From: Cari Machet (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Oct 12 2005 - 20:36:08 PDT
dear anna -
thank you so much for ur insight and clarity
u are very intelligent, i think
i am wondering of ur work
where one could veiw or read or experience such
i was going to just look u up online but maybe you can
direct me to it faster
b well
c
--- Anna Biller <email suppressed> wrote:
> I don't think she was saying that the filmmaker has
> a responsibility to
> interpret her own work. The way I read it was, she
> was objecting to the
> filmmaker's stance as neutral, when the presentation
> of those or any
> other images, when filtered through the filmmaker's
> process, is never
> neutral. Neutrality is a pose, and can be an
> enraging one when the
> issues themselves are so charged for so many people.
>
> And if it is open to interpretation and has many
> potential meanings,
> then it is possible for it to be interpreted as
> racist, as much as it
> is possible for it to be interpreted as challenging
> the viewer about
> racism.
>
> What seems frustrating is that whenever someone gets
> vituperative, the
> conversation turns to a critique of their attitude
> and social graces,
> and then the discussion stops. It's just a tactic to
> shut someone up,
> really.
>
> I was speaking to someone recently about Catherine
> Breillat, whom they
> saw being interviewed at Cannes. I was interested to
> know what she said
> in the interview, but all I could get from the
> person I was speaking to
> was that she thought Breillat had bad social graces,
> bad form. She
> would not wait for the interpreter, she just kept
> talking, she was
> spitting all these words out and bulldozing over
> everyone. And I
> thought, well, she must have had a lot to say. And
> although the woman I
> was talking to speaks fluent French, she was not
> interested in what
> Breillat had to say, only in laughing at, her
> barrage of words. So, it
> sort of ends dialogue.
>
>
>
> On Oct 12, 2005, at 1:22 PM, Jack Sargeant wrote:
>
> > i've just re-read this entire strand, and it's
> become a little
> > pointless. although it is superficially amusing to
> read such
> > vitriol....
> >
> > More to the point some of the assumptions about
> filmmaker's
> > responsibilities regarding ethnicity and depiction
> of 'people of
> > colour' are just nonsense, once the work is
> presented to an audience
> > it has as many (potential) meanings as viewers,
> i'm lost as how the
> > filmmaker can be responsible for the
> interpretation of (presumably
> > non-narrative) film by an audience. further the
> presence of the
> > filmmaker at a screening would presumably be to
> discuss the meanings
> > that they intended possibly against the audience's
> reading, so why
> > didn't you actually engage with the filmmaker
> then?
> >
> > incidentally, if the soundtrack is "not of
> consequence" to you then
> > clearly part of the intended meaning is lost to
> you, as sound probably
> > has a role in the film.
> >
> > jack
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wednesday, October 12, 2005, at 08:06 pm, Cari
> Machet wrote:
> >
> >> thanks 2 u anna
> >> u bring up super interesting ideas to me
> >> about that desirous aparte
> >>
> >> the film "Another Worldy" (there u go lili) is
> of
> >> archival footage of people of color i think in
> india
> >> and africa the images are old (hence archive)
> music is
> >> the soundtrack and not of consequence to me -
> she
> >> just edited together different footage, as i
> remember
> >> it was black and white footage - very national
> geo.
> >> -that's it- and what was more mind boggeling
> (SP?) to
> >> me, besides the fact that she made it was that
> when it
> >> came time for discussion no-one wanted to talk
> about
> >> the content of her film and she basically started
> >> barking and whining at the audience (like one of
> those
> >> small dogs i want to kick like a football)
> proclaiming
> >> how important the subject matter was i.e. that
> their
> >> image was co-opted and objectified and all -
> never
> >> once did it ever cross her mind that she was
> doing the
> >> same thing, or that it was at all possible, that
> was
> >> clear - she just didn't understand why no-one
> wanted
> >> to talk about it, she said - i was irrate and
> spoke
> >> at length to a friend of mine who was there and
> wrote
> >> at the time for "art forum" she agreed with me
> about
> >> the film and the discussion thereafter but i will
> not
> >> post her name as i have not asked permission - i
> >> felt, feel bad for not standing up and screaming
> at
> >> her i feel sadly compliant
> >>
> >> the post that brought the film in was about films
> that
> >> become what they are critisizing because the
> filmmaker
> >> is just being kind of a journalist - the film was
> >> "composition in red and yellow" it is images of
> >> mcdonalds - "criticizing" macdonalds but an
> audience
> >> member the initial poster sat near when veiwing
> said
> >> "how is this not a macdonalds commercial?
> >>
> >> what i was proposing was that lesslie's film is
> >> inherently racist/classist and i asked how is it
> not?
> >> just the question of the veiwer of "composition
> in
> >> red and yellow"
> >>
> >> --- Anna Biller <email suppressed> wrote:
> >>
> >> and I kept
> >>> thinking that the
> >>> need to get outside of white culture is such a
> white
> >>> thing. I mean,
> >>> that it is only when you are inside that you
> want to
> >>> get outside. Or,
> >>> that you use your embracing of the outside to
> give
> >>> you an aura of
> >>> virtue.
> >>
> >> thanks for this i have never come to this
> >> <when you are inside that you want to
> >>> get outside
> >> it is brilliant and very accurate
> >> i don't think she succeeds in any of getting out
> >> nor do i think she ever really wanted to in any
> real
> >> way
> >> she is perfectly happy w/ faux out
> >> and faux virtue
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
__________________________________________________________________
> >> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
__________________________________________________________________
> > For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>
=== message truncated ===
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.