Mary Harron | |
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![]() Harron in 2019 | |
Born | Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada | January 12, 1953
Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter, producer, critic |
Years active | 1987–present |
Spouse | John C. Walsh |
Children | 2 |
Parent | Don Harron |
Mary Harron (born January 12, 1953) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. [1] [2] [3]
She co-wrote the screenplay and directed American Psycho , [4] [5] [6] The Notorious Bettie Page [7] , and I Shot Andy Warhol.
Born in Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada, [8] Harron grew up with a family with numerous connections to the arts. She is the daughter of Gloria Fisher and Don Harron, a Canadian actor, comedian, author, and director. Her parents divorced when she was six years old. [9] Harron spent her early life residing between Toronto and Los Angeles. [2] Harron's first stepmother, Virginia Leith, was discovered by Stanley Kubrick and acted in his first film, Fear and Desire and was also featured in the 1962 cult classic The Brain That Wouldn't Die . Leith's brief acting career partly inspired Harron's interest in making The Notorious Bettie Page .[ citation needed ] Harron's stepfather is the novelist Stephen Vizinczey. Harron's second stepmother is the Canadian singer Catherine McKinnon.
Harron moved to England when she was thirteen and later attended St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she received a Bachelors in English. [9] [10] While in England, she dated Tony Blair, later the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Chris Huhne, another Oxford student who later became a prominent politician. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] She then moved to New York City and was part of its 1970s punk scene.
During her adolescence, Harron was exposed to many different forms of art and film. In a 2020 interview with The New School, Harron states: "My parents took us to whatever films they wanted to see so I saw a lot of art films that would not be considered suitable for a child." She goes on to explain that her largest influences, especially as a child around the age of ten, were Alfred Hitchcock, Bergman, and Satyajit Ray. After she had moved to London in her teen years she began attending the National Film Theatre where she was exposed to other international filmmakers like Fritz Lang, Howard Hawks, Claude Chabrol, and Roman Polanski. She was also exposed to noir films, namely Double Indemnity .
As an adult she was inspired by the films Blue Velvet , Drugstore Cowboy and The Piano , directed by Jane Campion. While she said that she had plenty of exposure to Hollywood films, she was enticed by these types of films because they were, in her words, the "forerunners of independent film." [16]
In New York, Harron helped start and write for Punk magazine as a music journalist; she was the first journalist to interview the Sex Pistols for an American publication. She grew up in the early punk scene of America. She found the culture easy for her to fit into and was constantly evolving and spreading into new demographics. [9] During the 1980s, she was a drama critic for The Observer in London for a time, as well as working as a music critic for The Guardian and the New Statesman . In the late 1980s, Harron participated and began her film career writing and directing BBC Documentaries. [9]
During the 1990s, Harron moved back to New York where she worked as a producer for PBS's Edge, a program dedicated to exploring American pop culture. It was at this time that Harron became interested in the life of Valerie Solanas, the woman who attempted to kill Andy Warhol. Harron suggested making a documentary about Solanas to her producers, who in turn encouraged her to develop the project into what would be her first feature film. [17] Harron says she owes her success with her first film to Andy who helped to sell the controversial focus on the attempted murderess, Solanas. [18]
Harron's feature film directorial debut, I Shot Andy Warhol , released in 1996, is the partially imagined story of Valerie Solanas' failed assassination attempt on Andy Warhol. [19] She explains her interest in Solanas' life:
For Solanas, there was this fierce, outsider quality to her unhappiness and frustration. That was a time in my life when I was frustrated myself in my work. I wanted to direct. I had the idea years before I got to direct myself. So I think there were elements of my own frustration and elements of what it was like growing up with an unfair attitude towards women ... and Valerie was an extreme example of that. There was also the intellectual interest of how someone can be so brilliant and her life goes so wrong, and also, that she was so forgotten and misunderstood. In both cases, I felt like Valerie had been consigned to history as this lunatic, almost nothing written about her. [20]
In an interview Harron did for CBC’s Newsworld’s On the Arts in 1996, she told film critic Christopher Heard that "It was Valerie that really impelled [her] to make this film, because of the mystery of her story. [...] Not knowing who she was ... the lack of information about her." [21] Solanas's existence was "a real piece of lost history" and an "unknown story" that she sought to explore deeper. [21]
As far as Harron's amusement with Warhol went, she stated "As I was growing up, Warhol was the most famous artist in the world, apart from Picasso [...] My mother [disapproved] of him, so that made him even more interesting." [21] Also regarding her interest in Warhol’s story, she felt that he, before and after the shooting, were two vastly different people. This is her reason for viewing Warhol’s shooting as a “turning point” in his life.”
