1LolaWalser
The thread title is borrowed from a rubric on Kanopy, a streaming service that offers free movies (only 8/month, at least here) via public libraries.
I was bowled over by Womanhouse (the touchstone goes to a catalogue), 1974:
Where to begin... I don't know if it's just that I'm extraordinarily isolated, but this type of collaboration, existence, group activity seems to me to be rare today. Or is it that that period appears more effervescent, more hopeful, perhaps because it was earlier? I don't really have any sense of "the seventies", as I was a baby and a kid then, so I don't feel any sort of a "sociological" barrier to what these women are saying and doing, I don't feel "oh, it's the past speaking". I mean, sure, or maybe--but it STILL freaking speaks to me, in 2020!
Turns out there's the entire film (it's only 44 minutes) on YouTube, albeit in lower resolution:
Womanhouse
and I'd particularly call attention to the two-women enactment of a domestic "battle of the sexes" scene, so funny, so killingly true, stripped to the basics. The link will take you straight to it--maybe you'll want to lower your sound a little as the soundtrack is uneven and it's live:
https://youtu.be/xx0ZPfLrsfk?t=1340
Has anyone here seen this documentary before? How does this type of project strike you, is it something of the past or do you (like me) feel that this is still revolutionary, that we might have even regressed from the vantage point of these women in the 1970s?
I was bowled over by Womanhouse (the touchstone goes to a catalogue), 1974:
A historic documentary about one of the most important feminist cultural events of the 1970s. Judy Chicago (best-known as the creator of THE DINNER PARTY) and Miriam Shapiro rented an old Hollywood mansion and altered its interior through decor and set-pieces to "search out and reveal the female experience...the dreams and fantasies of women as they sewed, cooked, washed and ironed away their lives."
Where to begin... I don't know if it's just that I'm extraordinarily isolated, but this type of collaboration, existence, group activity seems to me to be rare today. Or is it that that period appears more effervescent, more hopeful, perhaps because it was earlier? I don't really have any sense of "the seventies", as I was a baby and a kid then, so I don't feel any sort of a "sociological" barrier to what these women are saying and doing, I don't feel "oh, it's the past speaking". I mean, sure, or maybe--but it STILL freaking speaks to me, in 2020!
Turns out there's the entire film (it's only 44 minutes) on YouTube, albeit in lower resolution:
Womanhouse
and I'd particularly call attention to the two-women enactment of a domestic "battle of the sexes" scene, so funny, so killingly true, stripped to the basics. The link will take you straight to it--maybe you'll want to lower your sound a little as the soundtrack is uneven and it's live:
https://youtu.be/xx0ZPfLrsfk?t=1340
Has anyone here seen this documentary before? How does this type of project strike you, is it something of the past or do you (like me) feel that this is still revolutionary, that we might have even regressed from the vantage point of these women in the 1970s?
2librorumamans
The documentary on Kanopy froze for me around ten minutes in; I'll try again at a time when perhaps there's more bandwidth than on a Friday evening during a world-wide lockdown.
To your broader question, I was there in the '70s, and what I see in the doc and the skit you link to in the original film brings back memories of the era.
Yes, it was a time of great effervescence in the arts particularly. Politically, that period tended more to anger and despair: the King and Kennedy assassinations still echoed from 1968; the race riots an unhealed wound; the Vietnam war dragged on; Nixon was president and was re-elected in '72; Kent State had devastated my generation in 1970. Biafra was a lingering nightmare. And let's not overlook the FLQ crisis.
But around this, and I'm sure because of it, the creative arts broke free. I expect the dynamic may have resembled the revolution of Debussy's music a century before.
For me the first taste of this was Antonioni's film Blowup in 1966. It appeared to me in my adolescence as a revolution in story-telling. In 1969 and again in 1970 Studio Theatre Lab in an upstairs space on Queen St. somewhere mounted productions of Dionysus in 69 (updated to '70 for the remount), an immersive theatre piece in which there was no separation between audience and players and also (gasp!) full nudity. I had not at this point encountered Euripides' play, so this riff made very little sense, but by god it was excitingly new theatre!
