Miranda July does not belong in a box. That is opposed to so many of us who can easily be catalogued and sorted by whatever banner it is we wave. Athlete. Bartender. Cardiologist. July, on the other hand, is as multi-faceted as a Swiss Army knife. Her sharp, creative prowess allows her to take the form of filmmaker, performance artist, and writer. With considerable success in all ventures, the woman who was born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger reached a certain height in 2005 with the release of her first feature film, Me and You and Everyone We Know. But that was just one rung on a rather tall ladder of artistic achievements.
The 35-year-old artist was born in Barre, Vermont to two writer parents, which undoubtedly served to build July’s imagination and interest in creative expression. She began her own writing and staging of plays in Berkeley, California, where she was raised. From there, July moved to Portland, Oregon, the setting of her manifestation into performance artist. However, it was for her work on Me and You and Everyone We Know, which she both wrote and directed, that gained her the attention of both moviegoers and critics. In fact, Filmmaker Magazine rated July number one on its list of “25 New Faces of Indie Film” for 2004.
The filmmaker developed the 2005 release in a Sundance lab, which ultimately found its way back to Utah as an official entry of the Sundance Film Festival, where it went on to win a Special Jury Prize. The film was recognized at Cannes with several awards, including the Caméra d’Or, which honors the best first feature film.
In addition to her writing and directing duties, July also stars in the film, playing a lonely artist and “Eldercab” driver who struggles to make a connection with a single father of two boys. The film is best described using words pulled directly from the filmmaker’s website, mirandajuly.com:
In July’s modern world, the mundane is transcendent and everyday people become radiant characters who speak their innermost thoughts, act on secret impulses, and experience truthful human moments that at times approach the surreal. They seek togetherness through tortured routes and find redemption in small moments that connect them to someone else on earth.
July’s previous involvement in the film medium involves working in various capacities on such short films as “Are You the Favorite Person of Anyone?” (2005 – writer) and “Getting Stronger Every Day” (2001 – editor), among others.
Running its course alongside July’s ventures into film is her life as a performance artist. Performing in venues like theatres and museums, the artisan’s shows often include interactive and multi-media elements. She typically performs individual shows over the course of a few years. Some of her most recent performances include Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going to Talk About (began in 2006), How I Learned to Draw (2002 – 2003), and The Swan Tool (2000 – 2002). In Things We Don’t Understand, July involves members of the audience in lead roles. How I Learned to Draw was a set of constantly changing performances that drew the audience’s attention to the present moment.
Taking a page from her parents’ book, July goes beyond film and performance art to express herself with the written word, as well. Her works of fiction have been published in The Paris Review, Harvard Review, Harper’s, The New Yorker, and several other notable publications. Her collection of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, was published in 2007 and has been translated into 17 languages. July won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award for this work.
The artist, whose imagination knows no boundaries, effortlessly leaps from film to performance art to writing to new media, as is evidenced by her Learning to Love You More website, which was launched in 2002. The site is one in which the general public submitted its own artistic pieces in response to assignments devised by July and fellow artist Harrell Fletcher. Assignments ranged from “climb to the top of a tree and take a picture of the view,” to “document your bald spot,” to the more heavy-handed “spend time with a dying person.” The seven-year “project” ended in May of 2009, though the website (learningtoloveyoumore.com) is still live and continues to display all submitted works for view. The site, its assignments, and its works continue to serve as sources of inspiration for anyone searching for that one great, elusive idea. And perhaps this endless source of ideas is a gift to the liberal of mind, given by the one person who never seems to lack ideas of her own. July is currently working on the film Satisfaction, which she wrote and is directing. It is currently scheduled for a 2010 release.
