Jessica Hundley

They might as well call it the “Hollywood Steps.” Ribisi’s
risumi reads like that of every up-and-comer-to-watch this side
of John Travolta: A slew of sitcom guest spots (including a recurring
role on “The Wonder Years” and appearances on “Married With
Children,” “Blossom,” “NYPD Blue,” “Chicago Hope,” “Walker: Texas
Ranger” and “Friends”) and the humiliating, much-publicized megaflop (his role as Bandit 20 in Kevin Costner’s monolithic failure, “The
Postman”).

“It was extremely useful to grow up in front of the camera,” says
Ribisi. “It gives the camera no significance. I think it helped me
have perspective on things. The attraction that Hollywood can have, I
feel like I’m over that. Instead I just concentrate on acting.”

So they all say. What’s interesting about Ribisi now is the way he has attracted the attention of some of the best directing talents in the business. He has appeared in Richard Linklater’s “Suburbia,” David Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” and the upcoming Sam Raimi-directed, Billy Bob Thornton-penned production “The Gift,” in which he stars opposite Hillary Swank and Cate Blanchett.

He is one of those rare young talents whose subtle intensity commands
the screen, and his appearance in the upcoming “Boiler Room” proves it.
In preparation for his role as Seth, a corrupt investment banker,
Ribisi immersed himself in the greed-fueled atmosphere of real-life
“boiler rooms.”

“I came in completely naive, not knowing anything,” says Ribisi.” I
sat with this guy who was literally on the phone all day. He was
getting to work at 5 in the morning, leaving at 10 at night,
making 500 or 600 phone calls a day. I met a guy who had worked in an
illegal firm and he was still trading. His mentality was: ‘If you’re
stupid enough to give me your money, then you shouldn’t have it
anyway.’”

Ribisi, whose character is struggling with his conscience, manages to
portray inner conflict without relying on cheap dramatics. This is familiar Ribisi territory. Tapped by Spielberg for the part as doomed medic Wade and by Linkletter as the young intellectual struggling against the paralyzing ennui of “Suburbia,” Giovanni’s forte is the put-upon Everyman. His specialty is bewilderment, the baffled naif stumbling into chaos. This particular Ribisi nuance is taken to the extreme in his role as a retarded man in “The Other Sister” and in his recurring appearances on “Friends”, where his innocence is transmuted into comical dimwittedness. Ribisi is capable of turning his bedroom eyes baleful and taking on an indisputable air of sincerity. This is especially useful in his narrative overdubs, where he manages to avoid the stiltedness and pretense of a device that many actors find challenging. In both “Boiler Room” and “The Virgin Suicides” his usually unremarkable voice takes on a deepened resonance and a soothing matter-of-factness that draw the viewer in.

“The thing I like best about voice-over is that it’s personal,”
explains Ribisi. “There’s a certain intimacy to it.”

His upcoming roles include a turn as Nicolas Cage’s brother in the
auto-heist action flick “Gone in 60 Seconds” and a part in French
actress Julie Delpy’s (“Before Sunrise,” “White”) directorial debut,
“Tell Me.”

“I feel like I’m on a certain path,” says Ribisi. “I’m trying to
maintain that, to be more committed every time out and to learn
something about myself. “

For Ribisi, whose first appearance was at age 9, acting is not
simply a passion but already a lifelong career.

“I could almost say it’s my religion,” he says. “I guess that sounds
pretentious, but that’s true for me. I want to live and breathe it.”

Guest, who’s married to actress Jamie Lee Curtis, has written comedy for Lily Tomlin (for which he shared a 1976 Emmy) and music for the National Lampoon albums in the ’70s and “This Is Spinal Tap.” From these varied endeavors one would logically assume Guest to be a wacky, goofy, fun-loving fellow prone to loud guffaws and even louder ties. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The man who shakes my hand firmly in the sparsely furnished offices of Castle Rock Entertainment is silver-haired and quietly intelligent. He moves with a dignity that suits his title as Fifth Baron Haden-Guest of Saling (a role Guest inherited after the recent death of his father). He is wearing a gray cable-knit sweater and khakis, and his soft lilting voice is nearly inaudible. He does not guffaw. He does not instruct me in the ways of Olympic synchronized swimming or regale me with the benefits of an amp that goes to 11.

