The lady in the book
by Gesa MATTHIES
2016 - 60 min - HD
In coproduction with S. Production and Vosges Télévision
With the support of the CNC, of the Alsace region, of the Strasbourg Eurométropole and of Procirep-Angoa
Synopsis
“The lady in the Book” is Sylvia Plath, a major figure in 20th-century American poetry and a feminist icon since her sudden death at the age of thirty. The film offers a deep dive into her world and her work by meeting women who today find themselves in the places where she grew up: the Atlantic beaches, the residential suburbs of Boston, and Smith College in the Massachusetts countryside.
Sylvia Plath was 18 years old in the early 1950s. In her diary, she chronicles her search for her path as a budding artist and an ambitious young woman seeking to break free from traditional female role models.
The students at Smith College are familiar with her writings. Even today, they read them to help put their own questions into words. It is through their readings and stories that we discover, throughout the film, Sylvia Plath’s work and her early days as a writer. Sylvia’s words and those of today’s young women together form the voice of a feminine identity that was painstakingly forged in the face of authority, dogma, and conformity.
Gesa Matthies
Born in 1968 in Hanover, Germany, Gesa Matthies studied German and American literature as well as cultural mediation. She also earned a Master’s degree in documentary filmmaking from the University of Provence. She has lived and worked in Marseille as a writer-director and editor since 1999.
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