Another year, another Cannes. But alongside news that the film festival is looking to revamp its image in the post #MeToo era with family-friendly policies, including breastfeeding and baby-changing areas, a dedicated kids’ pavilion and an accreditation process that means you an now apply for two free additional passes (one for your child, one of your nanny, obvs), there comes a backlash after the festival saw fit to honor controversial French actor Alain Delon - who has been accused of domestic abuse - with an honorary Palme d’Or.
In the same week as this was rumbling on, 500,000 people have signed a petition calling for the final season of Game Of Thrones to be re-written. Obviously David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were unlikely to please everyone with the epic final series of one of the biggest television shows ever, but one of the biggest - and most valid - criticisms that some of the main female characters, who have been painstakingly developed over the previous seven seasons, have been given less than satisfactory endings - a fate that doesn’t appear to have fallen their male peers.
Reminding scriptwriters that they need to write decent female parts - and making sure that there are plenty of female scriptwriters to write some of them - seems like a no brainer. But as the industry struggles to find equilibrium after the Harvey Weinstein scandal, why are we still being shortchanged?
‘Every character break-down seems to be a version of “feisty yet vulnerable,” Elinor Crawley, a 27-year-old Cardiff born actress tells us. ‘I get why they [scriptwriters] are doing this – they feel like they can’t write female characters who are weak, that they’ve got to have strength and backbone, but actually it kinds of undermines everything we should be pushing for. We should be pushing to just have real women on screen, who are everything, who can be fuck-ups, who can be stupid and of course be strong and of course have every positive characteristic going, but not all of the time, not always the hero I guess.
If you don’t recognise Crawley’s name yet, you’ve probably already spotted her on your TV. The 27-year-old Cardiff-born actress first appeared on our screens a decade ago in Richard Ayoade’s Submarine, and is best know for her roles as Cecily of York in The White Queen, alongside Rebecca Ferguson and Max Irons, and Thyri in Vikings. This year she’s also appearing as one of three leads in independent British road movie Burning Men. It’s a role she was attracted to, in no small part, because the script avoided the usual pitfalls when first describing the female lead.
Susie, Elinor’s character, in Burning Men was actually written by two blokes – the film’s co-writers Neil Spencer and Jeremy Wooding, who also directed and co-produced. ‘From the start Jeremy kind of said that he and Neil had left Susie quite open,’ Elinor explains. ‘They were very aware I think that they were two middle-aged guys writing for a young woman and they didn’t want to put so much of a stamp on her, they really wanted the actress to come in and be able to take her forward.
‘It meant I could make sure she was well-rounded and make sure she had flaws and she could be funny, and she could be the leader, and she could also get a bit nervy and wanted a little bit of reassurance - she was not always one thing. I think it’s really frustrating – that some of the response to this kind of feminist movement, I guess on screen, is to make female characters only strong or only the leader – only one thing.’
Elinor feels like she’s been fairly protected from the worst excesses of the industry – her first agent picked her up just after her role in Submarie aged 17. ‘Maxine was incredibly protective of me from the get-go and I do feel like I was sheltered from all of it. She’s actually retired now, but looking back I’m very grateful that she was able to keep me so green.’ Although she’s still witnessed the odd sleazeball moment: ‘I had a bizarre screen test for something when I was in my very early 20s – it was over in America and I got my mum to read in, ‘cause it was over Skype. She was on the other side of the camera so we did this whole audition, and one of the producers, in a room full of people, sat at the back and kind of hadn’t said anything the whole audition said “God, you need to get your mom to come on camera and say hi, God I would love to see what your mom looks like, if that’s what you look like” I just went ew, have you not been paying attention? I have been pouring my heart out!’
But when I suggest that we’re occasionally looking in the wrong place - in front of the screen – for the worst examples of misogyny – she agrees. ‘There was a lot of focus on actors, and actors aren’t necessarily the most vulnerable people on set… we are very protected, very looked after on sets, and that is not always the case for the crew but I kind of think a lot of the time it’s our responsibility to make sure that they are able to do their job and are being looked after as well.’
Obviously the experience of working on a small, independent film like Burning Men is going to be hugely different to a period blockbuster, but for Elinor the relationship between the actor and director is key. ‘I think it's due to the fact that it was such a small production but also the fact that Jeremy is a very generous director actually. He is very open to collaboration, there was no sense of feeling like I had to be a good girl on set, which I feel quite a lot actually generally on set and in work. It was very much ‘what do you think about this?’ and ‘how would you react to this?’ Everything I said was very much taken on board for her [Susie] so it was really enriching experience
At the other end of the spectrum are shoots where those relationships just haven’t come together. ‘I’ve worked on things where the trust hasn’t quite been there and it’s been quite stressful, bordering kind of traumatic kind of feeling cause there is no pulling back from it and you’ve just got to get through the shoot.’
The irony of the fact that all of the films and plays that are currently being made about the MeToo movement and the Harvey Weinstein case appear to be written and directed by men. Surely having more women behind the screen is the obvious answer? ‘I worked with a few female directors and it does change the experience. It’s really hard to explain how. I think the sweet spot for everybody feeling that they are on a levelled plain field and there is nothing to prove.’
Ultimately Elinor feels optimistic about the future of women in film. ‘[MeToo] makes me feel a little bit more ruthless actually, I feel like there are many more people that have my back and that have actors’ backs more generally in the industry. I think it has given me more confidence.
‘Power - you feel a bit more power when nothing has to be silenced, it’s a lovely sense of community in the industry at the moment that hopefully we can build on especially between women.’
Burning Menis released in select cinemas on Digital release now, available with the following: Amazon, BT Store, Sky Store, iTunes, Google Play, Microsoft and Rakuten.