#1055: WEILL, Claudia: Girlfriends (1978)

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WEILL, Claudia (United States)
Girlfriends [1978]
Spine #1055
Blu-ray


When her best friend and roommate abruptly moves out to get married, Susan (Melanie Mayron), trying to be an artist while making ends meet as a bar mitzvah photographer on Manhattan's Upper West Side, finds herself adrift in both life and love. A wonder of American independent cinema by Claudia Weill (who, when was admitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a director in 1981, was one of only four women ever to have received that honor), Girlfriends is a remarkably authentic vision of female relationships that has become a touchstone for makers of an entire subgenre of films and television shows about young women trying to make it in the big city. This 1970s New York time capsule captures the complexities and contradictions of women's lives and relationships with wry humor and refreshing frankness.

88 minutes
Color
Monaural
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2020
Director/Writers


Story by Claudia Weill and Vicki Polon.
Screenplay by Polon.
Weill was 32 when she directed Girlfriends.

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

 The Booklet

Twenty-eight page booklet featuring essays by film critic Molly Haskell and scholar Carol Gilligan.

Commentary

None.

Interview 1

With Weill.

Interview 2

With Weill and actors Mayron, Guest, and Balaban.

Interview 3

With screenwriter Polon.

Interview 4

With Weill and writer and filmmaker Joey Soloway.

Short film 1

Joyce at 34, from 1972, codirected by Weill and Joyce Chopra.

Short film 2

Commuters, from 1970, by Weill and Eliot Noyes.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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