‘What’s your dream?’ The films of femme auteur Andrea Arnold

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study of British director Andrea Arnold and her award-winning films addresses auteur theory and its implications for woman filmmakers. I argue that the important difference between men and women in assuming the director’s chair has been opportunity – and not a matter of essentialized gender differences. Pivoting to readings of Arnold’s films, the analysis addresses the stylistic signatures and thematic motifs that characterize her feature films: Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), Wuthering Heights (2011), American Honey (2016) and the short films Milk (1998) and Wasp (2003). I will discuss the implications of Arnold’s film style vis-à-vis gender and the discourse on what constitutes social realist film in the U.K. As for thematic motifs, Arnold’s films return to voyeurism, primal scenes and nature’s persistence in seemingly denatured environments. The analysis further examines identities (marked by age, class and gender) as motifs that circulate through Arnold’s work; a concern with identity that, nonetheless, refuses sentimentality and essentialism.