Posted on Wednesday, August 06 @ 00:00:00 EST by tim milfull

Reviewed by Phoebe Hart

Women’s Experimental Cinema charts the growth of avant-garde filmmaking by women throughout history, focusing in particular on works from the 1960s onwards. Of course, the time of the feminist movement—as well as other social movements and sexual revolutions—was an era that heralded an influx of cutting-edge cinema being created by and about women. Women’s Experimental Cinema examines the seminal texts from this period, and extends its scope through to recent works produced in the twenty-first century. This is a marginal area of cinema—not only in terms of genre and authorship, but also in terms of academic criticism.


Admirably, this book gathers the formidable scholastic clout of academics such as Mary Ann Doane, Chuck Kleinhans and Noel Carroll, all of whom attempt to map the field of women’s experimental filmmaking. As such, each chapter focuses on one filmmaker; there are chapters devoted to Marie Menken, Joyce Wieland, Barbara Rubin, Carolee Schneemann, Chick Strand, and Abigail Child, among others.

There have been obvious attempts to include directors from various backgrounds—both socially and artistically. The common thread lies in the challenge their work presents to patriarchal discourses of cinema, and the hegemony of Hollywood. Whether by viewing domesticity through a female lens, or by enacting body politics on celluloid, their use of politics, poetics and process creates filmic interpretations contest paradigms of desire, linguistics, and ontology.

I reviewed this book by a coincidence of sorts, while reading a earlier book entitled Women and Experimental Filmmaking, published by University of Illinois Press (2005). In comparison, I found the former to be chiefly about establishing the historical value of the works analysed. In comparison, the latter is much more concerned with discourses of representation and feminine identity. Women’s Experimental Cinema benefits from a rigorous analysis of aesthetics and voice of the many artists featured throughout. I was also interested to read about the films’ reception by audiences when they were screened, and the cultural, political and social ruptures the works themselves have provoked (or attempt to provoke), which are often recounted in the artist’s own words.

Despite the fact that these practitioners are neither very well-known, nor given their due in the male-dominated world the cinema and film studies, their contribution to the field is well established nonetheless. I find it frustrating that always the works of Cheryl Dunye, Su Friedrich, and others are cited time and again in such texts that assay films by women. Credit must be given to William C. Wees and his chapter on the contemporary projects of Peggy Ahwesh, who pushes the boundaries of technology, and post modernism / feminism. It would be terrific to privilege filmmakers outside of Europe and America with similar critical analysis, and to identify the inroads of new filmmakers. In Australia, there is a new crop of guerrilla grrls with cameras – Sally Golding, Abie Thoms, Louise Curham, Bonnie Hart – it would be great to see their work acknowledged (if not in a book such as this, then elsewhere soon).

Ultimately, however, I would recommend Women’s Experimental Cinema as a worthy omnibus for students of film or gender studies, and fans of experimental filmmaking. It provides an interesting insight for all filmmakers in understanding the innovations, motivations and objectives of the genre. Educators will also find this book valuable, in particular Scott McDonald’s chapter on the challenges of teaching about these films in schools and in the academy.

Incidentally, I found reading this book with UbuWeb open in my Internet browser was a great way to see some of the ‘hard to get your hands on’ films being discussed in this book. UbuWeb is a free, independent source of experimental filmmaking resource with a long list of ‘ethnopoetic’ films available to view online in their entirety. Enjoy!


Women’s Experimental Cinema
(2007)

Edited by Robin Blaetz
Duke University Press
ISBN 13 978-0-8223-4023-2
432pp US$25.95

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