The film opened the “Un Certain Regard” section of the Cannes Film Festival and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best first feature film. [22] It also won the sole acting award at that year's Sundance Film Festival for Lili Taylor's performance as Solanas. [23]
Harron's second film, American Psycho , released in 2000, is based on the book of the same title by Bret Easton Ellis, which is notorious for its graphic descriptions of torture and murder. [24] [25] The protagonist, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), is an investment banker who goes on a killing spree. The New York Times' Stephen Holden wrote of the film:
From the opening credits, in which drops of blood are confused with red berry sauce drizzled on an exquisitely arranged plate of nouvelle cuisine, the movie establishes its insidious balance of humor and aestheticized gore. [26]
The film was mired in controversy before production began, [27] [28] [29] due in large part to the legacy of the book's release. [30] Harron has a liking for darker and more controversial topics, such as Valerie Solanas, but it was the satirical nature of the book that "inspired her film about perfunctory violence and obsessive consumption." [31] As Harron began production, the crew had to contend with threats of protest, as the issue of violence in the media became crystallized by the Columbine shootings. Campaigns against the film continued throughout production, the Feminist Majority Foundation condemning the film as misogynist, and the Canadians Concerned About Violence in Entertainment (C-CAVE) convincing restaurant owners to deny Harron permission to film in their establishments. [32] When returning to work with co-writer Guinevere Turner, Harron felt they were best suited for the job of American Psycho as they needed no hesitation on feminist values, especially after Turner's successful lesbian film Go Fish. [8]
Although some criticized American Psycho for its violence against women, Harron and Turner made conscious decisions that project the female influence on this adaption. Harron's adaptation of this film changes the focus from purely Bateman's perspective to showcase the faces of the women as "the perspective in those murder scenes wasn't through Patrick Bateman but the women." [33]
The Notorious Bettie Page , released in 2005, starred Gretchen Mol as Bettie Page, the 1950s pinup model who became a sexual icon. The film shows Page as the daughter of religious and conservative parents, as well as the fetish symbol who became a target of a Senate investigation of pornography. About the film, Harron said in 2006:
Clearly Bettie is a very inspiring figure to young women because she had a strong independent streak. She did what she wanted to do and she wasn't just doing it for men ... But I think it's a huge mistake to think of her as a conscious feminist heroine. As far as I can see, she didn't have an agenda, ever. She just followed her own path unconsciously. I don't think she thought of herself as a rebel in any way. She was kind of in her own world of dress-up. [34]
Harron later stated that the film suffered from false expectations, in that many male critics and male viewers expected and wanted the film to be "sexy", but that the film instead portrayed "what it's like to be Bettie", and Page herself did not get a "sexual charge" out of her modelling. [35]
The Moth Diaries (2011), Harron's fourth feature film, is another adaption of an American novel, being based on Rachel Klein's 2002 novel of the same name. The film follows a group of girls living together at Brangwyn, a boarding school. A new student arrives, Ernessa (Lily Cole) and the girls begin to suspect that she is a vampire. Harron has described the film as a "gothic coming-of-age story" [36] that explores the nuanced friendships of teenage girls as they are repeatedly confronted with the prospect of adulthood.
