George Lucas’ brilliant ex-wife was secret weapon in ‘Star Wars’
This shit’s been going on since time immemorial – before movies, it was wives editing and proofing books, sometimes putting in enough work that, had they been male, they would’ve been credited as co-authors.
That’s why having George Miller rhapsodize about how amazing his wife Margaret Sixel is and how important she was to Fury Road was so unusual and important – too often, women’s contributions to their husbands’ creative endeavors are viewed as a sort of marital obligation, not achievements in their own right.
Also, there’s this:
“You can see the huge difference in the films that he does now and the films that he did when he was married,” [Mark] Hamill pointed out in the 2005 interview, in a not-so-subtle dig at the prequels.
Yeowch.
Yes! Now, THIS is a valid and important case of a male director taking credit for/refusing to give credit due female work on “his” project, not to mention prime auteur theory bullshit.
“When we were finishing ‘Jedi,’ George told me he thought I was a pretty good editor. In the sixteen years of our being together I think that was the only time he complimented me.”
In “The Secret History of Star Wars,” Kaminski makes the case that she has been “practically erased from the history books at Lucasfilm” as a result of the divorce.
“[She] is mentioned only occasionally in passing, a background element, and not a single word of hers is quoted; she is a silent extra, absent from any photographs and only indirectly acknowledged, her contributions downplayed,” he writes.
“Marcia Lucas, the ‘other’ Lucas, has basically become the forgotten Lucas.”
This happens enough that we’re not shocked or surprised.
You know, I just watched the first trilogy, and noticed that she was listed as one of the editors. Having recently heard about Mad Max, I wondered how much of the movies’ greatness came from her.
I watched some of the BTS stuff talking about the history of the originals, and they talked about how originally George wanted to fill Star Wars with all sorts of history and politics and talky-talky stuff–all of the things that made the prequels pretty ugh. I wonder how much of that Marcia talked him out of.