Michael Ondaatje published The Collected Works of Billy the Kid in 1970, which today I suppose we could say was a deconstruction of a psychopath. Theatre Passe Muraille emerged around then from Rochdale College (perhaps now the only remnant of Rochdale) doing collective theatre.
Tarragon began in 1971. David French's Leaving Home is a classic from that first season, although structurally conventional. A year or so later, however, Tarragon premiered James Reaney's Sticks & Stones: the Donnellys, Part One and my head exploded with its mix of ritual and narrative, a bare stage, props minimal but with layered meanings, and its evocation of rural nineteenth-century Ontario despite the modern dress.
The era was full of experimentation, much of it unsuccessful. There was a sense, I think, that being aleatory was being creative. So I recall sitting through numerous concerts of new music that was tedious and instantly forgotten, choreography that didn't really (to me) say anything at all or have much perceptible structure accompanied by soundscapes of clicks and whooshes supplied by Moog synthesizers.
Was it a period of hope? Certainly not the hope of the sixties – that had blown away in '68. It was more a period of rejection and of disconnecting from the generation of the Depression and the War, whose insecurities and reluctance to upset the equilibrium had been learned in a hard school. We were done with that; it was time to move on.
To your broader question, I was there in the '70s, and what I see in the doc and the skit you link to in the original film brings back memories of the era.
Yes, it was a time of great effervescence in the arts particularly. Politically, that period tended more to anger and despair: the King and Kennedy assassinations still echoed from 1968; the race riots an unhealed wound; the Vietnam war dragged on; Nixon was president and was re-elected in '72; Kent State had devastated my generation in 1970. Biafra was a lingering nightmare. And let's not overlook the FLQ crisis.
But around this, and I'm sure because of it, the creative arts broke free. I expect the dynamic may have resembled the revolution of Debussy's music a century before.
For me the first taste of this was Antonioni's film Blowup in 1966. It appeared to me in my adolescence as a revolution in story-telling. In 1969 and again in 1970 Studio Theatre Lab in an upstairs space on Queen St. somewhere mounted productions of Dionysus in 69 (updated to '70 for the remount), an immersive theatre piece in which there was no separation between audience and players and also (gasp!) full nudity. I had not at this point encountered Euripides' play, so this riff made very little sense, but by god it was excitingly new theatre!
Michael Ondaatje published The Collected Works of Billy the Kid in 1970, which today I suppose we could say was a deconstruction of a psychopath. Theatre Passe Muraille emerged around then from Rochdale College (perhaps now the only remnant of Rochdale) doing collective theatre.
Tarragon began in 1971. David French's Leaving Home is a classic from that first season, although structurally conventional. A year or so later, however, Tarragon premiered James Reaney's Sticks & Stones: the Donnellys, Part One and my head exploded with its mix of ritual and narrative, a bare stage, props minimal but with layered meanings, and its evocation of rural nineteenth-century Ontario despite the modern dress.
The era was full of experimentation, much of it unsuccessful. There was a sense, I think, that being aleatory was being creative. So I recall sitting through numerous concerts of new music that was tedious and instantly forgotten, choreography that didn't really (to me) say anything at all or have much perceptible structure accompanied by soundscapes of clicks and whooshes supplied by Moog synthesizers.
Was it a period of hope? Certainly not the hope of the sixties – that had blown away in '68. It was more a period of rejection and of disconnecting from the generation of the Depression and the War, whose insecurities and reluctance to upset the equilibrium had been learned in a hard school. We were done with that; it was time to move on.
3LolaWalser
>2 librorumamans:
Interesting to hear. The theatre was always such a force of the future. (I wonder what will remain of the Toronto stage after this scourge... I fear and feel so bad for them all.)
Although I think this is more of a workshop than "pure art", more narrowly about feminism, an attempt at "consciousness raising", rather than art appreciation. How delighted these women seem at these discoveries, the obvious newness of it all to them!--speaking freely about their bodies, touching those funny installations (the rooms filled with boobs everywhere, from the ceiling to the frying pan)... That woman with the little girl, the engineer, she seemed so shyly delighted and it touched me so when she said that she had liked the feeling that women aren't just "pale imitations" of men, that they are just as good--something along those lines.