Instead he smiles gently and speaks of both the disparities and the intangible connections between “All in the Family” and “The Beverly Hillbillies,” the structural necessities of improv and the abstract essence of comedy.

What drew you into wanting to do comedy as a kid? Comedy is such a wonderfully abstract thing, I imagine it’s hard to even pinpoint your motivations.

I’m glad you figured it out. I’ve only done 400 interviews and no one has said that. I do think it’s very hard to talk about. First of all, there’s a million different kinds of comedy. And there’s a lot of different sensibilities within comedy. You have comedians who don’t think other comedians are funny. You just have to find your own place in what you do and what makes you laugh.

As a kid of 5 or 6 years old, I knew that there was something about what I did that was funny. I mean, you’d have to get into a serious sort of analysis to say how or why, and then it does become very abstract — as does trying to interpret what makes people laugh.

Rob Reiner has this incredible story that really sums up this whole world. Someone came up to him while he was doing “All in the Family” and they said, “Mr. Reiner, I just wanted you to know how much the show means to me. You tackle issues that nobody else does; the whole family sits around and watches it and discusses it after — your performance is wonderful.”

And Rob says, “Oh, thank you.”

And the person says, “Yeah, that and ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ are really, for us, just …”

So you have a person who likes both of those shows, which is fine. You can’t be a sort of comic dictator. People like what they like. But when Rob told me that story I laughed and I thought, Why am I laughing? I’m laughing because I would think one show is more sophisticated, but you can’t dictate what people are going to like.

People have said versions of that to me, surprised me by saying, “I like your stuff and X’s,” and I think, I don’t understand. How? I think as a young comedian especially, you tend to think, Well if you like what I do, then you certainly can’t like that. But then you have to get past that. I hope. You really can only worry about yourself. These are the kind of movies I make. If people like them, great. If they don’t, then what am I supposed to do?

It’s definitely difficult to verbalize. Humor is intangible. With the people who make me laugh, like Peter Sellers, it’s something about his body language, the way he speaks, the way he looks.

Peter Sellers was my idol when I was a kid. He was the first person I looked at and thought, If I can do something like this, I’ll be happy. If I can distill what he specifically did for me, it was: This is not sketch comedy. This is a deep, deep, profoundly deep character he creates. A seamless world, which was very different than other things I was seeing, which were very superficial, not thought out and ultimately uninteresting characters. If I can describe what he does for me, that’s the best I can do. Because as you said, beyond that, why is that funny? I don’t quite know.

I think it’s also a shared sensibility. Perhaps, because of the visceral response people have to comedy, it ultimately creates an intimacy. You feel close with certain comedians if they tap into that place, if they share a certain outlook with you.

You’re probably right. I’ve been asked about this for a long time and I find it hard to talk about because I end up going around in circles. Someone recently asked me, “Why is ‘Best in Show’ funny?” I said, “That’s a strange question. First of all, is it funny? Is it funny to you? Is it funny to me?” Because that’s a very different thing. And without getting into this thesis of comedy again, basically the question should be, “Is this movie funny to you?” But then there’s still no real answer, so we end up chasing our tails.

It seems like that intimacy I was talking about is there between you and the other actors you work with in your films. You use an ensemble cast that has many of the same players. What draws you to them? What makes you decide “I want to work with this person”?

As you said earlier, these are people who, when you meet them, you immediately know are on your wavelength or whatever you want to call it. Not to say that it’s all based on intuition. But if you are in the world of comedy, you can tell immediately if they are sharing a sensibility. And then they’re basically in the club. For what I do, it’s a small club. I’m not saying it can’t expand. It’s just that there’s not 20,000 people walking around who share that sensibility. It’s very specific. You meet them and you immediately recognize something in them. You know instantaneously. Eugene Levy makes me laugh. Why? Here we are again: I don’t know.

