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Colin Clive and Boris Karloff in "Frankenstein"
Imagine it. June 1816. A villa in Italy. A season soon to be dubbed "the year without a summer" already well underway – the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the previous year playing havoc with the heavens. A ragtag set of writers and friends looking for ways to occupy themselves during endless storms. Intense nightly discussions of medicine, literature, poetry. One night, a challenge set by a member of the group, Lord Byron: the devising of ghost stories. A terrible nightmare suffered a few days later by the then 18-year-old Mary Shelley, there with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their child. The bones of a book constructed from this nightmare. A book later to become one of the best known Gothic novels in the English language: a proto-science fiction epic depicting the destructive consequences of a doctor who plays at God and builds his very own being…
Focus in specifically on Frankenstein and a particularly intricate set of allusions emerge. This story of a monster built from assorted body parts has proved itself enduringly compelling. So much so that "Frankenstein" has become shorthand in the fashion world for something resembling several spliced garments – most recently found in House of Holland and Fengchen Wang's respective autumn/winter 2018 collections with their "Frankenstein jackets" formed of what looked like two separate halves stitched together.
More specifically though, two designers have recently credited Mary Shelley's creation as a presiding force. After his autumn/winter 2018 Gucci show – an extravaganza of clashing layers, sweeping skirts and the odd model with a replica head held under one arm – Alessandro Michele claimed "we are all Dr Frankensteins of our lives", placing the doctor's scientific follies alongside Donna Haraway's 1985 text A Cyborg Manifesto as a twinset of influences on his eclectic collection. Both intensely preoccupied by what makes us human, they're intriguing texts when it comes to thinking about how bodies are formed, interpreted and potentially remade – as well as, in the case of Gucci, clothed.
The biggest name in horror filmmaking is indisputably the producer Jason Blum. That's a fact only reinforced by the staggering opening weekend of his newest movie, Halloween, which made $77.5 million in its first three days—a record for the 40-year-old franchise. Blum's company, Blumhouse Productions, finances small-budget genre films and gives directors full creative control; it has been behind Oscar winners like Get Out and Whiplash, as well as extremely profitable franchises like The Conjuring, Insidious, and Paranormal Activity. Working with Blum can provide a solid path to mainstream success, which makes it particularly dispiriting that a female director has never made a theatrical horror film for Blumhouse.
In an interview with Polygon published last week, Blum gave an unoriginal and facile explanation for that gender disparity. "We've always been trying [to hire female directors]," he said. "There are not a lot of female directors period, and even less who are inclined to do horror." It's a common Hollywood lament—that women just aren't interested in making a certain kind of movie. It's what the Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow said in 2015 about women getting chances to make blockbusters. In 2016, the Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy suggested that female directors largely lacked the experience necessary to make a Star Wars movie.
In virtually every case, these sorts of statements quickly get walked back. Blum apologized for his "dumb comments" to Polygon, saying in a statement, "I spoke too quickly about a serious issue … We have not done a good enough job working with female directors and it is not because they don't exist." But such comments belie institutional laziness in an industry where women directed only 11 percent of the top 250 movies in 2017.
Blumhouse has worked with female filmmakers on a few non-horror projects, including Veena Sud's upcoming thriller, The Lie. Blum noted in the interview that he had reached out to Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) multiple times for projects and that she had turned him down; he also said that Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) was a woman he had tried to hire but that their plans had been stymied by scheduling concerns (something Janiak confirmed). Still, Blumhouse has produced dozens of horror movies in the past 10 years, spurred by the massive success of Paranormal Activity in 2009, and all of them were directed by men.
Read: Why isn't Hollywood making more inexpensive, yet highly profitable, horror movies?
The new Halloween, directed by David Gordon Green, is a perfect example of the kind of high-profile opportunity Blum can offer a filmmaker. The movie was produced for not much money (its $10 million budget is on the high end for Blumhouse), and made a colossal profit on opening weekend. It's a sequel in a long-running franchise, but comes from an art-house director who has mostly been given free rein. And the movie puts its star, Jamie Lee Curtis, front and center (she is credited as an executive producer), a fact that Blum stressed was important to him.
"I really believe in the way our company makes movies," Blum told Polygon, and he's right to, considering Blumhouse's financial track record, coupled with critical hits like Get Out and this year's BlacKkKlansman. "I believe in our low budgets. I believe in using directors who aren't necessarily from horror, like Jordan Peele or David Gordon Green." But in saying that, Blum is demonstrating exactly how he can take chances on promising new talent, as he did with the actor Joel Edgerton (who made his feature directorial debut with 2015's The Gift) or the Georgian filmmaker Levan Gabriadze (who made the huge hit Unfriended having directed only a Russian-language comedy).