I hope you don't mind spending your Kanopy credits on this!--if the library were open I'd check whether they have it on DVD, or at least if it's on YouTube. Eight choices isn't a lot when there is so much on offer.
Interesting to hear. The theatre was always such a force of the future. (I wonder what will remain of the Toronto stage after this scourge... I fear and feel so bad for them all.)
Although I think this is more of a workshop than "pure art", more narrowly about feminism, an attempt at "consciousness raising", rather than art appreciation. How delighted these women seem at these discoveries, the obvious newness of it all to them!--speaking freely about their bodies, touching those funny installations (the rooms filled with boobs everywhere, from the ceiling to the frying pan)... That woman with the little girl, the engineer, she seemed so shyly delighted and it touched me so when she said that she had liked the feeling that women aren't just "pale imitations" of men, that they are just as good--something along those lines.
I hope you don't mind spending your Kanopy credits on this!--if the library were open I'd check whether they have it on DVD, or at least if it's on YouTube. Eight choices isn't a lot when there is so much on offer.
4librorumamans
>3 LolaWalser:
Yes: consciousness raising was a large element in that period. Women's initiatives here were only peripheral to my awareness, of course, but there were certainly many conversations around it, and while I was working on the university newspaper it was a frequent subject at story meetings.
The consequences of this pandemic for independent artists, and particularly those groups who have their own spaces to keep up worry me deeply.
I expect you've seen Cynthia Scott's wonderful The Company of Strangers (aka Strangers in Good Company). Others reading this thread, though, may not have. It's available for streaming (at least in Canada) from the NFB web site.
Yes: consciousness raising was a large element in that period. Women's initiatives here were only peripheral to my awareness, of course, but there were certainly many conversations around it, and while I was working on the university newspaper it was a frequent subject at story meetings.
The consequences of this pandemic for independent artists, and particularly those groups who have their own spaces to keep up worry me deeply.
I expect you've seen Cynthia Scott's wonderful The Company of Strangers (aka Strangers in Good Company). Others reading this thread, though, may not have. It's available for streaming (at least in Canada) from the NFB web site.
5Lyndatrue
Yet another thing that tempts me to move to Canada. I considered buying the DVD, but will wait for a bit until my head is clearer. It says $19.95 (Canadian), which is a reasonable price. I'd hate to get to the checkout and discover that they won't ship it to me (I live in eastern Washington state, sadly).
The sixties and seventies were an interesting time, it's true. My experiences were dramatically different that >2 librorumamans: describes. I don't normally discuss much of that time, and won't now, out of common sense (I had a month of radiation therapy to the brain, and it seems to have removed some discretion that I hope returns. Common sense is a valuable thing, truly.
When there were marches through neighborhoods that were not exactly friendly (against the Viet Nam war, for Civil Rights, and for equal rights for women), they would insist that the women march in the center, where we'd be less likely to be injured.
I've just erased a bunch of other details I'd written. Clearly I haven't regained the filters that we all normally have.
Stay well; stay safe.
The sixties and seventies were an interesting time, it's true. My experiences were dramatically different that >2 librorumamans: describes. I don't normally discuss much of that time, and won't now, out of common sense (I had a month of radiation therapy to the brain, and it seems to have removed some discretion that I hope returns. Common sense is a valuable thing, truly.
When there were marches through neighborhoods that were not exactly friendly (against the Viet Nam war, for Civil Rights, and for equal rights for women), they would insist that the women march in the center, where we'd be less likely to be injured.
I've just erased a bunch of other details I'd written. Clearly I haven't regained the filters that we all normally have.
Stay well; stay safe.
6LolaWalser
>5 Lyndatrue:
I think there are similar arrangements for public library card holders in the US too, Lynda--Hoopla for instance? You may want to see what you can access online through your nearest public library. And, in case you don't have a library card, do check whether they are allowing people to get temporary passes online--at least that's what the Toronto Public Library has enabled during this period.