You’ve done two mockumentaries. It seems like that is a framework that works for the type of improvisation your actors do.

I think it’s very important to say that we start with more than a loose idea. It’s many, many months of preparation. It’s building a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, describing the characters, describing the characters’ history. It’s setting up a format that grids down every scene, as far as function, as far as plot and how each scene is moving the story along. And then you hang improvisation on this skeletal structure.

Without that framework, it’s nothing. You can’t just show up and start talking. I equate it with playing jazz. You have to know what key you’re playing in, you have to know the music, you have to know where you’re going to end up. After that it’s up to finding players with good chops. And these actors have the chops.

There is something charming in the earnest way he tilts his head as he speaks, in the flush of his cheek, in the way he sits eagerly at the very edge of the linen-covered couch as he talks excitedly about his new role. Under the hard-shelled veneer of 10 years in the Hollywood gristmill, I glimpse something that looks surprisingly like innocence.

It must have been just this mix of pomp and sincerity that John Waters spotted when he was forming Cecil, which the director wrote with Dorff in mind. Playing the leader of a group of radical cinema terrorists, Dorff shines as the movie’s title character, a man driven by a rabid passion for cinematic purity and an unstoppable lust for the perfect shot. “Cecil” promises to put pie in the eye of anyone who scoffed at Dorff’s talent. And the girls are sure to swoon because, damn, the man looks great in jodhpurs.

How was it working with John Waters?

He’s awesome. I met him four years ago and he always said he liked me. And then I was making “Blood and Wine” with Jack Nicholson and he offered me Cecil, and I wanted to do it. But it ended up falling apart; I think he wanted $20 million to make it. I would see him once in a while and he would say, “We’re going to make it!” He was just really loyal to me; he said he wrote it with me in mind.

The character of Cecil is really funny. The challenge was to not make it camp, but to believe in everything I said. I really got a kick out of it. Some of my representatives were a little nervous, but I think most of those people aren’t very creative. They’re probably better at putting deals together.

How do you feel about big Hollywood films?

What’s great about John is that even when he trashes a film like “Forrest Gump” or “Patch Adams — The Director’s Cut,” he instills such humor in it, I think the filmmakers would understand it.

John is the first person to admit that he loves Hollywood movies. I think “Magnolia” was John’s favorite movie last year. If it weren’t for Hollywood, he wouldn’t be able to make this movie.

Were you familiar with the directors that each member of the gang [in "Cecil"] has tattooed on their bodies?

No. I knew the obvious ones, Almodóvar, Spike Lee, Peckinpah. The one I wasn’t familiar with was the one I wear: Otto Preminger. I had never seen any of his movies. I asked John who he was and he said, “He was a dictator; he used to beat his actors!” And I said, “Oh, OK.”

One thing in the script, which I was a little weird about, was licking the camera. And that’s the ending shot in the trailer, the whole look for the film. When I first read that in the script I was like, “You want me to lick the camera?” and John said, ‘That’s right, I want you to lick the Panavision logo and then give a demented look.” And I was like, “OK. Can I get some Windex?” But he had this image in his head and he really wanted me to do it. I actually like it now.

Had you seen John’s other films?

I had seen “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray” and all the later ones. [Waters'] whole story is amazing … John’s parents financed his first films. They believed in him and supported him, even though he was making the craziest shit anybody had ever seen, coming up with the most brilliant stuff ever.

I enjoy making movies for people like that. I mean, you don’t get rich from this kind of stuff, but that’s not what’s important to me.

They’ll just hire anyone to be in movies these days, where before it was the same five or six guys you’d always go up against. It would be me, Leonardo, Ethan Hawke, a few other guys. Now there are 18 billion kids from the WB. Great actors, like my friend Joaquin Phoenix, who I think is one of the best actors around — we’re both losing parts to kids we’ve never even heard of. Things have changed. But at a certain point you have to sit back and look at what you’ve done and have faith that the directors that you want to work with will want you.

