Scorsese has a real cult! Discover the work of this unjustly forgotten “Wonder Woman of Cinema”.

On September 20th, Les Films du Camélia presents a retrospective of 4 films by director Ida Lupino, all in restored versions! You’ll be able to (re)discover Before I Love You, Overcoming, The Fear Journey, and Bigamy.

The latter is a favorite of his directorial debut, The Amazing Modern, in which he co-stars with Joan Fontaine. The story tells about a childless couple who are asking for adoption. But the preliminary investigation reveals the husband’s secret life.

A pioneer of American independent cinema, Ida Lupino notably starred in feature films by Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, Robert Aldrich and Fritz Lang before becoming a director. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she managed to establish herself as a filmmaker in a male-dominated environment.

Between 1949 and 1953, Ida Lupino made 7 feature films and did not hesitate to explore the worst taboos of the time: rape, adultery or illness. The director creates moving portraits of wounded and fighting women, far from the stereotypes portrayed by Hollywood at the time. A documentary on OCS was also dedicated to her: Ida Lupino: Mr. and Miss Lupino.

Faithful and Feminist

“A rediscovery in four films of the great independent, committed and feminist filmmaker Ida Lupino, whose seminal work remains rare and little-known, a tribute to one of the most beautiful hidden mysteries in American cinema history”Announced by distributor Les Films du Camélia.

For legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, Ida Lupino’s films are a must. The director of “Taxi Driver and the Departed” discusses the works “Remarkable films that deal with difficult subjects in a very clear, almost documentary way. A true achievement in American cinema.”she said.

A great forgotten Hollywood figure, he is rightly featured in Martin Scorsese’s documentary, A Journey Through American Cinema. In this film, the filmmaker takes us to the heart of the films that influenced his work.

For example, with Bigamy, Ida Lupino dares to investigate a couple in crisis, torn apart by the infidelity of a husband who cannot choose between his two lives. In 1953, dealing with such an issue was absolutely daring, almost iconoclastic.

“She was beautiful and dark-haired with violet eyes. Ida Lupino might have been just another Hollywood star, but she was much more. In 1950, at the age of 32, she became the second woman in history (after Dorothy Arzner) to join the prestigious Directors Guild of America, the American directors union that was created in 1936. This spicy Englishman, born in 1918, was also the only actor from the great era of American cinema to become a “film director”.explain Journalist Marion Dupuis.

Amazing woman of film industry

According to the latter, Ida Lupino was a “The Modern Heroine, Wonder Woman of the Film Industry.” “He was a great actor and a great filmmaker, but really, only moviegoers know him.”confides Maëlle Arnaud, responsible for the programming of the Lumière de Lyon festival.

As for Antoine Sire, the author of the book Hollywood, the city of women, “Ida Lupino alone sums up much of the struggle of women in the American film industry to control their destiny, express their talent, and showcase their art in a male-dominated world where the place assigned to the female gender was too stereotypical.”he analyzes.

According to the author, there were many screenwriters in Hollywood. However, directing was no small feat. “Ida Lupino gets there in stages. She is curious and casually observes the work of the technicians and especially the director between the two cases.”

This passionate filmmaker has dealt with very feminine themes in most of his films, but “Never indulged in sub-genre or experimental production”Mael Arnault explains. All of his feature films embody the power and strength of the Golden Age of Hollywood and have nothing to envy to the films of the directors of that time. He brings as much care to cutting, writing, directing actors, lighting… as his male counterparts in Los Angeles.”

Note that after her company, The Filmmakers, went bankrupt in 1954, Ida Lupino continued her directing career on the small screen. Until 1968, he notably directed episodes of memorable series such as My Favorite Witch, The Fourth Dimension, The Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Runaways, The Immortals, and more. He died in 1995 at the age of 77.