Wanda (1970)Director: Barbara Loden
Starring: Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins
This week in Screens, Images, Ideas we stepped into slightly unfamiliar territory for me with Barbara Loden's Wanda.
Wanda (Loden) is down and out. She hasn't got a job, her old boss refusing to rehire her because she works too slow, she has walked out on her husband and children, admitting in court that it's probably best the children stay with him, and is sleeping on her sisters couch. One night she walks into a bar after closing, failing to realise that the bar is being held up. She ends up leaving with the robber, Mr. Dennis (Higgins), and going on the road with him. While he tolerates her presence, he constantly belittles her, which she quietly accepts. As Mr. Dennis prepares for the next robbery, a more ambitious bank job, Wanda decides she wants to help him.
Despite having studied the New Hollywood period for a number of years, I haven't really crossed paths with Wanda in any detail. It's slightly understandable though. The film was the only feature film directed by Barbara Loden, the mistress turned wife of legendary director Elia Kazan (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront), and despite winning a couple of awards in Europe, it only opened in one theatre in New York and didn't make any noticeable impact at the box office.
Loden got the initial spark of inspiration from a newspaper article in which a woman who had been an accomplice to a failed armed robbery, was sentenced to twenty years in prison and upon hearing her sentence she thanked the judge. This intrigued Loden. What sort of life must she have led, what sort of mental state must she have been in, to be thankful that she was being locked away. While this was the germ for the idea, the character of Wanda was not strictly based on this woman, but rather Loden took a lot of inspiration from her own life.
The New Hollywood was a very male dominated era of Hollywood, both on and off screen, so a film written by, directed by and starring a woman is quite a unique article from that era. Unfortunately for Loden though, her film probably came at an unideal moment. It came just a few years too early to ride the wave of feminist film and gender theory that took off in the mid-1970s, but unfortunately came late enough that it copped harsh criticism from middle-American feminists. They argued that the screen needed strong female characters, heroines, and that Loden had seemingly squandered an opportunity by presenting a character who was such a victim, such a loser.
When Wanda came out in 1970, the natural point of comparison for a lot of viewers and critics was Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. Both films involved a woman who walks out on her life and takes up with a robber, though it should be noted there is a difference in motivation. Bonnie is clearly bored and sees Clyde as a means of adventure. Wanda is wandering aimlessly and just stumbles across Mr. Dennis by accident, going with him because she seemed to have nothing else to do. In interviews Loden went to great lengths to insist that she had in fact written the screenplay for Wanda a decade before Bonnie and Clyde was released, and it was in no way an influence on the story. She does go on to admit however, that she didn't like Bonnie and Clyde because it was too Hollywood. The people were too beautiful. The lifestyle was too glamorous. So if anything, she was trying to create in Wanda the anti-Bonnie and Clyde. In this regard she has succeeded, because there is absolutely nothing glamorous about the life Wanda leads, and even though Loden is quite a beautiful woman (she originally came to Hollywood as a model) she plays down her beauty in the film.
Loden didn't have a lot of money to play with on this one. It was very much a small, independent film, so a number of cost cutting measures were taken. The film has no score. Any music that appears in the film is diagetic (Here's a lesson for you: Diagetic sound refers to sounds whose source is present in a scene. So this could be dialogue, sound effects, or music coming from a radio or band on screen. Non-diagetic sound refers to sounds which is not implied to be present with the action, such as narration or mood music). The other main cost cutting exercise was the use of non-professional actors. Loden and Higgins are the only professional actors in the film. I'm not sold on the use of non-professionals. There were a number of characters in this film who I honestly could not tell if the character was supposed to have some sort of intellectual disability or whether it was just poor acting.
At times Wanda is quite a powerful film, but mostly it is just very sad. This one pushes The Road for the title of most depressing film I've seen this year. Wanda is lost in the world, lacking any direction, and you really struggle to see where she'll fit. She wanders without any real intention and that gives the film a very hopeless tone. Wanda is not for everyone. There is a very small niche who might get something out of it (if you are interested in the development of feminist film it is an interesting touchstone) but for most people I think it'd just be an excruciating couple of hours.
Loden got the initial spark of inspiration from a newspaper article in which a woman who had been an accomplice to a failed armed robbery, was sentenced to twenty years in prison and upon hearing her sentence she thanked the judge. This intrigued Loden. What sort of life must she have led, what sort of mental state must she have been in, to be thankful that she was being locked away. While this was the germ for the idea, the character of Wanda was not strictly based on this woman, but rather Loden took a lot of inspiration from her own life.
The New Hollywood was a very male dominated era of Hollywood, both on and off screen, so a film written by, directed by and starring a woman is quite a unique article from that era. Unfortunately for Loden though, her film probably came at an unideal moment. It came just a few years too early to ride the wave of feminist film and gender theory that took off in the mid-1970s, but unfortunately came late enough that it copped harsh criticism from middle-American feminists. They argued that the screen needed strong female characters, heroines, and that Loden had seemingly squandered an opportunity by presenting a character who was such a victim, such a loser.
When Wanda came out in 1970, the natural point of comparison for a lot of viewers and critics was Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. Both films involved a woman who walks out on her life and takes up with a robber, though it should be noted there is a difference in motivation. Bonnie is clearly bored and sees Clyde as a means of adventure. Wanda is wandering aimlessly and just stumbles across Mr. Dennis by accident, going with him because she seemed to have nothing else to do. In interviews Loden went to great lengths to insist that she had in fact written the screenplay for Wanda a decade before Bonnie and Clyde was released, and it was in no way an influence on the story. She does go on to admit however, that she didn't like Bonnie and Clyde because it was too Hollywood. The people were too beautiful. The lifestyle was too glamorous. So if anything, she was trying to create in Wanda the anti-Bonnie and Clyde. In this regard she has succeeded, because there is absolutely nothing glamorous about the life Wanda leads, and even though Loden is quite a beautiful woman (she originally came to Hollywood as a model) she plays down her beauty in the film.
Loden didn't have a lot of money to play with on this one. It was very much a small, independent film, so a number of cost cutting measures were taken. The film has no score. Any music that appears in the film is diagetic (Here's a lesson for you: Diagetic sound refers to sounds whose source is present in a scene. So this could be dialogue, sound effects, or music coming from a radio or band on screen. Non-diagetic sound refers to sounds which is not implied to be present with the action, such as narration or mood music). The other main cost cutting exercise was the use of non-professional actors. Loden and Higgins are the only professional actors in the film. I'm not sold on the use of non-professionals. There were a number of characters in this film who I honestly could not tell if the character was supposed to have some sort of intellectual disability or whether it was just poor acting.
At times Wanda is quite a powerful film, but mostly it is just very sad. This one pushes The Road for the title of most depressing film I've seen this year. Wanda is lost in the world, lacking any direction, and you really struggle to see where she'll fit. She wanders without any real intention and that gives the film a very hopeless tone. Wanda is not for everyone. There is a very small niche who might get something out of it (if you are interested in the development of feminist film it is an interesting touchstone) but for most people I think it'd just be an excruciating couple of hours.
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