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Alicia Witt

Alicia Witt, who plays Cherish in “Cecil B. DeMented,” made her film debut in David Lynch’s sprawling sci-fi flick “Dune,” and has gone on to a stint on “Cybill” and several other quirky roles in well-made independents. In lean years, Witt made a living playing the piano at the Beverly Regent.

The 25-year-old has chosen her characters carefully, steering clear of the false vulnerability and delicate manipulation routines — quite a feat considering the limited roles Hollywood deigns to offer young actresses. Instead, Witt has held out for parts with depth, gumption and a little outrageousness. Perhaps the most memorable moment of her recent career was “Fun,” which featured Witt experimenting with lesbianism, killing people and refusing to apologize for either.

“Fun” may have prepared Witt best for her stint in Waters’ latest foray into good bad taste. Witt shines as the lovely and talented Cherish, porn star turned thespian turned badass neopolitical cinema freedom fighter.

How did you like working on this film?

It was amazing. It was such a fun, free, amusing experience. John’s so intelligent and he’s the sweetest, nicest person on the set. He took genuine interest in everything that was going on with us.

I was also surprised because I hadn’t seen many of his films and I thought he was going to be one of those directors who are very specific in their direction. But he wasn’t like that at all. He did a rehearsal progress and made it clear what sort of characters we were playing, and from there, he just really let us run with it.

How did that differ from what you’re used to?

It was just easy. It was just having a good time and telling a fun story. And John seemed perfectly relaxed, although I know he had a million things going on and it was probably the most complicated movie he ever made.

It’s wonderful and in many ways I think it’s a real culmination of his past films. It echoes his own experiences in a way, although I know he hates people reading autobiography into his films.

I think this film probably depicts that. It shows what he jokingly says is what he would have become had he not had the support of his parents when he was first starting out. It takes the idea of having a vision and being passionate about your vision one step further into a cult mentality.

I can imagine that as an actor the solid roles are few and far between.

I read so many things. I have no desire to play the typical girlfriend/sidekick role. Those characters exist to move the story along and that’s it. And I don’t care how much back story you invent in your own mind to bring something special to the character, it’s just not fun to play a character that isn’t realistic, that’s one-dimensional. I like playing characters that are unusual and that challenge people.

Are there certain directors you’d like to work with?

John has been on my list forever. To me it was very lucky that I ended up in the movie at all, because when John was here auditioning, I was out of town. So I went on tape. The first time I met him face to face was when I went to Baltimore to begin shooting. So it was something about that tape. I was so happy.

I really want to work with Carl Franklin. He directed “One True Thing” and “Devil in a Blue Dress” with Denzel Washington. He’s a very gifted director. I had an amazing meeting with him and I was so impressed with the performance he got out of me the hour that I spent with him in his office — this incredible energy I felt inside myself, like I snuck outside of my body. I just have to work with him someday.

I would love to work with Woody Allen because he’s just a legend. His films are so funny and sad at the same time. He hits upon some fundamental truth. I would love to work with Martin Scorsese and Joan Chen. And Leonardo DiCaprio. People don’t give him the credit he deserves. It’s all been overshadowed by the teen idol status, but he’s so good; he’s subtle and real.

Were you familiar with the directors John places in “Cecil”?

Not all of them. I didn’t feel as though Cherish needed to be familiar. She’s by far the most superficial of the group. I always felt like Cherish was worried that her boobs didn’t look quite right or her nails were going to chip … I just had so much fun with that character. Everyone was into their characters. Hopefully, on film, it comes across as a big group of bizarre and deep characters. I loved playing Cherish.

Now with the release of his newest album, “Figure Eight” (his second on DreamWorks),
Smith has no need of a blinding spotlight courtesy of the academy. Full of catchy
hooks and bittersweet choruses, his songs have entered the well-tread realm of pop,
but the vulnerability of his distinctive voice still comes through the layers of sound as
clearly as it did in his lo-fi past. Smith has, almost despite himself, become one of
those rare stars you root for simply because they have shown you a bit of their soul.