I hope your health recovers and that this crisis won't touch you.
I think there are similar arrangements for public library card holders in the US too, Lynda--Hoopla for instance? You may want to see what you can access online through your nearest public library. And, in case you don't have a library card, do check whether they are allowing people to get temporary passes online--at least that's what the Toronto Public Library has enabled during this period.
I hope your health recovers and that this crisis won't touch you.
7Lyndatrue
>6 LolaWalser: What's funny is that it doesn't seem like I'm recovering from poor health, so much as just waking up from an unpleasant dream.
I've had two different friends inform me that social distancing is easy for me, because I'd been practicing it all along. It's true, of course. The nice thing about being old and small of stature (barely five feet tall, and 72 years old), is that if someone gets too close, I can pop them a good one, and everyone just pretends it didn't happen. Now that keeping your distance is a general rule, I may lose that instinctive reflex, which will be a pity.
Back to more movies, please. :-}
I've had two different friends inform me that social distancing is easy for me, because I'd been practicing it all along. It's true, of course. The nice thing about being old and small of stature (barely five feet tall, and 72 years old), is that if someone gets too close, I can pop them a good one, and everyone just pretends it didn't happen. Now that keeping your distance is a general rule, I may lose that instinctive reflex, which will be a pity.
Back to more movies, please. :-}
8LolaWalser
I wrote more about this on the Arab/Muslim women writings thread, but parking the link here too for continuity and reference:
Feminism Inshallah: A History of Arab Feminism
A 2014 film by Feriel Ben Mahmoud, featuring various feminist activists, historians, politologues, ordinary folk...
Feminism Inshallah: A History of Arab Feminism
A 2014 film by Feriel Ben Mahmoud, featuring various feminist activists, historians, politologues, ordinary folk...
9LolaWalser
Saw another eye-opening, absorbing documentary, Delphine et Carole, insoumuses, about the actress Delphine Seyrig and filmmaker Carole Roussopoulos and French feminism of the 1970s.
I can't find it free (I streamed it from Ina), but there's at least the trailer with English subs on YT:
Delphine and Carole / Delphine et Carole, insoumuses (2018) - Trailer (English Subs)
See if you can spot Jane Fonda, sans makeup and speaking French!
I've long been a great fan of Seyrig's but hadn't realised before how deeply and consistently she fought for women's rights, representation etc. At one point Roussopoulos talks about the price feminist women paid for their cause in terms of losing their careers and mentions the men in the business who hated Seyrig and refused to work with her--like Yves Montand. Instant downfall of the dude I quite liked for his leftist sympathies before.
There are also hilarious clips were the feminists provide satirical commentary on Françoise Giroud interviews in some stupid programme (Giroud was a minister of women's rights in Giscard d'Estaing's government) where she just couldn't stop going along with, aiding and abetting all sorts of misogynistic bullshit. For example, they'd air a clip of some asshole saying, doing something assholish, like a self-important prick pontificating on why women suck at cooking--Giroud just nods along, agreeing; or showcase some wife-beater and ask her if she thinks the dude is misogynistic--and she replies nah, he's just passionate etc. Unbelievable...
The title of those clips is commentary in itself: "Maso et Miso vont en bateau", which cracks me up to the skies...
A few random remarks--Jean Genet, of all people, told Carole of a nifty new device to revolutionise filmmaking, the video camera--how cool is that? And she immediately went and bought the second one sold in Paris, the first having gone to Goddard (or maybe Truffaut).
Poor poor lovely sad hippie Maria Schneider, quietly observing it's all men in the business, men writers, men directors, even in the press... so is it any wonder it's all made FOR men...?
So much energy, so much hope, so much clarity--where has it gone, o France? What the actual hell HAPPENED in the 1980s?
Not to mention now. In 1971 Catherine Deneuve, along with dozens of other female celebrities was signing her name to a petition to legalise abortion by admitting publicly they had all had abortions. And forty years later she gets behind the men's "right" to molest women.
