Catherine Hardwicke

I remember watching Twilight for the first time at the age of 26 and I found myself wanting to be an audaciously naïve teenager in love for the full hour and half of the movie. One scene in particular that resonated with me is when Bella, the main character, walks into her classroom for the first time and the wind softly rustles her hair. Her love interest, Edward, is so taken by her smell, by her very essence that he has to readjust his lifestyle based on that minimal yet concentrated action. My fascination was peaked because in that scene, there was no over the top sexual interaction, there was no hot blooded American teenager in the throws of emotional turmoil but the scene was wrought with innocence, awkwardness and gullibility. Those emotions came across very cleanly through the screen and I wanted to be involved in that, even for just a moment. This movie accomplished giving me what Bell Hooks describes as “the re-imagined, reinvented version of the real” (1).

Still, re-imagined or not, It is not very easy to have those emotions display across the screen and it is doubly arduous as a director to direct those emotions to come across in your actors, yet, Catherine Hardwicke accomplished that feat. Hardwicke is an indie filmmaker who is most notably known for turning the teenager pop cult book Twilight into a colossal capital gaining franchise. Because Catherine’s background into film is that of an independent film maker, she applies a personal approach to her work. As with her past films, including Lords of Dogtown, Catherine included some of her essence in her work and she is very particular about the most minute details. Catherine explains that at the beginning of her process for Twilight, she was intent of knowing her subjects; she advocated being well versed in her thematic endeavor. Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight Series allowed Catherine to read finished and unfinished versions of the books so as to get a sense of what all the characters were going through emotionally. For Hardwicke, background research when applicable was of the utmost importance. She promotes rehearsing as a group as well. Hardwicke stated that for Twilight, the first scene that was shot was the ending of the movie which was also the most dramatic and most emotional. For her, the challenge was having the characters’ emotion come across in the scene through the actors as if they had been working on the movie for months. She started off by being involved in her actor’s rehearsals as opposed to letting them do it on their own. She spoke with them extensively about her vision. She took a lot of notes about each character and each rehearsed scene so as to analyze it and try to make better.

Hardwicke’s main goal was to concentrate on the emotional aspects of the film. She concentrated on the body language of the characters and the nature-esque sceneries. She insisted on having the script stay true to the book and conveys the same emotional pull a viewer may feel while reading the book. By doing this she accomplishes giving the reader, according to Bell Hooks, “a shared experience, a common starting point from which diverse audiences can dialogue” (2). Hardwicke did not want any overt, ninja action sequences nor did she want Hollywood to pound the script or the finished movie into an action packed True Blood type film. To avoid this Catherine became very hands on director.

This type of all inclusive involvement did not come with out its backlash. Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times quotes Hardwicke as being “a notoriously difficult, high-maintenance filmmaker who wears her emotions on her sleeve” (1). Goldstein states that Catherine’s emotive passion “cuts both ways--it brought something special to the movie, but it made life a vertiginous roller-coaster for many people working on the film, from crew to executives” (1). Still, I wondered if Catherine were a man, would the same view be taken. Case in point, according to Kira Cochran, author of Why are there so Few Female Filmmakers? walks us through a photo shoot with male auteur George Clooney. He is photographed with his shirt ripped open and surrounded by females in flesh colored lingerie. This is a far cry from where Hardwicke stands. There is no photo shoot for Hardwicke involving males in flesh colored underwear.

While the movie grossed in over 340m worldwide and debuted at 70m, the highest debut for a female director, Hardwicke was axed from directing the follow up movie New Moon. It is stated that her over exertion and the fact she could not work on the time schedule of a major film led to the executive’s decision to replace her. Still there have been instances of many demanding male directors who are not let go for their less than stellar disposition.

Cochran states, “the problems facing female ­directors are structural and systemic, a tangled mix of sexism, cultural ­differences between men and women…they ­mirror the problems affecting many women in male-dominated workplaces. But the film industry magnifies all this” (1).

Still, Catherine has overcome the blows that film industry has dealt to her and her latest movie Red Riding Hood, is set out to be released Spring 2011.

Cochran, Kira. Why Are There So Few Women in Film?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jan/31/female-film-makers

Goldstein, Patrick. Why ‘Twilight’ Director Got the Boot.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2008/12/why-twilight-di.html

Hooks, Bell. Making Movie Magic.

Meyer, Stephanie. http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight_movie.html