Isabella Rossellini’s Mammas
[http://www.sundancechannel.com/series/mammas] is an unsentimental
look at motherhood — very unsentimental. The mothers in this new
series of film shorts take multiple husbands, abandon their young,
even cannibalize them. And they take maternal self-sacrifice to an
extreme, letting their hungry young devour them.
The mothers in these films are, respectively, a dunnock, a cuckoo, a
hamster, and a spider. As in her previous series, the celebrated Green
Porno [http://www.sundancechannel.com/series/greenporno], Rossellini
wrote, directed, and stars as the creatures, setting herself in
imaginative scenarios and costumes she describes as “ridiculous.”
(Portraying a brown toad, she wears what seems to be a trash bag.)
She is perhaps the only renowned film actress to fully embrace the
medium of the web video. But while the videos are a far cry from David
Attenborough’s nature docs [http://www.davidattenborough.co.uk/],
Rossellini’s interest in animals is serious, and as each mother
explains her childrearing strategy, Rossellini has her facts straight.
Rossellini is working on her master’s degree in animal behavior at
New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. “As
a semiretired actress, like any retired person, you always fear
boredom," she says. "As I worked less as a model and an actress
because of age, I was always interested in animal behavior, and I
thought I’d go back and study it.”
Video: "Wasp" from Mammas
The inspiration for Mammas came from the work of evolutionary
biologist Marlene Zuk
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520240758/studi360-20/]. Zuk
wrote that self-sacrifice was not the basis of maternal instinct — a
commonly held anthropomorphism — but rather good management of
resources. Which might, if you were a hamster, include eating a pup or
two from the litter, so you are well-nourished to nurse the others.
“I felt relief to know that there are many strategies to perpetuate
your genes,” Rossellini tells Kurt Andersen.
A great fan of Attenborough’s films, Rossellini nevertheless felt
something was missing from the conventional approach to nature
filmmaking. “Animals make me laugh," she says. "That was a voice
that that wasn’t expressed, so I thought maybe I could do that.”
Mammas premieres on the Sundance Channel
[http://www.sundancechannel.com/series/mammas] in time for Mother’s
Day.
Bonus Track: Isabella Rossellini's 3 for 360