The director of the documentary, Callisto McNulty, is Carole's granddaughter:
Callisto McNulty on Delphine & Carole
I can't find it free (I streamed it from Ina), but there's at least the trailer with English subs on YT:
Delphine and Carole / Delphine et Carole, insoumuses (2018) - Trailer (English Subs)
See if you can spot Jane Fonda, sans makeup and speaking French!
I've long been a great fan of Seyrig's but hadn't realised before how deeply and consistently she fought for women's rights, representation etc. At one point Roussopoulos talks about the price feminist women paid for their cause in terms of losing their careers and mentions the men in the business who hated Seyrig and refused to work with her--like Yves Montand. Instant downfall of the dude I quite liked for his leftist sympathies before.
There are also hilarious clips were the feminists provide satirical commentary on Françoise Giroud interviews in some stupid programme (Giroud was a minister of women's rights in Giscard d'Estaing's government) where she just couldn't stop going along with, aiding and abetting all sorts of misogynistic bullshit. For example, they'd air a clip of some asshole saying, doing something assholish, like a self-important prick pontificating on why women suck at cooking--Giroud just nods along, agreeing; or showcase some wife-beater and ask her if she thinks the dude is misogynistic--and she replies nah, he's just passionate etc. Unbelievable...
The title of those clips is commentary in itself: "Maso et Miso vont en bateau", which cracks me up to the skies...
A few random remarks--Jean Genet, of all people, told Carole of a nifty new device to revolutionise filmmaking, the video camera--how cool is that? And she immediately went and bought the second one sold in Paris, the first having gone to Goddard (or maybe Truffaut).
Poor poor lovely sad hippie Maria Schneider, quietly observing it's all men in the business, men writers, men directors, even in the press... so is it any wonder it's all made FOR men...?
So much energy, so much hope, so much clarity--where has it gone, o France? What the actual hell HAPPENED in the 1980s?
Not to mention now. In 1971 Catherine Deneuve, along with dozens of other female celebrities was signing her name to a petition to legalise abortion by admitting publicly they had all had abortions. And forty years later she gets behind the men's "right" to molest women.
The director of the documentary, Callisto McNulty, is Carole's granddaughter:
Callisto McNulty on Delphine & Carole
10LolaWalser
Spanish film made by mystery female director discovered during lockdown
"Mallorca, an eight-minute documentary, could be Spain’s first talking picture directed by a woman"
Provisionally dated between 1932-34.
"Mallorca, an eight-minute documentary, could be Spain’s first talking picture directed by a woman"
Provisionally dated between 1932-34.
11librorumamans
>9 LolaWalser:
Okay, you lost me at INA, where I disappeared into some choreography by Crystal Pite.
Thanks for the diversion!
Okay, you lost me at INA, where I disappeared into some choreography by Crystal Pite.
Thanks for the diversion!
12LolaWalser
>11 librorumamans:
Oh, did you look at their ballet collection? I bookmarked it but have been spending time watching the TV and theatre stuff.
Oh, did you look at their ballet collection? I bookmarked it but have been spending time watching the TV and theatre stuff.
13LolaWalser
Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed, 2004, directed by Shola Lynch
Unfortunately there don't seem to be copies free to watch online.
I had read a little about Chisholm before, but not nearly enough. She is one of the figures I wish I could tell everyone about, I wish everyone knew, everyone appreciated.
It's unspeakably sad that not only was she targeted by the racist white majority but also by the black leadership, who could not swallow the idea that a woman was the first black person to get even that far, a nomination for the Democratic candidacy. They attacked her in public, questioning her sanity in front of the media, ridiculing her to the American public all the way. Some would-be wily ones talked about her as mere "leverage", and used her candidacy in that way, to scare opponents and blackmail the white candidates into concessions. (Do this or this black woman will take away your black vote.)
Chisholm herself (interviewed for the documentary) and people like Octavia Butler (also in the documentary) had no illusions about why even the black politicians (all male) would not endorse her.
