critical frameworks
Women’s Experimental Cinema
R o b i n b l a e t z , editor
b l a e t z ,
editor
Women’s Experimental Cinema
d u k e
F i lm s t u d i e s / W o m e n ’ s s t u d i e s
Women’s Experimental Cinema provides lively introductions to the work of fifteen avant-
garde women filmmakers, some of whom worked as early as the s 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. e 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 ter-
rain of film history, particularly the history of the American avant-garde.
e essays highlight the diversity in these filmmakers’ forms and methods, covering
topics such as how Marie Menken used film as a way to rethink the transition from ab-
stract expressionism to Pop Art in the s and s, how Barbara Rubin both objecti-
fied the body and investigated the filmic apparatus that enabled that objectification in
her film Christmas on Earth (), and how Cheryl Dunye uses film to explore her own
identity as a black lesbian artist. At the same time, the essays reveal commonalities, in-
cluding a tendency toward documentary rather than fiction and a commitment to nonhi-
erarchical, collaborative production practices. e 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 sug-
gesting alternative films for classroom use.
“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.”—a l e x a n d R a J u h a s z , editor of Women of
Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video
“is 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 s to the present.”—s h a R o n W i l l i s ,
author of High Contrast: Race and Gender in Contemporary Hollywood Film
R o b i n b l a e t z 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.
d u k e u n i v e R s i t y P R e s s
Box , Durham, NC -
www.dukeupress.edu
: From Peggy Ahwesh’s e Color of Love, .
Courtesy of Peggy Ahwesh.
Women’s Experimental Cinema
b
ROBIN BLAETZ,
editor
Women’s Experimental Cinema
critical frameworks
Duke University Press Durham & London 2007
∫ 2007 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper $
Designed by C. H. Westmoreland
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data appear on the last printed
page of this book.
Noël Carroll’s article ‘‘Moving and Moving:
Minimalism to Lives of Performers’’
originally appeared in Millennium Film
Journal 35–36 (2000). Reprinted with
permission.
Duke University Press gratefully
acknowledges the support of the American
Association of University Women, which
provided funds toward the production of
this book.