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Miranda July

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Miranda July
At the Berlin International Film Festival 2011 after the screening of The Future
Born (1974-02-15) February 15, 1974 (age 50)
Barre, Vermont, U.S.
Occupation(s)Actress, director, screenwriter, singer
SpouseMike Mills (2009-present)

Miranda Jennifer July (born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger on February 15, 1974) is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, author and artist. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital media presentations, and live performance art. She wrote, directed and starred in the films Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) and The Future (2011). Her most recent book, debut novel The First Bad Man, was published in January 2015.[1]

Background

Miranda Jennifer July was born in Barre, Vermont in 1974,[2] the daughter of Lindy Hough and Richard Grossinger. Her parents, who taught at Goddard College at the time, are both writers.[3] In 1974 they founded North Atlantic Books, a publisher of alternative health, martial arts, and spiritual titles.[4] Her father was Jewish, and her mother was Protestant.[5] July was encouraged to work on her short fiction by author and friend of a friend Rick Moody.[6]

Miranda grew up in Berkeley, California, where she first began writing plays and staging them at the all-ages club 924 Gilman. She attended The College Preparatory School in Oakland for high school. She later attended UC Santa Cruz, dropping out in her sophomore year.[7] After leaving college, she moved to Portland, Oregon and took up performance art. Her performances were successful; she has been quoted as saying she has not worked a day job since she was 23 years old.[8]

Filmmaking

Miranda July reading at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco

Beginning in 1995,[9] while residing in Portland, July began a project called Joanie4Jackie (originally called "Big Miss Moviola")[10] that solicited short films by women, which she compiled onto video cassettes, using the theme of a chain letter. She then sent the cassette to the participants, and to subscribers to the series, and offered them for sale to others interested. In addition to the chain letter series, July began a second series called the Co-Star Series, in which she invited friends from larger cities to select a group of films outside of the chain letter submissions. The curators included Miranda July, Rita Gonzalez, and Astria Suparak. The Joanie4Jackie series also screened at film festivals and DIY movie events. So far, thirteen editions have been released, the latest in 2002.

Filmmaker Magazine rated her number one in their "25 New Faces of Indie Film" in 2004. After winning a slot in a Sundance workshop, she developed her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which opened in 2005. The film won The Caméra d'Or prize in The Cannes Festival 2005[11] as well as the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Best First Feature at the Philadelphia Film Festival, Feature Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival.[12]

At her speaking engagement at the Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco's Mission District on May 16, 2007, July mentioned that she was currently working on a new film. This film was originally titled "Satisfaction" but was later renamed The Future, with July in a lead role.[13] The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.[14]

Wayne Wang consulted with July about aspects of his feature length film The Center of the World,[15] for which she received a "story by" credit.

Audio

She recorded her first EP for Kill Rock Stars in 1996, titled Margie Ruskie Stops Time, with music by The Need. After that, she released two more full-length LPs, 10 Million Hours A Mile in 1997 and Binet-Simon Test in 1998, both released on Kill Rock Stars. In 1999 she made a split EP with IQU, released on K Records.

On their 2010 EP Distractions, Australian band Regurgitator released a track titled "Miranda July" that talks of singer Quan Yeomans writing a letter to her.

Acting

At the San Francisco Cinematheque fundraiser held at Theater Artaud, October 23, 2006

July has acted in many of her own videos, including Atlanta, The Amateurist, Nest of Tens, Are You The Favorite Person of Anyone?, and her films Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future.[16] She also made a small appearance in the film Jesus' Son. She appeared in an episode of Portlandia in 2012.

Multimedia

In 1998, July made her first full-length multimedia performance piece, Love Diamond, in collaboration with composer Zac Love and with help from artist Jamie Isenstein; she called it a "live movie." She performed it at venues around the country, including the New York Video Festival, The Kitchen, and Yo-yo a Go-go in Olympia. She created her next major full-length performance piece, The Swan Tool, in 2000, also in collaboration with Love, with digital production work by Mitsu Hadeishi. She performed this piece in venues around the world, including the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

In 2006, after completing her first feature film, she went on to create another multimedia piece, Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going To Talk About, which she performed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York.[17]

Her short story The Boy from Lam Kien was published in 2005 by Cloverfield Press, as a special-edition book with illustration by Elinor Nissley and Emma Hedditch. Her next story, Something That Needs Nothing, was published in the September 18, 2006, issue of The New Yorker. No One Belongs Here More Than You is a 224-page collection of her stories which was released on May 15, 2007. It won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award on September 24, 2007.[18]

With artist Harrell Fletcher, July founded the online arts project called Learning to Love You More (2002–2009). The project's website offered assignments to artists whose submissions became part of "an ever-changing series of exhibitions, screenings and radio broadcasts presented all over the world".[19] In addition to its Internet presentations, Learning to Love You More also compiled exhibitions for the Whitney Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and other hosts.[19][20] A book version of the project's online art was released in 2007.[20][21]

