Mary Harron

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Mary Harron (born January 12, 1953) is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter.

She gained recognition for her role in writing and directing several independent films, including I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), American Psycho (2000), and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005).

She co-wrote American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page with Guinevere Turner.

Although Harron has denied this title, she has been thought to be a feminist filmmaker due to her film on lesbian feminist Valerie Solanas, in I Shot Andy Warhol, and a queer story-line within her teenage Gothic horror, The Moth Diaries (2011).

Early life

Born in Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada, Harron grew up with a family that was entrenched in the world of film and theater. She is the daughter of Gloria Fisher and Don Harron, a Canadian actor, comedian, author, and director. Her parents divorced when she was six years old. Harron spent her early life residing between Toronto and Los Angeles. Harron's first stepmother, Virginia Leith, was discovered by Stanley Kubrick and acted in his first film, Fear and Desire and was also featured in the 1962 cult classic The Brain That Wouldn't Die. Leith's brief acting career partly inspired Harron's interest in making The Notorious Bettie Page. Harron's stepfather is the novelist Stephen Vizinczey best known for his internationally successful book In Praise of Older Women. Harron's second stepmother is the Canadian singer Catherine McKinnon. Harron's sister, Kelley Harron, is an actor and producer.

Harron moved to England when she was thirteen and later attended St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she received a Bachelors in English. While in England, she dated Tony Blair, later the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Chris Huhne, another Oxford student who later became a prominent politician. She then moved to New York City and was part of its 1970s punk scene.

Personal life

Harron lives in New York with her husband, filmmaker John C. Walsh, and their two daughters.

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Career

Harron worked in New York as a music journalist, and she was the first journalist to interview the Sex Pistols for an American newspaper. She grew up in America's early punk scene. She found it easy to integrate into a new generation of employees, and the world is also expanding into new demographics. She appeared on television for a time as a drama critic for The Observer and The New Statesman, as well as acting as a music critic for The Guardian and the New Statesman. Harron began writing and directing BBC Documentaries in the late 1980s and began her film career.

Harron moved back to New York in the 1990s, where she spent time as a producer for PBS' Edge, a program devoted to exploring American pop culture. Harron became involved in the life of Valerie Solanas, the woman who attempted to murder Andy Warhol. Harron suggested making a documentary about Solanas to her producers, who in turn encouraged her to make the project into her first feature film. Harron owes her success with her first film to Andy who helped to sell the tense focus on the attempted murders of Solanas.

I Shot Andy Warhol, Harron's debut film directorial debut, was released in 1996 and is part of Valerie Solanas' failed assassination attempt on Andy Warhol. She opens an interest in Solanas' lives:

Lili Taylor's appearance as Solanas earned the sole acting award at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

American Psycho, Harron's second film, which was released in 2000, is based on Bret Easton Ellis' book American Psycho, which is known for its graphic depictions of torture and murder. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), the protagonist, is an investment banker on a killing spree. Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote about the film: "The film made me laugh out loud":

The film was mired in controversy before production began, due in large part to the book's legacy. Harron has a penchant for darker and more controversial topics, such as Valerie Solanas, but it was the satirical quality of the book that "inspires her film about perfunctory violence and obsessive consumption" that "inspired her film about perfunctory violence and obsessive consumption." The crew had to deal with threats of resistance as Harron's production began, as the problem of violence in the media became more apparent following the Columbine shootings. Throughout the film's run, protests against the film continued, the Feminist Majority Foundation condemned the film as misogynist, and Canadians Concerned About Violence in Entertainment (C-CAVE) persuaded restaurant owners not to film in their restaurants. Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner found them most suitable for the position of American Psychological because they had no reservations about feminist beliefs, particularly after Turner's hit lesbian film Go Fish.

Although some mocked American Psycho for violence against women, Harron and Turner made conscious decisions that projected the female influence on this transition. "The women's perspective was not through Patrick Bateman but the women," Harron's film shifts the attention away from purely Bateman's viewpoint to showcase the women's faces.

The film has gained cult status in the years that have followed its release; for some, the controversy surrounding it gave rise to an appreciation of the film's satirical qualities; still, several people are skeptical of its brutality and depictions of 1980s decadence. In an interview with BBC, Harron would say that American Psycho is a "period thing" that glimpsed 1980s corporate capitalism, but from a distance.

Gretchen Mol was the 1950s pinup model who became a sexual icon on the Notorious Bettie Page, which was published in 2005. The film depicts Page as the daughter of religious and conservative parents, as well as the fetish symbol that was criticized in a Senate investigation into pornography. Harron did historical character analysis and questioned several of Page's acquaintances as well as Page's first husband for this film. The page was technically attached to another project, so it was ineffective to be interviewed. Harron saw Page as an unwitting feminist figure who embodied a movement for women's sexual liberation, with some similarities to and differences from Solanas.

About the film, Harron said in 2006:

Harron later said that the film was born out of false hopes, as many male analysts and male viewers wished for the film to be "sexy," but that the film instead depicted "what it looks like to be Betty," but that Page did not receive a "sexual charge" out of her modeling.

Harron's fourth feature film The Moth Diaries (2011) is another American novel based on Rachel Klein's 2002 book of the same name. A group of girls attending a boarding school in Brangwyn, France, is chronicled in the film. Ernessa (Lily Cole), a new student, arrives, and the boys suspect her that she is a vampire. Harron has characterized the film as a "gothic coming-of-age story" that investigates teenage girls' nuanced relationships as they are repeatedly confronted with the prospect of adulthood. Teenager fantasies of sexuality, close female relationships, and a dramatic play with supernatural elements are all interwoven in this Gothic horror film.

The film was shot in and around Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Harron was co-producing a Canadian-Ireland film with Irish production company Samson Films' David Collins.

Harron produced Charlie Says, a true story of how three of Charles Manson's female followers (Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten) came to terms with the severity of their convictions when imprisoned in the 1970s. In flashbacks, Matt Smith appeared as Manson. The film had been planned for another filmmaker, but Harron took over when that producer was no longer available. Harron said she was fascinated by the psychological aspects of how the women ended up murder as a result of Manson's manipulation as well as feelings of sympathy with one another.

Harron was also the executive producer of The Weather Underground, a film about the Weathermen (political activists and militants of the 1970s). She has also worked in television, directing episodes of Oz, Six Feet Under, Homicide: Life on the Street, The L Word, and Big Love. Harron was brought back to I Shot Andy Warhol actress Lili Taylor while working on the episode "The Rainbow of Her Reasons."

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