While we filed out of Melnitz auditorium to the sound stage, thunder boomed and rain began pouring down outside as if cued for the occasion. (Most of these were not students.) Craven politely referred them all to his agent, and the emcee politely cut off each unintelligible pitch.Īfter the panel there was a reception in one of the sound stages featuring cheap wine in plastic cups, cheddar and jalapeño cheese cubes, and stale crackers, as was de rigeur at glamorous ol’ TFT then. Worse yet were those who thought he might somehow get them their big break as a director. Then followed the always-painful Question and Answer session, during which one after another people stood up and tried to pitch their script ideas to Craven. But Clover wasn’t about to let the man who made The Last House on the Left off the meat-hook that easily. What I remember most clearly is Clover brandishing her sharp and astute feminist analyses and slicing up Craven who was too genteel and polite to strike back at a lady. He quietly defended his art as being pro-woman and not celebrating violence so much as exploring it. This leads me to wonder if she might not have made it to the panel, or perhaps she was just overshadowed in my memory.
I don’t remember Williams at all although I had just read Hard Core and was a huge fan. I remember that Schrader, whom I was prepared to admire, was disappointingly rude and impatient with his other panelists. I wish I had a transcript of that panel for you. What I remember most clearly is Clover brandishing her sharp and astute feminist analyses and slicing up Craven who was too genteel and polite to strike back at a lady. If you know who these people are, your mind is now being blown just pondering this gathering. I was in the MFA Screenwriting program at the time, and had been a horror fan my whole life, not to mention an aca-feminist, so I was delirious over the prospect, to say the least. Clover ( Men, Women and Chainsaws) and Linda Williams ( Hard Core). Mawas the culminating evening of a UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television symposium entitled “The Aesthetics of Violence.” Melnitz theater was packed for a discussion panel comprising writer-director Wes Craven, writer-director Paul Schrader, and feminist film scholars Carol J.
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