From the start of July I’ve been applying the Bechdel test (see above and below) to the films I’ve been watching. It would be good if readers could share films that actually pass this test as it seems, shockingly, that not many do. The test is: are there at least two named women who talk to one another about something other than men? Doesn’t seem a high bar does it? I gave up on watching Beaufort (Israel, 2007) because I was finding the self-importance of men nauseating.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Bechdel |
Nick Lacey on films 
I think you forgot to to include the essential part of the rubric which refers to ‘popular’ film. I would hope that several art cinema films get through. I’m guessing that you haven’t been to see White Material yet? In a film starring la Huppert and directed by Claire Denis, it would be odd to not find a conversation between two women (in this case about civil war and plantation work). Having said that the leading director of our times often focuses on men and the strange things that they do.
You’re right I should have included ‘popular’; however, I think we should still put arthouse cinema through the test to see what happens.
[…] Bechdel test is mentioned regularly on the feminist sites I look at and The Green Ray, known as Summer in […]
[…] The Bechdel test is mentioned regularly on the feminist sites I look at and The Green Ray, known as Summer in America, certainly passes. It follows Delphine (Marie Rivière) as she decides what to do after a friend dropped out of a holiday at the last minute. Delphine is unhappy and whilst the cause of this is because she’s been dumped by a man the film focuses on her desires rather then men’s. It’s ‘co-scripted’, or rather improvised, by Rivière and director Erich Rohmer and this, with the location shooting, where you can see passers-by looking at the filming with curiosity, gives the film a realist dimension. All the other characters are ‘playing’ themselves including Paulette Christlein, the ‘free spirit’ Delphine meets in Biarritz, who, like the other performers I sampled, never appeared in another film. […]