From: Patricia Zimmermann (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Oct 13 2007 - 09:28:24 PDT
Congrats on publishing this important and valuable book--much needed! Brava!
Patricia R. Zimmermann, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Cinema and Photography
Codirector, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival
Ithaca College
Ithaca New York 14850 USA
Phone: 607 274 3431 FAX 607 274 7078
http://faculty.ithaca.edu/patty/
http://www.ithaca.edu/fleff
> Chuck, thanks for sending this out!
>
> Chuck Kleinhans wrote:
>> Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks
>> Robin Blaetz
>>
>> 432 pages (September 2007)
>> 62 illustrations
>>
>> Paperback - $25.95
>>
>> [ISBN13 978-0-8223-4044-7]
>> Women’s Experimental Cinema provides lively introductions to the work of
>> fifteen avant-garde women filmmakers, some of whom worked as early as
>> the 1950s and many of whom are still working today. In each essay in
>> this collection, a leading film scholar considers a single filmmaker,
>> supplying biographical information, analyzing various influences on her
>> work, examining the development of her corpus, and interpreting a
>> significant number of individual films. The essays rescue the work of
>> critically neglected but influential women filmmakers for teaching,
>> further study, and, hopefully, restoration and preservation. Just as
>> importantly, they enrich the understanding of feminism in cinema and
>> expand the terrain of film history, particularly the history of the
>> American avant-garde.
>>
>> The contributors examine the work of Marie Menken, Joyce Wieland, Gunvor
>> Nelson, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Rubin, Amy
>> Greenfield, Barbara Hammer, Chick Strand, Marjorie Keller, Leslie
>> Thornton, Abigail Child, Peggy Ahwesh, Su Friedrich, and Cheryl Dunye.
>> The essays highlight the diversity in these filmmakers’ forms and
>> methods, covering topics such as how Menken used film as a way to
>> rethink the transition from abstract expressionism to Pop Art in the
>> 1950s and 1960s, how Rubin both objectified the body and investigated
>> the filmic apparatus that enabled that objectification in her film
>> Christmas on Earth (1963), and how Dunye uses film to explore her own
>> identity as a black lesbian artist. At the same time, the essays reveal
>> commonalities, including a tendency toward documentary rather than
>> fiction and a commitment to nonhierarchical, collaborative production
>> practices. The volume’s final essay focuses explicitly on teaching
>> women’s experimental films, addressing logistical concerns (how to
>> acquire the films and secure proper viewing spaces) and extending the
>> range of the book by suggesting alternative films for classroom use.
>>
>> Contributors. Paul Arthur, Robin Blaetz, Noël Carroll, Janet Cutler,
>> Mary Ann Doane, Robert A. Haller, Chris Holmlund, Chuck Kleinhans, Scott
>> MacDonald, Kathleen McHugh, Ara Osterweil, Maria Pramaggiore, Melissa
>> Ragona, Kathryn Ramey, M. M. Serra, Maureen Turim, William C. Wees
>>
>> “Women’s Experimental Cinema is an invaluable resource for students and
>> devotees of experimental cinema and feminist film, fields defined by
>> remarkable films and a dearth of critical attention. It brings to light
>> the social and political roots and cultural impact of women’s
>> experimental film, and the specific female, feminine, and feminist
>> practices of an exceptional group of women artists.”—Alexandra Juhasz,
>> editor of Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video
>>
>>
>>
>> “This definitive volume on U.S. women’s experimental cinema fills a
>> significant and long-lamented gap within film studies, and in feminist
>> film studies in particular. Together, these essays offer us a richly
>> nuanced picture not only of women’s experimental film but of avant-garde
>> filmmaking in general from the 1940s to the present.”—Sharon Willis,
>> author of High Contrast: Race and Gender in Contemporary Hollywood Film
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Robin Blaetz is Associate Professor and Chair of the Film Studies
>> Program at Mount Holyoke College. She is the author of Visions of the
>> Maid: Joan of Arc in American Film and Culture.
>>
>>
>> Acknowledgments ix
>> Introduction: Women’s Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks / Robin
>> Blaetz 1
>> Swing and Sway: Marie Menken’s Filmic Events / Melissa Ragona 20
>> Different/Same/Both/Neither: The Polycentric Cinema of Joyce Wieland /
>> Paul Arthur 45
>> Evacuating Visual Fields, Layering Auditory Frames: Signature,
>> Translation, Resonance, and Gunvor Nelson’s Films / Chris Holmlund 67
>> Moving and Moving: From Minimalism to Lives of Performers / Noel Carroll
>> 89
>> Eye/Body: The Cinematic Paintings of Carolee Schneemann / M.M. Serra and
>> Kathryn Ramey 103
>> “Absently Enchanted”: The Apocryphal, Ecstatic Cinema of Barbara Rubin /
>> Ara Osterweil 127
>> Amy Greenfield: Film, Dynamic Movement, and Transformation / Robert A.
>> Haller 152
>> Barbara Hammer: Lyrics and History / Chuck Kleinhans 167
>> Chick Strand’s Experimental Ethnography / Maria Pramaggiore 188
>> Amnesis Time: The Films of Marjorie Keller / Robin Blaetz 211
>> In the Ruins of the Image: The Work of Leslie Thornton / Mary Ann Doane
>> 239
>> Sounds, Intervals, and Startling Images in the Films of Abigail Child /
>> Maureen Turim 263
>> Peggy’s Playhouse: Contesting the Modernist Paradigm / William C. Wees
>> 290
>> Su Friedrich: Breaking the Rules / Janet Cutler 312
>> The Experimental “Dunyementary”: A Cinematic Signature Effect / Kathleen
>> McHugh 339
>> Women’s Experimental Cinema: Some Pedgogical Challenges / Scott
>> Macdonald 360
>> Appendix: Film Distribution 383
>> Bibliography 385
>> Contributors 401
>> Index 405
>>
>>
>>
>> CHUCK KLEINHANS
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
> --
> Robin Blaetz
> Associate Professor
> Film Studies Program
> Mount Holyoke College
> 50 College Street
> South Hadley, MA 10175
> 413-538-2984
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.