Donna Deitch is a director we value for her restraint with intimacy and attention to women’s experiences. Her television work deserves respect too, though the strongest qualities of those programmes belong to their casts and writers as well.
Fi1m perspective
In the intimate scenes of Desert Hearts (1985), Donna Deitch trusts the chemistry between the performers instead of pushing for a bigger effect. We were moved by that restraint: the attraction does not need to be underlined to hold our attention. Adapted from Jane Rule’s novel, the independent feature is a useful starting point for her interest in women’s experiences. The lovers’ familiar romantic roles can be limiting, even when the chemistry works.
The turn towards television came through The Women of Brewster Place (1989), the four-hour miniseries Deitch directed for Oprah Winfrey. Michael Crichton’s ER (1994) shows the sort of sustained, character-led drama to which she subsequently contributed. We find the series tense and humane because the hospital work is given as much weight as the people doing it, even when the crowded storytelling leaves an individual case underdeveloped. Deitch was one of its directors; its success cannot sensibly be assigned to any one of them.
NYPD Blue (1993), on which she directed 13 episodes between 1995 and 2003, is another good reason to follow that television work. Dennis Franz’s Andy Sipowicz and the writing sustain our interest, while the rough style promises more novelty than the conventional plotting delivers. We recommend it warmly, with that caveat about the plotting. Deitch’s repeated work on the programme fits the move towards episodic directing that came to occupy much of her career.
That shift did not mean she gave up documentary: Angel on My Shoulder (1998), about actress Gwen Welles, also credits Deitch as producer, cinematographer and editor. She had begun in still photography and documentary, so the television career should not obscure the films on which she took several of those jobs herself. Episodic directing is only part of the work worth exploring here. For a single evening, begin with Desert Hearts; ER asks for a longer commitment, and earns it.
Biography
Donna Deitch is an American film and television director. She was born on 8 June 1945 in San Francisco, California.
Deitch directed the 1985 feature film Desert Hearts. She has directed episodes of numerous television series, including ER (1995), NYPD Blue (1995–2003), Heroes (2006) and Grey's Anatomy (2010). Her other credits include the miniseries The Women of Brewster Place (1989) and the television film The Devil's Arithmetic (1999).
She trained at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and began her career as a documentary filmmaker and still photographer.
