(Los Angeles) Mia Wasikowska was in 2010 the highest-paid actress in Hollywood thanks to the version ofAlice in Wonderland by Tim Burton, but like many other women, the Australian artist struggles to impose herself on the other side of the camera.
Back in her native country, she says she “really struggles” to find funding for her projects as a director.
“I would like to move more towards directing, really a lot, but it’s hard. And I feel like it’s different if you’re a woman, ”the 31-year-old actress told AFP.
“As an actress, it manifests itself differently… But it seemed interesting to me to try to make my film, made from a very feminine point of view. The reaction it elicits is different from what I’ve seen for my male friends, ”she says.
At the heart of the plot of Bergman Island, presented at the Cannes Film Festival this summer and starring Mia Wasikowska.
The film follows a couple of directors who travel to the Swedish island of Farö where the legendary Ingmar Bergman lived. The nonchalant Tony (Tim Roth) organizes meetings with his admirers while his wife Chris (Vicky Krieps) struggles with the writing of his next film, haunted in particular by the statue of Commander Bergman.
“She is a woman artist who tries to find her voice and who feels the shadow of great artists weigh on her shoulders … I can identify with this conflict, this frustration, these doubts”, notes Mme Wasikowska.
For her, the path taken by a director is always different from the male creative process, because there is “something very innate in female creativity”. “We really need to show a lot more understanding and caring about our own creative process,” she says.
Not particularly “sympathetic”
PHOTO JOEL C RYAN, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last April, Chloe Zhao became the second female director to receive an Oscar for her film. Nomadland.
In the wake of the #metoo movement and controversies over the ubiquity of white and male directors, Hollywood seems to be slowly opening up to women. Last April, Chloe Zhao became the second female director – the first non-white – to receive an Oscar for her film. Nomadland.
Corn Bergman Island wonders about the aura still enjoyed by benchmark directors like the Swede and all the privileges that have enabled them to achieve this notoriety.
The film thus highlights how the artist had nine children with six different women without having taken much care of his offspring.
“I am not yet a mother”, specifies M.me Wasikowska, but men who pursue film careers “probably haven’t felt the weight of parenthood as much as women”.
Bergman Island She also wonders if it is possible to “separate a man from his art”.
“When you look at the facts, it feels like Bergman wasn’t a particularly ‘nice’ guy. To say the least, ”jokes Mia Wasikowska.
“And then there is everything we could say about Woody Allen”, still celebrated by many for his work despite accusations of sexual abuse to which he was the subject.