In 2013 she started We Think Alone, an art project involving Sheila Heti, Danh Vo, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lena Dunham and Kirsten Dunst among others where some friends share with July a private mail on a specific topic.[22] July sends a weekly newsletter to the project´s subscribers with the content of those mails in an attempt to display how mail affects everyone's daily life and the innate voyeurism in each person.[22]

In 2014 she created an iOS app, "Somebody",[23] which allows users to compose a message to be delivered to someone else in-person, or to deliver someone else's message in-person. When you send your friend a message through Somebody, it goes — not to your friend — but to the Somebody user nearest your friend. This person (likely a stranger) delivers the message verbally, acting as your stand-in. Somebody is a far-reaching public art project that incites performance and twists our love of avatars and outsourcing — every relationship becomes a three-way. The project was funded by Miu Miu.[24] The app closed on 31 October 2015.[25]

Writing

No One Belongs Here More Than You

July's collection of short vignettes was published by Scribner in 2007.[26] In her review for the New York Times, reviewer Sheelah Kolhatkar gave the collection a mixed review writing, "A handful of these stories are sweet and revealing, although in many cases the attempt to create “art” is too self-conscious, and the effort comes off as pointlessly strange." [26] The collection was highly regarded by other writers and critics including George Saunders, Dave Eggers and Amy Hempel. As of 2015 the collection has more than 200,000 copies in circulation.[27]

The First Bad Man

July's first novel The First Bad Man was published by Scribner in January 2015.[28] The narrative centers around Cheryl Glickman, a middle-aged woman in crisis whose life abruptly changes course when a young woman moves into her home.[28]

In her review for the New York Times Book Review, reviewer Lauren Groff writes The First Bad Man "makes for a wry, smart companion on any day. It’s warm. It has a heartbeat and a pulse. This is a book that is painfully alive." [29]

Personal life

July dated Radio Sloan from The Need when she first moved to Portland. She went on to date K Records founder Calvin Johnson.[30] July is married to the artist and film director Mike Mills, with whom she has a son, Hopper, who was born in February 2012.[31][32]

Johanna Fateman, of the post-punk band Le Tigre, has referred to July as being her "best friend from high school".[33]

In a 2007 interview with Bust magazine, July spoke of the importance which feminism has had in her life, saying, "What's confusing about [being a feminist]? It's just being pro-your ability to do what you need to do. It doesn't mean you don't love your boyfriend or whatever...When I say 'feminist', I mean that in the most complex, interesting, exciting way!"[34]

Works

Publications

Books

  • The Boy from Lam Kien (July 1, 2005) (Cloverfield Press)
  • The Dead bones (October 20, 2005) (Cloverfield Press)
  • No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories (May 15, 2007) (Scribner)
  • Learning to Love You More (with Harrell Fletcher) (Fall/Autumn 2007) (Prestel Publishing)
  • Corpse Tale (May 30, 2009) (McSweeney's, Irregulars)
  • It Chooses You (November 15, 2011) (McSweeney's, Irregulars)
  • The First Bad Man: A Novel (January 13, 2015) (Scribner)

Discography

Albums

  • 10 Million Hours a Mile (1997) (Kill Rock Stars)
  • The Binet-Simon Test (1998) (Kill Rock Stars)

EPs

  • Margie Ruskie Stops Time EP (1996) with music by The Need (Kill Rock Stars)
  • Girls on Dates split EP with IQU (1999) (K Records)

Filmography

Short films

  • I Started Out With Nothing and I Still Have Most of It Left
  • Featured in Emily B. Kingan's documentary The Portland Girl Convention (1996)
  • A Shape Called Horse on Video Fanzine #1 (Kill Rock Stars)
  • Atlanta (1996) on Audio-Cinematic Mix Tape (Peripheral Produce)
  • The Amateurist (1998) part of Joanie4Jackie4Ever
  • Nest of Tens (2000) (Peripheral Produce)
  • Getting Stronger Every Day (2001) on Peripheral Produce’s All-Time Greatest Hits
  • Narrator on Matt McCormick's The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal (2001) on Peripheral Produce’s All-Time Greatest Hits (Peripheral Produce)
  • Haysha Royko (2003)
  • Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? (2005) (Wholphin (DVD))
  • Things We Don't Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About (Spring 2007)[citation needed]

Many of these works are distributed by the Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Full length

Music videos

Performances

  • Love Diamond (1998–2000)
  • The Swan Tool (2000–2002)
  • How I Learned to Draw (2002–2003)
  • Things We Don't Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About (2006–present)
  • Eleven Heavy Things (2009)
  • New Society (2015)

