From: Matt Teichman (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Feb 17 2004 - 06:28:03 PST
James Kreul wrote:
>Because the question misses so many points.
It's funny you should say the question "misses" these points, as they are
the exact points (particularly the first and the third) it was intended to
raise.
The conversation was depressing precisely because we realized that so
thoroughly have works by women been written out of history, even someone
who was actively seeking them out was going to have trouble coming up with
very many.
I'm glad to see your list of women who might conceivably have been
included, because your research puts you in an excellent position to come
up with one. Here's the one I came up with, not for the purposes of
bickering, but because I'm struck by the amount of overlap:
Mary Ellen Bute
Alla Nazimova
Shirley Clarke
Yvonne Rainer
Germaine Dulac
Gunvor Nelson
Joyce Wieland
Dore O
Storm de Hirsch
Sara Kathryn Arledge
Jane Brakhage
Carolee Schneemann
The fact that we could also bicker about the exclusion of fifteen men is, I
think, quite relevant. Were more women than men excluded from EC? Even if
this were the case numerically, how do we tell whether it was a question of
whose films Mekas, Broughton, Kubelka, Kelman, and Sitney were identifying
with? Is it appropriate to assume, without knowing anything additional
about them or the circumstances?
I still think the idea that films by women, or by gays, or by pansexual
Aztec hermaphrodites, or by straight white males represent a coherent
position is ridiculous. There is no reason that anyone of one category
cannot identify with a film by someone of another category, more deeply
than they identify with "their own."
And re: Roger's post, I don't think that aesthetically pleasing films are
the exclusive territory of white boys. Djibril Diop Mambety wasn't exactly
a "white guy with decent schooling," but he made just about the most
beautiful films I've ever seen.
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