Harron directed the 2018 independent film Charlie Says , with a screenplay by Turner, which tells the real-life story of how three of Charles Manson's female followers (Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten) came to terms with the magnitude of their crimes while incarcerated in the 1970s. Matt Smith played Manson in flashbacks. The film had initially been intended for another director, but when that director was no longer available Harron took over. Harron stated that she was fascinated by the psychological aspects of how the women ended up committing murder as a result of both manipulation by Manson and feelings of solidarity with one another. [37]
Dalíland is a 2022 film directed by Harron, from a screenplay by her husband John Walsh. The film, set in the 1970s, follows the marriage between painter Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala Dalí, played by Ben Kingsley and Barbara Sukowa. [38] The film was shot in Liverpool and released at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. [39] [40]
In addition to her films, Harron was also the executive producer of The Weather Underground , a documentary looking at the Weathermen (political activists and extremists of the 1970s). She has also worked in television, directing episodes of Oz , Six Feet Under , Homicide: Life on the Street , The L Word and Big Love . Working on the episode of Six Feet Under "The Rainbow of Her Reasons", Harron was brought back together with I Shot Andy Warhol actress, Lili Taylor. [18]
Harron has been at times labelled a feminist filmmaker, in part due to her film on lesbian feminist Valerie Solanas, I Shot Andy Warhol , as well as a lesbian storyline within her 2011 teenage Gothic horror film The Moth Diaries (2011). [18] She has consistently denied this label, although she considers herself a feminist. In a 2006 interview, and then again during an interview in 2012, [41] she stated:
I feel that without feminism, I wouldn't be doing this. So I feel very grateful. Without it, God knows what my life would be. I don't make feminist films in the sense that I don't make anything ideological. But I do find that women get my films better. Women and gay men. Maybe because they're less threatened by it, or they see what I'm trying to say better. [42]
She is a member of Film Fatales, a women's independent filmmaker collective.
Asked about her Canadian identity in a 2014 interview, Harron stated that she mostly felt "just not American". She stated that, to her, being Canadian meant "You don't think you're at the center of things." She also felt that, unlike American directors, she was not "a moralistic filmmaker. I'm not trying to tell people what to do, and I'm not trying to lead... I'm interested in ambiguity." [35]
Although her films deal with controversial materials, like American Psycho , in the opinion of director Buffy Childerhose, she does not put emphasis on gore and violence. [31]
Harron lives in New York with her husband, filmmaker John C. Walsh, and their two daughters. [43]
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1996 | I Shot Andy Warhol | Yes | Yes | [44] |
2000 | American Psycho | Yes | Yes | [4] [5] [45] [46] [47] |
2005 | The Notorious Bettie Page | Yes | Yes | [48] |
2011 | The Moth Diaries | Yes | Yes | |
2018 | Charlie Says | Yes | No | [49] |
2022 | Dalíland | Yes | No | [50] [51] |
Executive producer
Researcher
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1989 | The Late Show | Batman special episode [52] |
1991 | Without Walls | Episode "The Thing Is... Hotels" |
1994 | Winds of Change | Documentary movie |
1998 | Homicide: Life on the Street | Episode "Sins of the Father" |
Oz | Episode "Animal Farm" | |
2002 | Pasadena | Episode "The Bones" Unaired |
2004 | The L Word | Episode "Liberally" |
2005 | Six Feet Under | Episode "The Rainbow of Her Reasons" |
2006 | Big Love | Episode "Roberta's Funeral" |
Six Degrees | Episode "Masquerade" | |
2007 | The Nine | Episode "You're Being Watched" |
2008 | Fear Itself | Episode "Community" |
2013 | The Anna Nicole Story | TV movie |
2015 | Constantine | Episode "Quid Pro Quo" |
The Following | Episode "Reunion" | |
2017 | Alias Grace | Miniseries |
Year | Award | Category | Title | Shared With | Results | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1996 | Cannes Film Festival | Un Certain Regard | I Shot Andy Warhol | [1] | ||
1996 | Sundance Film Festival | Grand Jury Prize | I Shot Andy Warhol | Nominated | ||
1997 | Film Independent Spirit Awards | Independent Spirit Award Best First Feature | I Shot Andy Warhol | Tom Kalin (producer) and Christine Vachon (producer) | Nominated [53] | |
