Maggie Gyllenhaal on Subverting Female Stereotypes, Rejecting Taboos

In only two directorial outings, Karlovy Vary Film Festival honoree Maggie Gyllenhaal has managed to subvert more than 100 years of cinematic female stereotypes — “The Lost Daughter” acknowledged the darker aspects of motherhood and what’s expected of women, while “The Bride” gave the Bride of Frankenstein agency and autonomy.

Gyllenhaal received the President’s Award on Friday at the festival’s opening night ceremony, and talked to the international press on Saturday in a suite at the neo-baroque Grand Hotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary.

“For most of the time that people have been making movies, they have been made by men,” she said, noting that while “there have been some fascinating female characters” created by male filmmakers, “I think if you’re living a very different experience fundamentally as a male filmmaker … I don’t see how you have insight into all of a feminine experience, especially the parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of, that we hide that we don’t like to share.”

She said when she read Elena Ferrante’s novel “The Lost Daughter,” “as a mother, I thought, oh, whoa, I can’t. Are you so fucked up? Hold on, I actually relate to what you’re saying. And then a kind of comfort washes over you, like, wow, somebody else has said out loud something that I’ve never heard said aloud before.”

When asked if she was trying to break down barriers, she said, “No, I’m just trying to make space for my own experience to be expressed, to make space for [‘The Bride’s’] Jessie Buckley’s experience to be expressed, to make space for my production designer’s experience to be expressed.”

Gyllenhaal thoughtfully added, “It’s not that I’m interested in [breaking] taboos, I think it just comes off that way because there’s been so few [women] making movies, and so it seems like these things are off-limits. It’s just they haven’t been explored. And I did not expect to make people so angry by exploring them.”

What she’s interested in is multifaceted women. “I’m not really that interested in ‘strong female characters.’ I’m interested in a depiction of women that I can recognize as something that has to do with my own experience, which usually includes some strength, some terrible weakness, some beautiful weakness and vulnerability, some pleasure, some terror — the whole spectrum.”

She said this with a kind of bemused laugh, then related that she was talking to a woman that she “really respects, who’s about 70” who asked Gyllenhaal a very pertinent question: “How could you possibly not have been surprised?” That drew genuine laughter.

She’s back in business with Warner Bros. despite the lack of box office for “The Bride,” adapting critically acclaimed best-seller “Creation Lake” by Rachel Kushner, although Gyllenhaal wouldn’t be drawn on details.

“I was completely surprised” that the story about the book’s option “ended up in the press,” she said. “I’m at the very, very beginning of playing with that project, and I’m at the place where it’s really private, and it’s really about me bouncing around ideas on this incredibly interesting material.” She praised Kushner’s artistry but is still “bouncing it off my own mind and my own heart.”

Like Gyllenhaal, Warner Bros. toppers Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca have been taking big swings lately. “I really love Pam and Mike. They’ve been just wonderful as partners all the way through this process. They’re lovers of film and lovers of filmmakers.”

Gyllenhaal’s films star some of the best actresses of this generation, and it is important for her to be as generous as possible with them, their instincts and ideas. “Part of the reason why I moved into being a writer and a director is because I found that many directors were not interested in my art, my expression if it looked different than what they imagined when they were home in their room,” she said. “I got very good at figuring out ways to protect the little bit of real estate around me. But then I got tired of having to like do that dance, and I thought I need more space. Not only do I want the freedom to express myself, I want to offer that freedom to other artists.”

She looks at films as kinds of languages to be learned: “You can jump in whenever you want, but it’s probably in a different language than you’re used to. Isn’t that an interesting invitation? Is that an interesting hand to hold out? That’s what I like.”

In the end, her films reflect “a really honest expression of what’s on my mind, and I have to figure out what’s on my mind first.”