Mary Harron
Mary Harron
Mary Harronis a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter best known for her films I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page...
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth12 January 1953
thinking done way
I just don't think I'm an ideological filmmaker in any way. I don't know how anyone could see anything I've done and see that.
trying world better-place
I'm not trying to make the world a better place.
growing-up disappointment dad
Growing up, I was lucky that my dad was never out of work. I was very fortunate in one way: that I never experienced real hardship, because my dad is this real dynamo. He was always working, so I had a sense of the ups and downs and endless disappointments, but at the same time I was never worried that we couldn't eat or pay the bills.
children knowing being-real
I remember being really interested in the sad parts of Los Angeles, of which there are many, and knowing we weren't up in the citadel on the hill, but we also weren't on the bottom. I was very interested in the poetry of failure as a child.
thinking doe hollywood
I grew up interested in the underside of Hollywood, which I think David Lynch does really well.
moving ideas unhappy
It never occurred to me to be a film director, partly because I hadn't seen a single film by a female director, but I liked the idea of being a writer moving to Hollywood and being unhappy; that sounded romantic and fabulous to me.
ambitious age six
I was very ambitious at a young age. When I was six, I would tell everybody that I wanted to be an authoress.
beautiful people cracks
Someone can be mentally ill, but if they are young and beautiful and their life is going well, people don't notice because at that point the cracks are almost imperceptible.
sex pages active
She [Bettie Page] was a traumatized person, but she did have an active sex life.
secret lenses actors
One of the secrets of being a great photographic model, as it is for a great film actor, is that you let the camera in. It's an intimacy that the model or actor creates with the lens, that then transmits itself to the viewer.
fashion dressing-up pages
Bettie Page was the first person to do bondage as fashion, because for her it really was all about dressing up.
gay pages irony
I wonder if Bettie Page original gay cult had something to do with the ironies inherent in her image, as well as her innate fabulousness as an image.
thinking years perspective
Mostly I'm just not American. I spent four years of my childhood here, but I think if you're Canadian you have a very different perspective. You don't think you're at the center of things.
people trying filmmaker
One thing I'm not is a moralistic filmmaker. I'm not trying to tell people what to do, and I'm not trying to lead.