You’ve lived in Nebraska, Texas, Oregon, New York and now Los Angeles. Do you
think that these landscapes have integrated themselves into your music and lent
themselves to the way your music sounds and feels?

I think they must have some. But honestly, in a way, it’s kind of unknown to me. I
only know what I’m talking about less than half the time when I’m making something
up. It’s kind of like writing down a dream I had last night. It’s only after a while that I
can get ideas of what, if anything, a song is about. I don’t know. Sometimes things
pop up that seem like New York, sometimes things pop up that feel like Portland
[Ore.], where I also lived. On the new album there’s even a song called “L.A.,” so it
must have something to do with it.

Do you feel like you really need time and a certain amount of distance and
objectivity in order to fully understand what you write?

Definitely. In a year I’ll have a much clearer idea of whether I even like this record or
not. It doesn’t seem to help to police yourself too much when you’re making
something. To be constantly thinking, Is this good or bad? It’s better for me to just
do a bunch of stuff and then see if I like any of it later.

That seems a very honest, sort of “gut instinct” way to write. Where it’s coming
from a place in you and you don’t try to censor it. Do you feel if there’s too much
analysis, it loses something?

It becomes sort of strategy. You begin to present some picture of yourself. There’s a
part of songs that are always personal, but I’m not particularly interested in concocting
some picture of myself.

What are you interested in your songs doing, ideally?

I just like it better when the songs seem like little movies, maybe not even coherent
ones, but sometimes they can be pretty direct. Lately, I like them if they’re not even
very storylike and if they are just more descriptive of some situation. I want them to
create a situation or a mood where you or I can add our imagination and it would have
some room to move around and see what’s going on in the song. It doesn’t matter
very much whether it’s something about me or about some imaginary character. It’s a
combination of feelings about things. I don’t cannibalize my friends to make songs.
There’s a part of it all that has to do with me, but it’s more like I’m an actor in some
of the little movies, but not all of them.

Well, I think your music has an honesty that makes some people uncomfortable. I
think there’s a tendency for artists to hide behind irony, which is not something that
you do.

Nobody wants to be pinned down and commit to somebody’s interpretation of them.
Oftentimes people are doing lyrics, but there is so much irony involved that it makes
the whole thing so slippery I can’t really feel anything in connection to it. There’s
certainly a place for irony, but it seems like it’s really moved up the priority list for a lot
of people and it’s not one of my favorite parts of music. I’m not really into seeing a
jokey band or a particularly ironic one. Just because something is witty and ironic
doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good any more than something being a sickly sweet
confessional makes it any good either. That sort of contrived personality doesn’t work
either way.

Do you find it hard not to use those protective devices?

It’s become pretty apparent that no matter what I really do or say, there are certain
ways that people are going to perceive me. And it’s just gotten to the point where I
can’t do anything about it, so I don’t worry about it that much. I just make up songs
that to me feel human. And they’re bound to be seen by some people as confessional
or depressing, some sort of real one-way assessment that is not how they are to me. I
don’t worry as much as I did before. There’s no point in me trying to control stuff like
that.

To be able to not worry about that must be incredibly liberating.

Yeah. And it’s really easy not to worry about all that, except for the persistent
questions that come up. Maybe not in this interview, but in a lot of them. “Why are you
so sad?”

Well, I think that’s also a result of sincerity making people uncomfortable. They
struggle for a way to label things, especially things that really maybe touch them.
There’s a fear of someone who has allowed himself to convey feelings that may feel
too intimate to some people.

