‘Be Pretty and Shut Up!’: Delphine Seyrig’s explosive and vital documentary
The impact and legacy of Delphine Seyrig’s work cannot be understated. She starred in revolutionary cinematic masterpieces such as Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Last Year at Marienbad, and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. However, beyond her on-screen achievements, she was also a key figure in the feminist movement of the 1970s.
Seyrig joined forces with Carole Roussopoulos, Iona Wieder, and Simone de Beauvoir to form Les Insoumuses, a women’s collective dedicated to producing educational videos in support of feminist causes. The name roughly translates to “disobedient muses,” a pointed play on both their roles in the film industry and their defiance of its reductive labels.
After being fired from her job at Vogue, Roussopoulos used her severance cheque to buy a video camera, eventually using this to make movies and expand her work within the world of filmmaking. Soon, she was teaching workshops to other women, with one of her students being the legendary Delphine Seyrig, who was passionate about the feminist movement and wanted to work with the filmmaker to create films about their shared interests and struggles, describing the medium by saying, “video had no history, no school, no past, and men had not dominated it. It was a new medium that men had not yet colonized”.
After expanding their collective, the team then made several documentaries and short films, such as No Woman Can Cook the Same Meal Twice and Video Out, using their voices to go against the status quo in the film industry and highlight important social issues, such as advocating for the legalisation of abortions in France and safer working conditions for sex workers.
However, one of their most influential projects was their 1981 documentary Be Pretty and Shut Up!, which is a collection of interviews with female actors as they share their experiences of working in the film industry. It features some of the most influential performers of the time, with Seyrig conducting the interviews herself and speaking to the likes of Jane Fonda, Jill Clayburgh, Maria Schneider, Shirley MacLaine and Ellen Burstyn.
The film was completely ahead of its time, with the women voicing their frustrations over issues that have been covered up and ignored for many decades. Each woman eloquently articulates her issues with Hollywood, having conversations about the abuse and mistreatment they have been subjected to, expressing simultaneous anger at their experiences and this quiet sadness as they realise that humiliation is the price they has had to pay to pursue their passion.
It is particularly harrowing to hear them discuss issues that have only recently begun to be taken seriously, with Fonda recalling how producers once asked her to break her jaw as a child to appear more grown-up and Schneider reflecting on her deeply disturbing experience working with Marlon Brando and Bernardo Bertolucci on Last Tango in Paris—an ordeal that was ridiculed and dismissed by the industry at large.
Schneider’s testimony is damning, and it is devastating that she was ostracised and blacklisted for speaking out—something that has happened to countless women and, tragically, continues to this day.
Be Pretty and Shut Up! is one of the few documentaries that I would consider essential viewing, and the testimonies of these brave women highlight how far we still need to go before the industry is safe and equal for everyone and the enormous struggle for their voices to be heard.
