, spotting trends and selling ideas.
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Frances Berrigan, who has died of cancer aged 70, was a pioneering documentary film-maker and television producer. Her vivacious self-confidence, free spirit, outspokenness and feverish work rate made her perfect for the new independent TV production sector opening up in the UK in the 1980s, which she helped to develop.
From her earlier films, chasing exotic wildlife and unearthing remote tribes (she made the first radio recording of an Indigenous Australian playing a didgeridoo), to later work poking fun at British social attitudes, she combined a natural ability to find and tell a good story with TV industry savvy, spotting trends and selling ideas.
Continue reading...
- 5/20/2014
- by Martin Durkin
- The Guardian - Film News
Between the world wars, Paris was a magnet for an international artistic community that included Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce and Fitzgerald. But as Greta Schiller's engaging documentary makes clear, many talented women were also on the scene.
Lacking a connective theme and totally ignoring the other sex, "Paris Was a Woman" (opening Thursday at the Nuart in West Los Angeles) is a celebration of Bohemian women enjoying freedom from traditional lifestyles. Indeed, most of those profiled were lesbians, although Schiller ("Before Stonewall") makes no fresh conclusions beyond showing how precarious the creative life was for the talented, economically repressed females.
If the agenda is a bit fuzzy, the film is eminently watchable thanks to old and new interviews with the likes of authors Colette, Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, painters Romaine Brooks and Marie Laurencin, photographers Bernice Abbott and Gisele Freund, publishers and book sellers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier and journalist Janet Flanner.
A theme of professional oppression emerges with the sagas of Beach and Stein. The former risked imprisonment to publish Joyce's "Ulysses" and went bankrupt while the author became wealthy and famous. Stein wrote in obscurity for 25 years but won acclaim for "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," only to have former comrades Matisse and Hemingway attack her viciously.
The career of Flanner, who wrote for the New Yorker under the pen name Genet, is a more upbeat segment. One of many Americans who settled on the Left Bank to escape her country's materialism and hypocrisy, Flanner commented on all things cultural but also chronicled the rise of fascism for the diffident Yanks back home.
There's also terrific period footage of Paris and a helpful narration read by Juliet Stevenson. The film successfully evokes the era, and the stories complete a portrait of Paris in a unique period that ended with World War II.
PARIS WAS A WOMAN
Jezebel Prods., Cicada Film
Director Greta Schiller
Producers Frances Berrigan,
Greta Schiller, Andrea Weiss
Writer Andrea Weiss
Cinematographers Nurith Aviv,
Greta Schiller, Renato Tonelli, Fawn Yacker
Music Janette Mason
Editor Greta Schiller
Narrator: Juliet Stevenson
Color/stereo
Running time -- 69 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Lacking a connective theme and totally ignoring the other sex, "Paris Was a Woman" (opening Thursday at the Nuart in West Los Angeles) is a celebration of Bohemian women enjoying freedom from traditional lifestyles. Indeed, most of those profiled were lesbians, although Schiller ("Before Stonewall") makes no fresh conclusions beyond showing how precarious the creative life was for the talented, economically repressed females.
If the agenda is a bit fuzzy, the film is eminently watchable thanks to old and new interviews with the likes of authors Colette, Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, painters Romaine Brooks and Marie Laurencin, photographers Bernice Abbott and Gisele Freund, publishers and book sellers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier and journalist Janet Flanner.
A theme of professional oppression emerges with the sagas of Beach and Stein. The former risked imprisonment to publish Joyce's "Ulysses" and went bankrupt while the author became wealthy and famous. Stein wrote in obscurity for 25 years but won acclaim for "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," only to have former comrades Matisse and Hemingway attack her viciously.
The career of Flanner, who wrote for the New Yorker under the pen name Genet, is a more upbeat segment. One of many Americans who settled on the Left Bank to escape her country's materialism and hypocrisy, Flanner commented on all things cultural but also chronicled the rise of fascism for the diffident Yanks back home.
There's also terrific period footage of Paris and a helpful narration read by Juliet Stevenson. The film successfully evokes the era, and the stories complete a portrait of Paris in a unique period that ended with World War II.
PARIS WAS A WOMAN
Jezebel Prods., Cicada Film
Director Greta Schiller
Producers Frances Berrigan,
Greta Schiller, Andrea Weiss
Writer Andrea Weiss
Cinematographers Nurith Aviv,
Greta Schiller, Renato Tonelli, Fawn Yacker
Music Janette Mason
Editor Greta Schiller
Narrator: Juliet Stevenson
Color/stereo
Running time -- 69 minutes
No MPAA rating...
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