My Favorite Films, Plague Edition (Volume 33): Margarethe von Trotta
Die Bleirne Zeit ( aka The German Sisters, Marianne and Juliane, 1981) Directed by Margarethe von Trotta Starring Jutte Lampe German director Margarethe von Trotta (b. 1942) has made her name since the 1970s as a “feminist director”. The problem with labels like that is that they tend to stick and stereotype, especially for non-white, non-male directors. Would Spike Lee be engaged now to direct Titanic or Goodfellas? . Will Greta Gerwig, who was nominated for Best Director in 2017 (the last female so nominated) get to make something other than her two “women’s films” like Lady Bird (2017) or Little Women (2019)? Perhaps young directors always start with topics close to them culturally, but the best ones are allowed to branch out. We shall see. Von Trotta had to also break out of an additional mold, as the wife of renowned German director Volker Schl รถ ndorff ( The Tin Drum ), who, by the way, got the chance to make a decent version of a “women’s film”, The Handmaid’s Tale (19