Ida Lupino
Influences and legacy

Lupino learned filmmaking from everyone she observed on set, including William Ziegler, the cameraman for Not Wanted. When in preproduction on Never Fear, she conferred with Michael Gordon on directorial technique, organization, and plotting. Cinematographer Archie Stout said of Ms. Lupino, "Ida has more knowledge of camera angles and lenses than any director I've ever worked with, with the exception of Victor Fleming. She knows how a woman looks on the screen and what light that woman should have, probably better than I do." Lupino also worked with editor Stanford Tischler, who said of her, "She wasn't the kind of director who would shoot something, then hope any flaws could be fixed in the cutting room. The acting was always there, to her credit."

Author Ally Acker compares Lupino to pioneering silent-film director Lois Weber for their focus on controversial, socially relevant topics. With their ambiguous endings, Lupino's films never offered simple solutions for her troubled characters, and Acker finds parallels to her storytelling style in the work of the modern European "New Wave" directors, such as Margarethe von Trotta.

Film critic Ronnie Scheib, who issued a Kino release of three of Lupino's films, likens Lupino's themes and directorial style to directors Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller, and Robert Aldrich, saying, "Lupino very much belongs to that generation of modernist filmmakers." On whether Lupino should be considered a feminist filmmaker, Scheib states, "I don't think Lupino was concerned with showing strong people, men or women. She often said that she was interested in lost, bewildered people, and I think she was talking about the postwar trauma of people who couldn't go home again."

Martin Scorsese calls Lupino's thematic film work "essential," noting that "What is at stake in Lupino's films is the psyche of the victim. addressed the wounded soul and traced the slow, painful process of women trying to wrestle with despair and reclaim their lives. Her work is resilient, with a remarkable empathy for the fragile and the heart-broken."

Author Richard Koszarski noted Lupino's choice to play with gender roles regarding women's film stereotypes during the studio era: "Her films display the obsessions and consistencies of a true auteur... In her films The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker, Lupino was able to reduce the male to the same sort of dangerous, irrational force that women represented in most male-directed examples of Hollywood film noir."

Lupino did not consider herself a feminist, saying, "I had to do something to fill up my time between contracts. Keeping a feminine approach is vital – men hate bossy females... Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation." Village Voice writer Carrie Rickey, though, holds Lupino up as a model of modern feminist filmmaking: "Not only did Lupino take control of production, direction, and screenplay, but each of her movies addresses the brutal repercussions of sexuality, independence and dependence." By 1972, Lupino said she wished more women were hired as directors and producers in Hollywood, noting that only very powerful actresses or writers had the chance to work in the field. She directed or costarred a number of times with young, fellow British actresses on a similar journey of developing their American film careers like Hayley Mills and Pamela Franklin.

Actress Bea Arthur, best remembered for her work in Maude and The Golden Girls, was motivated to escape her stifling hometown by following in Lupino's footsteps and becoming an actress, saying, "My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like Ida Lupino and those other women I saw up there on the screen during the Depression."
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