Some people are afraid that if they don’t seem like some sort of perpetual winner all
the time, if they don’t make a lot of money and wear expensive cologne and go to all the
right places, that then people are going to think that they’re some sort of loser. But
just because people have a range of emotions and thoughts which can coexist at the
same time and at times sometimes they get ecstatically happy about something and
at others times ridiculously depressed, doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with
them when they’re sad and that they are only successful, good Americans when they’re
happy, when everything’s going right for them. The media is always telling people to
look better and go shopping more and present an image of prosperity and you can
only do that so much before you’re presenting that even to yourself all the time. So if
you do go see a movie and the ending isn’t happy, it may be a great movie, but you
end up feeling inordinately depressed because you’ve been blocking out your own
feelings. There must be some reason why I always get these questions, which to me
seem like totally surface things about my music. There’s a lot in my music that I find
happy and optimistic, in both the melody and the lyrics.

I think it has elements of both happiness and sadness, which to me is part of that
honesty. If you were happy all the time or sad all the time —

It would be boring! There’s a few bands that just do one thing all the time, that I like.
Like the Ramones. You know how they do that thing? And it’s really cool. But for me
the more emotions you can put on a record, without making it such a weird roller
coaster that it’s hard to listen to, the better.

You haven’t filmed many videos at all, but you just completed one for the new
album. In your analogy you referred to your songs as films. How was it translating
music into image?

The first thing I noticed was that it’s a lot more fun when there’s not some big, pushy
production company getting in the director’s way, trying to dumb it down so that it is as
much like already existing videos as possible. It was mainly just fun for me to run
around. And there was a tiny little aspect of acting in it that I really enjoyed. There’s a
story in the video that Autumn De Wilde (the video’s director) made up, that I really
like. It’s almost like her interpretation of the song was better than mine. Sometimes it
seems like because I’m the one that made it up, it makes me kind of a bad person to
ask what the songs are about. But the video has some happiness and sadness and
some comical aspects, too. The only video that wasn’t fun was “Ms. Misery,” and that
was because there was a team of people who really couldn’t give a shit that it was my
song. It was just kind of negative. It was being directed by a friend of mine and they
ended up just stepping on his toes all the way through it and the result was that it
satisfied no one. Videos can be pretty cool, but most of the time, it’s just an ad.

Have you ever thought of making films yourself?

No, not really. I kind of feel like I’m doing pretty good to have whatever
get-up-and-go I have for music. I also have the energy to be interested in other
things beside music, but I don’t know if I have enough energy on a day-to-day basis
to launch into a whole sort of complicated project. It seems like there’s so many more
people involved. I can’t marshal a whole group of people.

What are those other things you’re interested in?

I like to read when there’s windows of time that I can actually concentrate. Which
usually goes on for several months and then I find that I can’t focus on anything for a
month or more. Those times usually coincide with the least interesting parts of my life,
when I’m feeling like time isn’t moving, I’m not getting any new things to think about.
Like when I’m playing my songs over and over again on tour. I love playing music, but
it’s not healthy to have what you’re doing for months at a time revolve around …
yourself. It gets really weird. People have different reactions to it. Some people really
like it. It feeds some sort of need in them to really get a lot of attention all the time.
They can become addicted to it and when it goes away they become all bummed out.
For some people the experience freaks them out so much, they get drug problems to
just dull everything out, so they don’t feel anything. For me, it’s kind of in between
those things. I get tired of hearing my voice all the time, I wish I could sing in different
ways. But in general I like it. At this point I have enough songs to choose from, so I
don’t have to play the ones I’m sick of.

Do you think you’ll ever get to the point where you may not want to play music
anymore?

I feel like if it got to the point where I didn’t want to play music anymore, or couldn’t,
that would signify that something had just sort of gone irreparably wrong and I
probably wouldn’t be able to do anything creative. But I don’t see that happening.
There’s a million songs to make up, even though people who don’t write songs say,
“It’s all been done before.” They’re so wrong! There’s just millions of things to do,
particularly lyrically. For a long time there’s been more people interested in the musical
side of things and less people who think it’s fun and interesting to play around with
words and be imaginative with them. I think there’s a lot of lyrical things that haven’t
really been touched on.

When you tour, I imagine the best times are when you are connecting to the audience,
speaking to them not just lyrically, but through the music. But I’m not sure if there’s
any way of making sure that happens.

