Envisioning Judith Shakespeare: Collaboration and the Woman Author

Judith Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf tells us, ‘died young and … never wrote a word’ (A Room of One’s Own, 13). As the figure of the woman author who was not allowed to express her creativity, her vision, or herself because of the patriarchal world she lived in, Judith still haunts us to this day. We know, of course, that cultural restrictions on the ideals of femininity have always been (and continue to be) used to hold back women’s ambitions. In the 1920 version of Careers for Women, the screenwriter and film director Ida May Park declared, ‘Unless you are hardy and determined … the director’s role is not for you … When the time comes I believe that women will find no finer calling’ (Filene, 335). Though feminist film historians of early cinema are continually discovering women working in key roles behind the camera much like Ida May Park, there is no doubt that cinema history is full of Judiths. We only have to look so far as the Annual Celluloid Ceiling Report to see that the contemporary period is little better; we might have hoped for more by now. The two directors of the films in this chapter have spoken, recently, about the absence of women filmmakers in interviews with Melissa Silverstein of the Women and Hollywood blog. In response to questions about the status of women directors in contemporary cinema, Sally Potter says, ‘Things have changed since I started.