References

  1. ^ http://books.simonandschuster.biz/The-First-Bad-Man/Miranda-July/9781439172568
  2. ^ Morris, Wesley (26 June 2005). "Putting all they know to work". The Boston Globe. The NY Times Co. Retrieved 27 June 2012. (subscription required)
  3. ^ "The Miranda July Story". Underground Literary Alliance. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
  4. ^ "North Atlantic Books". North Atlantic Books.
  5. ^ Onstad, Katrina (2011-07-14). "Miranda July, The Make-Believer". The New York Times.
  6. ^ Ashman, Angela (2007-05-08). "You and Her and Everything She Knows". The Village Voice. It was author Rick Moody, a "family friend of a friend," who encouraged July to write. But Moody takes little credit for her success. He envies July's dialogue, a skill he attributes to her training as an actress and ability to mimic anyone. "She's completely intuitive," he says. "There are no schools of writing working themselves out in her. No history of literature. She just does what she does, and as a result she's a complete original."
    "Case in point: When she recently spent time at the famous Yaddo artists' retreat, July felt somewhat out of her element when the conversation turned to writing in first, second, or third person. "Someone asked me, 'What person are you writing in?'" she recalls. "And I had no idea." If you're wondering, the stories are in the first person, a habit from her performance art.
  7. ^ "A moment with performance artist/filmmaker Miranda July". SeattlePi.com. 2005-05-30. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
  8. ^ Johnson, G. Allen (2005-06-29). "Performance artist's new role -- film director". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2006-04-11.
  9. ^ uly, Miranda, aka Joanie4Jackie, Ed. Big Miss Moviola Chainletter Tape. Portland, Oregon, 1996. Slip-cased VSH videotape compilation.
  10. ^ "Everything About Some Kind of Loving". Joanie4Jackie.com. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  11. ^ "Cannes 2005: The Winners". indieWIRE.com. 2005-05-21. Archived from the original on November 30, 2006. Retrieved 2007-08-08. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ "Me and You and Everyone We Know". IFC Films. 2005. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
  13. ^ Finding 'Satisfaction' Variety May 15, 2008
  14. ^ Olsen, Mark (2011-01-21). "Sundance Film Festival: Miranda July looks into 'The Future'". Los Angeles Times.
  15. ^ The Center of the World (2001), IMDb
  16. ^ "Me and You and Everyone We Know". MirandaJuly.com. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
  17. ^ "MIRANDA JULY: performances". MirandaJuly.com. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
  18. ^ Lea, Richard (2007-09-24). "Award-winning film-maker scoops short story prize". London: guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
  19. ^ a b Yuri Ono (designer) (2009). "Hello". Learningtoloveyoumore.com. Miranda July; Harrell Fletcher. Retrieved 27 June 2012.
  20. ^ a b KCAI (2009). "Current Perspectives lecture series, Spring 2009: Harrell Fletcher". Kcai.edu. Kansas City Art Institute. Retrieved 27 June 2012.
  21. ^ July, Miranda; Fletcher, Harrell (2007). Learning to Love You More. Munich; New York: Prestel. ISBN 3791337335.
  22. ^ a b July, Miranda. "We Think Alone", Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  23. ^ Stinson, Liz. "Miranda July Creates an App That Doubles as a Social Experiment". Wired. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  24. ^ Alter, Alexandar (9 January 2015). "An Escape Artist, Unlocking Door After Door Miranda July Blurs Fiction and Reality to Promote a Novel". New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  25. ^ http://somebodyapp.com/
  26. ^ a b Kolhatkar, Sheelah (1 July 2007). "Cringe Festival". New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  27. ^ Alter, Alexandra (9 January 2015). "An Escape Artist, Unlocking Door After Door Miranda July Blurs Fiction and Reality to Promote a Novel". New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  28. ^ a b Kakutani, Michiko (11 January 2015). "Crouched Behind a Barricade, Until a Crude Stranger Barges In Miranda July's 'The First Bad Man'". New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  29. ^ Groff, Lauren (16 January 2015). "SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW: 'The First Bad Man,' by Miranda July". New York Times. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  30. ^ "Miranda July". KUCI.org. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
  31. ^ "Judd Apatow vs. Miranda July". Huck Magazine. January 5, 2013. Retrieved June 18, 2013.
  32. ^ Hiebert, Paul (June 2, 2010). "Miranda July Makes Art That Requires People". Flavorwire. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
  33. ^ Fateman, Johanna. "My Herstory". LeTigreWorld.com. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
  34. ^ Feministing
  35. ^ "Get Up: Sleater-Kinney's last show: A retrospective". PitchforkMedia.com. 2006-08-28. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
  36. ^ "Video: Blonde Redhead: "Top Ranking"". PitchforkMedia.com. 2007-05-24. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Miranda July.

Works

Interviews

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