There are certain things you can do to make that more likely to happen. Certain kinds
of bullshit you can avoid. That’s what’s so great about touring. Sometimes it’s like,
“Tonight is going to be amazing and I’m going to remember how lucky I am to be
doing this.” But it can also be, “Tonight is gonna suck and I’m going to wonder why I’m
doing this. I’m not cut out for this!” But I guess, like we said earlier, it would get boring
if it was one way all the time. I do think people can go a long way on the moments of
pure happiness in their lives. It’s like getting a big shot of vitamins — you don’t get
sick again for weeks!

In an industry that has traditionally functioned almost entirely as an outlet for the creative visions of male directors, writers and producers, what the stereotypes have illustrated is the way men (at least moviemaking men) see women. And the way they’ve seen them, traditionally, has been with a potent mixture of adoration, lust, loathing and fear. Yet the much-maligned “male gaze” of film-theory legend has already gotten more than its share of play. What has been woefully absent is any discussion of the female gaze.

Few female directors have been given the opportunity to bring their representations of women to the screen, let alone their idealized, fantasy versions of men. Since 1922, only two women have been nominated for an Oscar in directing. Neither won. A few directors, such as Yvonne Rainer, have been able to make a name for themselves in the world of avant-garde and experimental film; others, such as Elaine May, who in the ’70s directed “Mikey and Nicky,” still one of the most powerful — and underrated — films of the decade, seemed fated to enjoy their successes in obscurity. In Europe, Agnes Varda, Claire Denis and Lina Wertmuller have been making solid and intelligent films for years. In America, female directors have been largely ignored.

But in the mid-1980s, when a wave of low-budget independent films made moviemaking more accessible to Hollywood outsiders, a handful of women began projecting complex and interesting female characters onto the screen. Allison Anders, Lisa Krueger and Mary Harron all made films that explored the female experience with honest and fresh female protagonists. Tamra Davis, Kathryn Bigelow, Amy Heckerling and Mimi Leder crashed the boy-dominated party of mainstream comedy, action and horror. And let’s not forget Barbra Streisand, Penny Marshall, Jodie Foster and Diane Keaton, who made the transition from actresses to directors and have given us a series of sweetly sentimental blockbusters.

But the new crop of female-fronted releases goes beyond the proto-feminist “about women, by women” model. The films of Kimberly Peirce, Krueger, Harron, Jane Campion, Denis and newcomer Sofia Coppola — all of which are premiering soon or currently in release — don’t fall under the feather-soft rubric of the typical “woman’s picture,” nor do they shy away from raw depictions of sexuality or violence. This new wave shows the beginnings of a kind of inversion, a fresh element in filmmaking and in the cultural psyche in general: The female gaze has finally hit the big screen. Suddenly, we can discern the sexualization of the male actor by the female director.

Campion has always been a master of exposing both the subtle carnality and the startling innocence that lurk beneath the surface of her male stars. In both “The Piano” and the recently released “Holy Smoke” she finds her muse in Harvey Keitel, whose particular brand of beautiful ugliness exemplifies a stormy, visceral sexuality — the “fire under the surface” of which Campion is so enamored. Some of her best male imagery is defined by a sort of “King Kong” idealization: the untamed brute with a soft heart for the right woman. Another element of Campion’s representation is the recurrence of men easily manipulated by the women in their lives (the baffled boyfriend in “Sweetie,” Sam Neill’s brutish husband in “The Piano”). In “Holy Smoke,” Campion continues this theme, with Keitel’s cult deprogrammer becoming programmed himself by Kate Winslet, brainwashed not by rhetoric but by her eager and delicious voluptuousness. For Campion, men are as malleable as clay.