But she was right, and for all that the racists and the misogynists refused her, it's only people like her who unite all, who talk to all, who represent all. Chisholm in '72 and forever!
Shirley Chisholm declares presidential bid, January 25, 1972
Unfortunately there don't seem to be copies free to watch online.
I had read a little about Chisholm before, but not nearly enough. She is one of the figures I wish I could tell everyone about, I wish everyone knew, everyone appreciated.
It's unspeakably sad that not only was she targeted by the racist white majority but also by the black leadership, who could not swallow the idea that a woman was the first black person to get even that far, a nomination for the Democratic candidacy. They attacked her in public, questioning her sanity in front of the media, ridiculing her to the American public all the way. Some would-be wily ones talked about her as mere "leverage", and used her candidacy in that way, to scare opponents and blackmail the white candidates into concessions. (Do this or this black woman will take away your black vote.)
Chisholm herself (interviewed for the documentary) and people like Octavia Butler (also in the documentary) had no illusions about why even the black politicians (all male) would not endorse her.
But she was right, and for all that the racists and the misogynists refused her, it's only people like her who unite all, who talk to all, who represent all. Chisholm in '72 and forever!
Shirley Chisholm declares presidential bid, January 25, 1972
14sparemethecensor
>13 LolaWalser: Beautifully said. Shirley Chisholm is a true hero.
15LolaWalser
>14 sparemethecensor:
Yes!
I just posted about that vile heap in the White House and the abuse he dishes out to women. He's less than dirt in comparison to any normal human being, but compared to Chisholm... but why am I going there, it's galaxies apart.
Ok whatever: can there be a more stark picture of how base the US politics have been, how degraded the standards of society, that a bag of shit like him was allowed the spot denied to her practically a priori... she had no illusions of actually becoming POTUS--she had hopes for putting it on the table that American democracy truly meant that any American might become POTUS. But as she says in the last part of the documentary, she did have some illusions about politics, before her bid.
Yes!
I just posted about that vile heap in the White House and the abuse he dishes out to women. He's less than dirt in comparison to any normal human being, but compared to Chisholm... but why am I going there, it's galaxies apart.
Ok whatever: can there be a more stark picture of how base the US politics have been, how degraded the standards of society, that a bag of shit like him was allowed the spot denied to her practically a priori... she had no illusions of actually becoming POTUS--she had hopes for putting it on the table that American democracy truly meant that any American might become POTUS. But as she says in the last part of the documentary, she did have some illusions about politics, before her bid.
16sparemethecensor
>15 LolaWalser: Yes, it's appalling. I can't even talk about it too much without growing furious.
17LolaWalser
Forgot to mention the two Céline Sciamma's movies, Bande de filles (translated as Girlhood) and Tomboy, 2011. Both excellent and highly recommended, only I must mention that I stopped watching Tomboy about a third in because I was fearing the inevitable phase of conflict, misery, perhaps even physical violence. I'm simply not resilient enough anymore for that. (For example, I watched Boys don't cry when it came out and then a few years later with a friend again, but couldn't watch it now.)
But the actors--and these are mostly children! not my favourite at all--are fantastic, everything looks fantastic, and I do hope I'll finish it some day.
Not to say that there isn't potentially upsetting stuff in the other one--the two cruel fights between the girls saddened me a lot--but these are at least older characters.
And yeah, it just struck me as potentially weird that I added recently tons of despicably sadistic gore by the likes of Jess Franco and that weirdo Herschell Gordon Lewis--but that's ridiculous make believe, so extreme it's self-parodying. Sciamma's movies feel like real life.
whoops, x-post
>16 sparemethecensor:
haha, let your fury grooooow!
Back when I had a bigger apartment and fewer books I did the best cleaning whilst boiling with rage. Those hardwood floors shone like skating rinks. :)
But the actors--and these are mostly children! not my favourite at all--are fantastic, everything looks fantastic, and I do hope I'll finish it some day.
Not to say that there isn't potentially upsetting stuff in the other one--the two cruel fights between the girls saddened me a lot--but these are at least older characters.
