From: Phil Solomon (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Feb 16 2004 - 17:12:56 PST
---a little contribution that might be relevant to the current discussion.
Here is part of a syllabus from a course that I taught about 8 years ago at CU
Boulder called Independent Women Filmmakers (its a bit dated, and I would
certainly revise it if I were to do it again), taking over from Stan Brakhage
when he first got ill - and his own syllabus was very interesting and quite
different. (I think he had already shown Dulac and other early filmmakers-
that's why she is not inlcuded here, when I started a month into the
semester). Obviously my choices were limited by what I already knew and
admired (as I had to get this course together in a rush), the films that were
already in our collection and my budget for rentals, and, of course, my own
interests. This is from a rough draft that left out all the dates, etc. It was
a pretty wonderful class, as I recall:
INDEPENDENT WOMEN FILMMAKERS
The purpose of this class is to pursue an overview of the extraordinary work
done by individual women filmmakers (sometimes in collaboration) over the past
50 years or so. The reason to segregate out these filmmakers by gender is
because they have essentially been left out of most established historical
texts, in both the “art” world (which has concentrated more on video makers)
and the “film” world (where feminist film theory has focused mainly on feature
filmmakers). By segregating out these films, looking at them closely, within a
variety of contexts, we can hope to place them back in their proper place in
the history of art in the twentieth century. I have pursued a few different
strategies in the hope of unexpected illuminations. We will look at a variety
of short works by single artists (Deren, Menken, Nelson, Thornton), long works
by single artists (Rainer, Clarke), but we will also consider films in a
variety of thematic contexts : mothers/ daughters /fathers /identities / love
/birth /queerness / etc. By grouping films under these headers, we will see
how different artists approach similar, profound themes with very different
aesthetic strategies.The syllabus shows an overall (flexible) chronology,
which might uncover influences, and illuminate recurring patterns or themes
that have emerged in filmmaking by individual women in the twentieth century.
By semester’s end, I hope to raise the following questions (without a
preconceived answer):
Is there a “feminine” (or “masculine”) aesthetic? What recurring themes or
patterns emerge over the century of filmmaking by women?
Are there distinct differences in film/video making between genders?
How does recent feminist film theory account (or not) for individual
filmmakers?
How does technology affect aesthetics?
Is there such a thing as a gender specific “voice” or “line”?
How does being marginalized affect the aesthetics of filmmaking (as opposed to
the dominant commerical cinema?)
Is it useful to segregate genders in the study of art?
Mostly I hope to turn you on to a rich culture of filmmaking, a fecundity of
ideas and feeling.
Syllabus - Independent Women Filmmakers
Wed Sept 25 - Culpabilities
Deutschland Speigel (1980) - Sharon Couzin
The Ties That Bind (1984) - Su Friedrich
Friday Sept 27 - Mary Ellen Bute films (see Brakhage syllabus)
Wednesday Oct 2 - Maya Deren
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
At Land (1944)
A Study in Choreography for the Camera (1945)
Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946)
Meditation on Violence (1948)
Friday October 4 - Marie Menken
Geography of the body (1948) - Willard Maas, George Barker, Marie Menken
Dwightitana, Hurry Hurry (1957)
Go Go Go (1962-4)
Andy Warhol (1965)
Lights (1964-66)
Moonplay
Wednesday October 9 - Direct address, sexual confessions
Soft Fiction (1979)- Chick Strand
A Spy in the House that Ruth Built (1989) - Vanalynne Green (video)
Jollies (1990) - Sadie Benning
Vital Statistics of a Citizen, simply obtained (1977) - Martha Rosler
Friday October 11 - Urban Visions
In the Street - Helen Levitt
Bridges Go Round - Shirley Clarke
The Cool World - Shirley Clarke
Wednesday October 16 - Imaging the Body: Love/Birth
Loving - Stan Brakhage
Fuses - Carolee Schneeman
Plumbline - Carolee Schneeman
The Color of Love - Peggy Ahwesh
Window Water Baby Moving - Stan Brakhage
Schmeerguntz - Gunvor Nelson
Misconception - Marjorie Keller
Friday, October 18 - Gunvor Nelson - Artist as Mother and Daughter