In Coppola’s upcoming “The Virgin Suicides,” Josh Hartnett gives an electric performance as Trip Fontaine, a teenage Adonis whose graceful swagger will tap into any woman’s latent desire to seduce a 17-year-old. Coppola reportedly auditioned hundreds of young actors for the role, but with Hartnett she draws out a charisma and raw sexuality that can make you weak in the knees. This adoration of youth has existed for years in film. Watching Fontaine walk causes the same pang of guilty lust in women that Mena Suvari’s character in “American Beauty” must elicit in men. But Coppola’s scenes with Hartnett are a shrine to the fresh and vibrant carnality of teenage boys, a sort of reverse Lolita-ism. Eventually Fontaine becomes a catalyst for the film’s central tragedy and his aura fades, but for one brief moment the seduction is complete.

In “Committed,” Krueger has taken the age-old theme of a woman in love with a man who’s afraid to commit and turned it into a comedic road movie. Luke Wilson plays a blinking and confused sensitive guy searching for his soul in all the wrong places. What he has forgotten — in the midst of all this endearing self-absorption — is his wife, played by Heather Graham. Graham’s search for her husband is fueled by a blind optimism that would be annoying if it weren’t for Wilson’s inherent sweetness. The “nice guy” stereotype is in full form here and it’s a role Wilson was made for. With his good-natured demeanor and puppy-dog face, he’s an actor who can make even the most blatant selfishness seem somehow charming.

In “American Psycho,” Harron directs a delicately boned, elegantly dressed Christian Bale as Bret Easton Ellis’ coldhearted killer. Bale plays the part with bored and haughty bemusement, moving through the film like a smugly satisfied cat. “American Psycho” is not a film one might expect to be directed by a woman, but it is Harron’s feminine touch — and her humor — that keeps the film’s brutal elements palatable. In a satirical take on ’80s excess, Bale’s rich kid has a sense of entitlement as large as his ego — yet there’s something in his snobbery that is appealing. We can laugh at his cruelty because Harron has created an effective film stereotype: the privileged white Ivy Leaguer every viewer loves to hate.

In Peirce’s haunting “Boys Don’t Cry,” the brutality of the film’s “real” men is juxtaposed beautifully with the main character’s self-constructed masculinity. Hilary Swank’s “Brandon” seduces Chlok Sevigny’s Lana by offering a balance of female vulnerability and male strength. The girls in the film love Brandon for this quality; the men despise him. The film’s violence is fueled by the male characters, whose ignorance and insecurity in their own sexual power lead to a disturbing climax. But what makes the film truly explosive is the question it poses: Is what women really want in a man a woman?

One of the most beautiful films this year is Denis’ “Beau Travail,” a meditation on male sexuality that is as gorgeous and sublime as any movie made in the past decade. Set in the barren, black-rock plains of northern Africa, it takes as its essential focus the beauty of the male form, flawlessly composed in a series of shots of the main characters, a squadron of Foreign Legion soldiers. Throughout most of the movie, the sweat, blood and animal sexuality that make up the male mystique are reflected in the harshly beautiful landscape. The camera slowly pans over hot sands, twitching muscles and blue sea with equal relish.

Of all of these directors, it is Denis’ fearless sexualization that perhaps best illustrates our perception of men. Her characters are a mixed batch, encompassing the whole gamut of male iconography: from Campion’s brute, to Coppola’s pretty boy, to Krueger’s nice guy. But it’s her unapologetic objectification of the male body that is most exciting of all.

The “eye,” so long dominated by men, has slowly but surely been attained by female directors. And what does this reflection show us? How exactly do women perceive men? Do we see selfish brutes, softhearted fools, psycho killers? Do we worship, like men, the beauty of youth? Do we pay tribute, like the Greeks, to the thin graceful curves of the adolescent male body? Most likely, we do all of the above, with each of these elements contained in our assessment of the opposite sex — the innocence, the cruelty and the helplessness combined.

But what’s most refreshing is simply that female directors are beginning, at last, to explore the same themes their male counterparts have explored. It’s our time to deconstruct the opposite sex, to manipulate male sexuality according to our own observations and whims. After too many years, it’s finally our turn to objectify, sexualize, fear, worship, loathe, adore and, best of all, lust after.