And yeah, it just struck me as potentially weird that I added recently tons of despicably sadistic gore by the likes of Jess Franco and that weirdo Herschell Gordon Lewis--but that's ridiculous make believe, so extreme it's self-parodying. Sciamma's movies feel like real life.
whoops, x-post
>16 sparemethecensor:
haha, let your fury grooooow!
Back when I had a bigger apartment and fewer books I did the best cleaning whilst boiling with rage. Those hardwood floors shone like skating rinks. :)
18LolaWalser
I watched three Agnès Varda movies: La Pointe Courte, 1954, Vagabond, 1985, and, the one I can't stop thinking about, Le bonheur (Happiness), from 1965. (DON'T LOOK AT THE TOUCHSTONE FOR LE BONHEUR--spoiler!)
If you haven't seen Le bonheur, I do so hope you might, and therefore can't bring myself to spoil it. You must not be spoiled for this film. Refuse everything, even looking at posters.
I will just say that it caused a major upheaval in everything I thought I knew about Varda, or how women made films, or how women who make films are seen... the prejudice blinded me, no question. What a whammer.
Vagabond stands to be discussed at length too. Is a free woman--a free young woman--possible? On the road, unmoored, unbound, living like a sparrow? Looking at the date of release, that's about a year earlier than my tearful, wracking-sobs teenage epiphany that I am not allowed to be free like men are free, that I cannot roam the streets, to say nothing of the open road, like men can--without being blamed for it, and without being triply blamed for any calamity others (men, typically) would visit upon me if I dared.
Would the movie, if I had seen it then, worked as an encouragement or a caution?
A temptation for sure.
If you haven't seen Le bonheur, I do so hope you might, and therefore can't bring myself to spoil it. You must not be spoiled for this film. Refuse everything, even looking at posters.
I will just say that it caused a major upheaval in everything I thought I knew about Varda, or how women made films, or how women who make films are seen... the prejudice blinded me, no question. What a whammer.
Vagabond stands to be discussed at length too. Is a free woman--a free young woman--possible? On the road, unmoored, unbound, living like a sparrow? Looking at the date of release, that's about a year earlier than my tearful, wracking-sobs teenage epiphany that I am not allowed to be free like men are free, that I cannot roam the streets, to say nothing of the open road, like men can--without being blamed for it, and without being triply blamed for any calamity others (men, typically) would visit upon me if I dared.
Would the movie, if I had seen it then, worked as an encouragement or a caution?
A temptation for sure.
19LolaWalser
My blood pressure, my blood pressure...!
So I notice INA has Le Bonheur up on its site. With a really terrible description. It can't be irony; I'd sooner guess it was written by someone who hasn't seen the film at all. I'll put it all in spoiler tags, but please, if anyone has seen the movie, I'd love to hear your opinions.
The description (in French):Faut-il vraiment rentrer? Garder le parfum de l'été. Deux femmes, deux amours, qui se conjuguent dans une lumière de fin d’août. Agnès Varda, couronnée de l’Ours d’argent en 1965, livre avec Le Bonheur une histoire de polyamour très en avance sur son temps. Comme une envie d'aller au bal musette avec François, Emilie et Thérèse, deux rivales qui se font miroir. L’une va prendre la place de l’autre, le bonheur se recompose...
My response, FIRST:a tale of "polyamory" my ass. Only a dickhead would see this that way. A married dude, to all appearances devoted to his wife and two small kids, encounters by chance a woman and starts a--secret--affair with her as casually as you'd drink a glass of water. The new woman uncannily resembles his wife--same age, build, colouring, nondescript personality... The dude is still happy both in his marriage and with his affair. The new woman, however, expects him to leave his wife, and the wife senses something is going on, because he's so happy. And this happy dude tells his wife about the lover, and also that he would like her to be happy for him. It's all great, he loves them both--she'd like her too. The wife doesn't reproach him, doesn't fly into a rage, there is no quarrel. She's a good, meek, quiet little woman. She just goes off and drowns herself after this conversation. Quietly--everyone believes it to be an accident. Oh, VERY advanced polyamorous story right there!