2000 | Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards | Sierra Award Best Screenplay, Adapted | American Psycho | Guinevere Turner | Nominated | |
2000 | Sitges – Catalonian International Film Festival | Best Film | American Psycho | Nominated | ||
2000 | Awards Circuit Community Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | American Psycho | Guinevere Turner | Nominated | |
2001 | Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film Awards | Best Adapted Screenplay | American Psycho | Guinevere Turner | Won | |
2001 | London Critics Circle Film Awards | Director of the Year | American Psycho | Nominated | ||
2005 | Provincetown International Film Festival | Filmmaker on the Edge Award | Won | |||
2006 | Berlin International Film Festival | Best Feature Film | The Notorious Bettie Page | Nominated | [7] [54] | |
2011 | Abu Dhabi Film Festival | Best Narrative Feature | The Moth Diaries | Nominated | ||
2018 | Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television | Best Limited Series | Alias Grace | Noreen Halpern, Sarah Polley, D.J. Carson | Won | |
2018 | Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television | Best Direction, Drama Program or Limited Series | Alias Grace | Won | ||
2018 | Gotham Independent Film Award | Breakthrough Series – Longform | Alias Grace | Noreen Halpern, and Sarah Polley | Nominated | |
2018 | Stockholm Film Festival | Lifetime Achievement | Lifetime Achievement Award | Won | ||
2018 | Venice Film Festival | Best Film | Charlie Says | Nominated | ||
2024 | Maine International Film Festival | Lifetime Achievement | Midlife Achievement Award | Won |
Valerie Jean Solanas was an American radical feminist known for her attempt to murder artist Andy Warhol in 1968, and the SCUM Manifesto, which she self-published in 1967.
SCUM Manifesto is a radical feminist manifesto by Valerie Solanas, published in 1967. It argues that men have ruined the world, and that it is up to women to fix it. To achieve this goal, it suggests the formation of SCUM, an organization dedicated to overthrowing society and eliminating the male sex. The SCUM Manifesto has been described as a satire or parody, especially due to its parallels with Freud's theory of femininity, though this has been disputed, even by Solanas herself.
I Shot Andy Warhol is a 1996 biographical drama film about the life of Valerie Solanas and her relationship with the artist Andy Warhol. The film marked the feature film directorial debut of Canadian director Mary Harron. The film stars Lili Taylor as Valerie, Jared Harris as Andy Warhol, and Martha Plimpton as Valerie's friend Stevie. Stephen Dorff plays Warhol superstar Candy Darling. John Cale of The Velvet Underground wrote the film's score despite protests from former band member Lou Reed. Yo La Tengo plays an anonymous band that is somewhat reminiscent of the group.
Gretchen Mol is an American actress. She is known for her role as Gillian Darmody in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014). She also appeared in the films Rounders (1998), Celebrity (1998), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), The Notorious Bettie Page (2005)—in which she played the title character—3:10 to Yuma (2007) and Manchester by the Sea (2016).
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by the pop artist Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life, epitomizing his dictum, "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes". Warhol would simply film them, and declare them "superstars".
Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress. She came to prominence with supporting parts in the films Mystic Pizza (1988) and Say Anything... (1989), before establishing herself as one of the key figures of 1990s independent cinema through starring roles in Bright Angel (1990), Dogfight (1991), Household Saints, Short Cuts, The Addiction (1995), I Shot Andy Warhol, Girls Town, Pecker (1998), and A Slipping-Down Life (1999). Taylor is the recipient of four Independent Spirit nominations, winning once in the category of Best Supporting Female. Her other accolades include one Golden Globe Award and nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Guinevere Jane Turner is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. She wrote the films American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page and played the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in Preaching to the Perverted. She was a story editor and played recurring character Gabby Deveaux on Showtime's The L Word.