For many directors, simply getting the opportunity to make one major feature can act as a crucial springboard to even bigger projects. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who directed Paranormal Activity 3 after their documentary Catfish was an indie hit, were just hired by Fox to helm a Mega Man movie. Scott Derrickson went from 2012's Sinister to Marvel's Doctor Strange. Mike Flanagan, who made Oculus, Hush, and Ouija: Origin of Evil for Blumhouse, created The Haunting of Hill House for Netflix and is now adapting Stephen King's Doctor Sleep for Warner Bros. Damien Chazelle's follow-up to Whiplash was La La Land, for which he won a Best Director Oscar. And M. Night Shyamalan, a major figure coming off a string of failures, revitalized his career at Blumhouse with The Visit and Split.
Blum and other mega-producers can help open these sorts of transformative career paths to new filmmakers—and to female storytellers in horror, of which there are many beyond Kent. Julia Ducournau, of France, shocked audiences in 2017 with the brilliantly visceral coming-of-age cannibalism movie Raw. Coralie Fargeat, another French director, released the intense and subversive film Revenge this year. Karyn Kusama's Jennifer's Body and The Invitation are two of the most exciting twists on the genre in the past decade. And there are plenty more artists still waiting to make their first theatrical feature whom producers should be actively scouting and looking to cultivate.
Blum himself didn't have an easy road to success, struggling to produce his own movies for years before breaking out with Paranormal Activity. But he's well acquainted with the perils of industry gatekeeping: As he was coming up in Hollywood, Blum worked at Harvey Weinstein's company, Miramax, from 1996 to 2000, an experience he has reflected on ruefully after public accusations of rape and assault against Weinstein broke last year.
Blum said Weinstein relied on "the stick, not the carrot," and was verbally abusive to all his employees, though Blum said he knew nothing of Weinstein's predatory behavior. Weinstein, who is being sued by Ashley Judd for intentionally damaging her career, allegedly used his influence like a cudgel, closing doors to those who didn't play by his rules. As the industry, however unevenly, seeks to push out notorious bullies like Weinstein, Hollywood's most powerful members—including Blum and other major producers—should try to do the opposite, opening doors wherever they can.
After 10 years without a permanent home, the Alumni Theater Company (ATC) is celebrating its new performance space at Washington Boulevard and Hamilton Avenue on the border of Larimer and Homewood.
ATC Executive Director Hallie Donner said Homewood is a great fit for the theater company.
"There's so much creativity already happening here, and it felt like a great place for us to be lucky enough to land, so it's a comfortable neighborhood for us, it's an up-and-coming neighborhood," said Donner.
Donner founded the company while working as a teacher at the former Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh Charter School.
"The school was celebrating its 10th anniversary with a production and the principal asked me to call back some alumni to perform this production," explained Donner. "It was such a great experience that we decided to continue to do work after that one show was over."
Company members range from 11 to 24 years old. They write, produce and perform original works that focus on the experiences of black youth. Shakirah Stephens is an Arts Management Fellow and founding member of ATC and said the group helped her grow as an actor and young adult.
"ATC always gave me a place to do what I enjoyed with people I enjoyed. Even as an actor, I am really, shy, so being able to perform with people I already know is in a way comfort, but in another way lets you grow with a group of people," said Stephens.
Stephens is also a member of ATC's professional ensemble, she recently performed Pain Killer a production written and directed by Shakara Wright.
"I didn't always know that I was a writer on top of being an actor. Having a place where I can have an idea and have a vision and have all of these amazing artists around me to help me build that vision and create it is so amazing," said Wright.
Donner said the new 100-seat black box theater would allow the company to produce twice as much programming than in past years.
"We have so many ideas, so much work to produce, so many kids that want to put their work out on the stage, that now we are really able to do it without having to calculate which is best to perform," said Donner. "It's so expensive to rent theaters on a weekly basis like that. Now it's just ours, we can do whatever we want, whenever we want."
The building is also home to the Bill Nunn Black Box Theater, named after the Pittsburgh actor and director. Donner said the grand opening would be a fitting way to introduce the company to Homewood.
"We found this place almost two years ago and we finally have it built. It's gorgeous. It looks like ATC, it feels just right for us. The theater itself it's a really nice black box, great size for ATC to just do their thing," said Donner.
ATC will continue its season next month with an original production by the group's teen ensemble called Locked and Loaded, an ATC Murder Mystery.
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