The happy dude is somewhat less happy for a while, but life goes on, there are the children and the job, and two months later he marries the lover.
And he's happy again no less than he was at the start. "Le bonheur se recompose" indeed. One takes the place of the other with the husband's complete indifference because these women are the same to him and of no consequence whatsoever as human beings.
This is some of the bitterest satire about the genders and heterosexual relationships I know, and some dumb dick calls it a tale of "polyamory"!
No, it's a tale of how women are worth shit to men and one can replace another like a kettle replaces another kettle--not too many feelings involved, and no respect for the individuality of women, for women as people.
That's why the first wife killed herself--it was the husband's unruffled happiness, the smooth way with which he denied her so much as a consideration that she may protest, that SHE may be unhappy, this denied her very humanity. She removed herself from the picture but it was he who erased her.
What fucking bal musette, what rivalry...
Yeah, I know, it's silly to get upset, but people see this, it guides their viewpoint, all that bullshit about how it's normal and "French"--yeah, the misogyny is normal, and "French"! And the movie is AGAINST that, not FOR it. jfc even whena woman dies it's really about fucking bal musette (wtf, seriously) and jolly bed-hopping for the dickwads.
So I notice INA has Le Bonheur up on its site. With a really terrible description. It can't be irony; I'd sooner guess it was written by someone who hasn't seen the film at all. I'll put it all in spoiler tags, but please, if anyone has seen the movie, I'd love to hear your opinions.
The description (in French):
My response, FIRST:
The happy dude is somewhat less happy for a while, but life goes on, there are the children and the job, and two months later he marries the lover.
And he's happy again no less than he was at the start. "Le bonheur se recompose" indeed. One takes the place of the other with the husband's complete indifference because these women are the same to him and of no consequence whatsoever as human beings.
This is some of the bitterest satire about the genders and heterosexual relationships I know, and some dumb dick calls it a tale of "polyamory"!
No, it's a tale of how women are worth shit to men and one can replace another like a kettle replaces another kettle--not too many feelings involved, and no respect for the individuality of women, for women as people.
That's why the first wife killed herself--it was the husband's unruffled happiness, the smooth way with which he denied her so much as a consideration that she may protest, that SHE may be unhappy, this denied her very humanity. She removed herself from the picture but it was he who erased her.
What fucking bal musette, what rivalry...
Yeah, I know, it's silly to get upset, but people see this, it guides their viewpoint, all that bullshit about how it's normal and "French"--yeah, the misogyny is normal, and "French"! And the movie is AGAINST that, not FOR it. jfc even when
20John5918
A woman’s gaze on women: Sudanese female director wins French award for film about arranged marriage (Salaam Gateway)
15-year-old Nafisa has a crush on Babiker. But her parents have promised her to Nadir, a young Sudanese businessperson who lives abroad. Nafisa’s grandmother, the village matriarch, has her own plans for the young woman’s future. This is the storyline of the short film Al-Sit, that earlier this month won its writer, director and producer Suzannah Mirghani the Canal+/Cine+ Award from the French channel Canal Plus Cinema, at the Clermont-Ferrand, one of the world’s largest international short film festivals...
21LolaWalser
Chris Hegedus edited the footage without which there would have been no film, her partner Pennebaker thought it was unusuable. I wrote about it elsewhere and don't want to copy long posts in multiple places (https://www.librarything.com/topic/328338#7508221)
the link to the movie on YouTube:
There's a low-res copy of the film on YouTube, and no guarantees for how long it may stay up... But if you can't find the Criterion edition, don't deprive yourself of this piece of history:
Town Bloody Hall (C.Hegedus, D.A.Pennebaker -1971)
the link to the movie on YouTube:
There's a low-res copy of the film on YouTube, and no guarantees for how long it may stay up... But if you can't find the Criterion edition, don't deprive yourself of this piece of history:
Town Bloody Hall (C.Hegedus, D.A.Pennebaker -1971)
Devenir membre pour poster.