The Notorious Bettie Page is a 2005 American biographical drama film directed by Mary Harron. The screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner focuses on 1950s pinup and bondage model Bettie Page, portrayed by Gretchen Mol.
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In the studio, Warhol's workers would make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.
Candy Darling was an American transgender actress, best known as a Warhol superstar. She starred in Andy Warhol's films Flesh (1968) and Women in Revolt (1971), and was a muse of the Velvet Underground.
Women in Revolt is a 1971 American satirical film produced by Andy Warhol and directed by Paul Morrissey. It was initially released as Andy Warhol's Women. The film stars Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling, and Holly Woodlawn, three trans women and superstars of Warhol's Factory scene. It also features soundtrack music by John Cale.
Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann, known profesionally as Viva, is an American actress, writer and former Warhol superstar.
I, a Man is a 1967 American erotic drama film written, directed and filmed by Andy Warhol. It debuted at the Hudson Theatre in New York City on August 25, 1967. The film depicts the main character, played by Tom Baker, in a series of sexual encounters with eight women. Warhol created the movie as a response to the popular erotic Scandinavian film I, a Woman, which had opened in the United States in October 1966.
American Psycho is a 2000 satirical horror film directed by Mary Harron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner. Based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, it stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Chloë Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon appear in supporting roles. The film blends horror and black comedy to satirize 1980s yuppie culture and consumerism, exemplified by Bateman.
Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector.
William "Bill" Sage III is an American actor. He is known for his collaborations with director Hal Hartley. Sage has appeared in more than 90 movies, most notable American Psycho (2000), We Are What We Are (2013), Every Secret Thing (2014), and Wrong Turn (2021).
Margo Feiden was the proprietor of Margo Feiden Galleries Ltd. located at 15 East 9th Street in New York City. She was also a producer, director, author, and playwright.
"Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag" is the seventh episode of the seventh season of the anthology television series American Horror Story. It aired on October 17, 2017, on the cable network FX. The episode was written by Crystal Liu, and directed by Rachel Goldberg.
Up Your Ass, or, From the Cradle to the Boat, or, The Big Suck, or, Up from the Slime is a radical feminist play written in 1965 by Valerie Solanas. According to writer James Martin Harding, the play is "based on a plot about a woman who 'is a man-hating hustler and panhandler' and who ... ends up killing a man."
Dalíland is a 2022 American biographical film directed by Mary Harron. It is based on the true story of surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and his tempestuous marriage to muse and wife Gala during the 1970s. The film stars Ben Kingsley, Barbara Sukowa, Christopher Briney, Rupert Graves, Alexander Beyer, Andreja Pejić, Suki Waterhouse, and Ezra Miller.
At university, Blair played guitar and sang in a rock band called the Ugly Rumours. He also dated Canadian film director Mary Harron, who went on to make the movie 'American Psycho'.
'Please don't ask me about Tony Blair,' she pleads with a laugh, as the subject of the man she once described as 'the only nice person I ever went out with at Oxford' is broached. 'I only ever gave one interview about it, before he became prime minister, but somehow after American Psycho came out, this one interview suddenly appeared in all the British newspapers as if I'd just given a press conference. I've learned it's best not to talk about it at all,' she says, her voice full of humour, but her demeanour firm.
But Tony Blair was not the only budding political leader Ms Harron - a flamboyant undergraduate who went on to direct American Psycho - dated as a carefree student. By remarkable coincidence, she also went out with Chris Huhne, an Oxford contemporary of Blair, who last week was tipped in the polls as the most likely contender to take over from Charles Kennedy as Liberal Democrat leader.
Incidentally, one of those men was Tony Blair, who she went out with as an undergraduate; something which once again I can't reconcile with her wild child image, but Blair must have been more into his New York Dolls than New Labour while he was at St John's.
Mary Harron didn't start her career as a film director until her 40s, after a wild and fascinating early life that included a stint as one of the first writers of Punk magazine and a brief romance with future British Prime Minister Tony Blair when the two were students at Oxford.
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