My Name is Oona (1969)
Red Shift (1984)
Time Being (1991)
Wednesday October 23 - Mothers and Mothers’ Mothers
Department of the Interior - Nina Fonorof
Memories from the Deptartment of Amnesia - Janice Tanaka (video)
Receiving Sally - Erin Sax
Love Stories My Grandmother Tells Me - Dana Plays
Optic Nerve - Barbara Hammer
Friday October 25 - Daughters and Fathers
Sink or Swim (1990) - Su Friedrich
A Knowledge They Cannot Lose (1989) - Nina Fonoroff
Wednesday October 30 - Daughters and Mothers
Martina’s Playhouse (1989) - Peggy Ahwesh
Slippage (1989) - Patti Bruck
News From Home - Chantal Ackerman
Friday November 1 - Gunvor Nelson’s Field Studies Series
Frameline (1984)
Light Years (1987)
Light Years Expanding (1989)
Field Studies #2 (1990)
Wednesday November 6 - Myths and Culture
Natural Features (1990) - Gunvor Nelson
Guacamole - Chick Strand
Wattuna (1989) - Stacy Steers
Rat Life and Diet in North America - Joyce Wieland
Trapline (1976) - Ellie Epp
Friday - November 8 - Identities
She-Va (1971) - Marjorie Keller
Daughters of Chaos (1980) - Marjorie Keller
Lets Play Prisoners (1989) - Julie Zando (video)
Bedtime Stories - Esther Shatavsky
Girls Dream of Hollywood - Jennifer Reeves
Wednesday November 13 - Material Girls I
Midweekend (1988) - Caroline Avery
Mantilla - Julie Murray
Scratchman II - Heather Mc Adams
Holiday Magic - Heather Mc Adams
Mr. Glenn W. Turner - Heather Mc Adams
Configuration 20 (1994) - Jen Reeves
Friday November 15 - Material Girls II
Mutiny (1982-3) - Abigail Child
Covert Action (1984) - Abigail Child
Mayhem (1987) - Abigail Child
The Little Lieutenant - Henry Hills/Sally Silvers
LMNO - Robert Breer
Brute Charm (1987) - Emily Breer
Fluke - Emily Breer
The Girl’s Nervy - Jennifer Reeves
Wednesday November 20 - The Peggy and Fred in Hell cycle - Leslie Thornton
Friday - November 22 - Chronicles of Illness
Chronic (1996) - Jennifer Reeves
The Accursed Mazurka (1995) - Nina Fonoroff
Last Lost (1996) - Eve Heller
Wednesday November 27 - Journeys to Berlin - Yvonne Rainer
Wednesday, December 4 - Reclaiming the Body
Futility - Greta Snider
Blood Story - Greta Snider
Maternal Filigree (1980) - Sandra Davis
The Red Book - Janie Geiser
Who Do You Think You Are? (1987)- Mary Fillipo
Mary Magdalene - M.M. Serra
The House of Science - Lynn Sachs
Friday , December 6 - Queerness
Gently Down the Stream - Su Friedrich
Vital Signs (1991)- Barbara Hammer
Nitrate Kisses (excerpt) - Barbara Hammer
Monsters in the Closet - Jen Reeves
Sadie Benning works on tape
Phil Solomon
Matt Teichman wrote:
> Shelly Silver wrote:
> > > The point of asking it was that the question of how to interpret these
> > > sorts of stats is a very deep one...the matter is an
> > > inordinately complicated one, leading to labyrinth upon labyrinth of
> > > chicken-egg regressions....
> >
> >I don't think what I'm talking about is so complicated.
>
> You can pretend it isn't, but that will only lead you to easy answers like
> "women aren't any good at math." (or affirmative action, which is just as
> unacceptable)
>
> I absolutely agree with what you've written about the invisibility of
> biases, and about how gender issues are as relevant today as they ever were
> (though I would question your use of terminology like "equality," as though
> people were numerical quantities).
>
> But I was serious when I asked if you could name particular filmmakers, and
> I don't know why James thought of the query as "bait." It comes out of a
> conversation I was having once, to the effect of something like "Why the
> hell can't we think of more than a handful of great women
> filmmakers? Isn't it depressing?" If we had decided then and there to put
> together our own Essential Cinema collection, of course there would have
> been a gender disproportion. Not because we "identify" with films by white
> males (by the way, my interlocutor was female and Indian), but because we
> have been able to see a great many more films by folks of this category.
>
> It may be true that there is a tendency for people to curate work with
> which they identify, but I think the phenomenon of identification is more
> complicated than you suggest; gender, race, class, and sexuality are but
> four among millions of other nameless registers on which identification, as
> well as stereotyping, can take place. To reduce every case of
> discrimation/bias to this kind of simple typology is to contribute to the
> problem.
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.