Bette Gordon

Gordon holds a BA, MA, and MFA from The University of Wisconsin–Madison and is now a part of the film department of Columbia University School of the Arts. Some of her films are now a part of permanent collections in several different museums including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Gordon began making films in the late 1970s. It was upon her move to New York City in 1979 that she became more focused on full length narratives. She cites French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard as a major inspiration to her as an artist and a filmmaker saying, "Having grown up through the '70s, I could not have found a more appropriate mentor. His radical approach to the use of sound and image helped shape me as much as the questions he asked the viewer to consider, most importantly, the relationship between truth and fiction." She also lists Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love, R.W. Fassbinder, John Cassavetes and films like The Last Picture Show and Midnight Cowboy as inspirational for their portrayal of relationships and love. She considers the time she spent in New York in the early 1980s instrumental to her career - collaborating with other artists for the sake of creating art rather than making money was instrumental to her development as a filmmaker. She is a friend of actor Steve Buscemi and cast him in her film Handsome Harry because she felt as though it was a role unlike any he had ever played before. Gordon married Australian filmmaker Tim Burns and they have one daughter, Lili Burns.

Bette Gordon (born June 22, 1955) is an American filmmaker and professor at Columbia University School of the Arts. She is best known for her films Variety (1983) and Handsome Harry (2009) both of which received critical acclaim in North America and abroad.