After watching Stan Brakhage’s short film Window water baby moving I couldn’t stop thinking about it after class.  It was a very memorable piece of work to watch and even on my ride back to the hill with a few girls from the class, we all discussed what we had just watched.

I think the way that Stan Brakhage filmed the entire piece was so artistic that as a viewer even though we were seeing a fully naked women, it was not a sexual scene at all.  I think the quick cuts, no audio and the intimate moments we saw the woman have with her husband did a good job of making the whole thing looks less sexual and focus more on the beauty of a mother giving birth to her child. It is hard to have nudity and to not view it in a sexual way through being apart of American culture and how we are conditioned to viewing nudity, but Brakhage managed to show very intimate parts of the womans body while still keeping the main focus of the short film on the beautiful birthing experience a woman has.  The way he shot close ups of the woman smiling or of her with her hands on her belly kept the primary focus of the film intact.

As we discussed in class, I appreciated the how Brakhage didn’t introduce us to the characters and we didn’t hear about their life story because as a viewer I did feel like I was not supposed to be in such an intimate private moment in this couples life, but it would have been even more uncomfortable learning about the couple through the film and then experience the birth of a couple that I feel like I kind of got to know though watching the film.

I began pondering the idea of child birth being sexualized today in class after we viewed Baby Moving. Because I didn’t perceive any of the scenes as being sexual, I was curious as to how it could be.   Tati mentioned that the cuts between the expecting mother’s vagina and her facial expressions is what suggests that the scene is sexual.

I believe it comes down to the way we each read a film. Some insert themselves into the actual scene as if they’re witnessing it first-hand, while others view the scene objectively. I interpreted each cut as an addition to the larger moment that’s taking place (child-birth). I never felt as though I was hovering over the woman’s face as if my eyes were the camera lens, but I was viewing each scene separately to understand the director’s perspective/interpretation as a whole. The sunlight coming through the window shining on the woman’s face and body, her smile and laughter, the way she’s being kissed on, all illustrated nothing more than beauty to me, to represent the idea that child-birth is beautiful, even with the not-so visually pleasing parts. I think the absence of sound is especially important for this analysis because we understand that there’s an extraordinary amount of pain that goes with having a baby. The sound of the woman screaming would have detracted from the moments we’re viewing on screen.

Filming Desire, provided substantial insight on the practices of filming sexual encounters. I found the content of the film to be very interesting and relative to some of the discussions that we have had about constructing that (seemingly unattainable) feminist sex scene.

Before I elaborate on that, I found the introduction sequence and and title cards to be a very distinct part of the film. I thought that it was a very bold choice on the part of the filmmaker to use naked human bodies  to provide transitions to the topics of the film. I thought that, as much as the naked bodies were relative to the topic being discussed in the film, I felt that this creative choice neither added or subtracted anything to the overall message of the film. And, in all, the film could have been just as effective without those topic headings. I found myself shaking my head each time I saw a naked man clapping at the camera or text written above a pair of hard nipples. I’m interested in hearing what other people thought about this choice to include those scenes with the bodies.

In regards to the content of the film, I found that a common trend amongst some of the filmmakers being interviewed was this idea that sex is more than just the physical act, and the troubles of using a visual medium to portray these scenes. One filmmaker made a point of saying that sexual sensations are something that are within, but the camera is not. That being said, it seems almost contradictory to use solely a visual medium to portray an act that is compiled of so many more levels.  A few filmmakers noted that they used voiceover to communicate some of the thoughts going through the minds of female characters to display that they are more than just their physical attributes.

Does it seem like voiceover is this the only way that we can have anything close to a feminist sex scene? Since voiceover allows us to understand what is happening underneath the physical aspect of the sex scene, it seems appropriate that it adds complexity to female (and in some cases, male) characters. But in a way, using voiceover can take away from the visual representation. Even if there is voiceover will problems with visually portraying the male or female body still arise? In fact, is it fair to say that voiceover can compensate for any misrepresentation of those images?

Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera (E. Ann Kaplan)

The avant gardes in Europe and the USA

• Avant Garde refers to new and unusual or experimental ideas, normally within the context of the arts.

• 1976 Peter Wollen attempts to distinguish two main categories of avant gardes which “differ in aesthetic assumption, institutional framework, economic support, and kind of critical backing and historical/cultural origin.”
  • First, “Co-op movement” – confined to the US, involved with the established art world and its values
  • Second, “Political avant garde” – Derived from the works of Godard and Straub-Huillet, barely represented in the US

• Wollen updated his theory of the avant garde in 1981 after realizing that the movement was much more complex than the two tiered division he earlier defined.

• Wollen mentions the difficulty in defining film semiotics with regard to avant garde film
  • first difficulty is in defining concepts that encompass semiotics outside that of the classic Hollywood style
  • second difficulty is in tendencies to look for generalized concepts of film theory instead of addressing the flexible nature of semiotics in film

• (Mis)Representation as a form of oppression
  • exclusion from mainstream history
  • left-activist omission of women’s political issues

• Three broad groups of women’s film categorized by cinematic strategies:
  • Formalist, experimental, avant garde film
    • roots in: French surrealism and impressionism, German expressionism, and Russian formalism
  • Realist political and sociological documentary
    • roots in: American and British documentaries of the 1930s, and by association Kuleshov in Russia, Italian neo-realism, and British Free Cinema movement
  • Avant garde theory (political) film
    • roots in: Brecht, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, French New Wave, Godard, and Straub-Huillet

• These three categories were largely developed by white men and women working in any of the three categories found themselves attempting to redefine the conventions of categories as they are hyperaware of previously established male artistic traditions

• Germaine Dulac and Maya Deren (two feminist filmmakers)
  • Dulac’s work is quiet and poetic whereas Deren’s work is shocking, forceful, and violent
  • Both worked during a time that was uninterested in independent/avant garde film, especially those made by women filmmakers
  • Dulac’s The Smiling Madame Baudet, although not a feminist film, uses surrealist techniques to depict the inner struggles of women in a provincial marriage.
  • Dulac’s work served the purpose of exposing the position of women in patriarchy.
  • Deran, known by Jacquelyn Zita as the “Mother of American experimental film,” made surrealist films which explore female splitting, alienation, jealousies, and nightmares.
  • Daren symbolically looked at the inner psyche of the feminine personality

• Experimental films are a medium for women filmmakers that allows a distancing  from the often oppressive and false representations of women in classical Hollywood.

• Women filmmakers have used experimental film as an “outlet for their inner experiences, sensations, feelings, [and] thoughts.”

• Experimental form allows for the expression of inner emotional discourse, where as documentary form focuses more on women’s roles in a societal context

• Lesbian filmmakers use avant garde style to avoid male co-optation of images as pornographic. However, lesbian filmmakers are often drawn toward images of lesbian sexuality because it challenges the dominating nature of patriarchal society by acknowledging male tendencies to co-opt sexual images as pornographic because of an Oedipal regression.

Questions:

Can films about female bonding can lead to a less objectifiable representation of female characters in cinema? Or is the representation of women in films inherently co-opted by the assertion that in a patriarchal society female sexuality is, at least for male viewers, representative of an Oedipal regression?

What advantages does the avant garde bring to women filmmakers? What disadvantages do Hollywood, European, or other styles of film bring to women filmmakers? Do these limitations account for female filmmakers desire to stray from classic styles as to search for an independent definition of film semiotics?

The ending of the latest of episode of How to Get Away With Murder shows Viola Davis taking off her wig and makeup after receiving some very shocking news.  It is such a powerful moment. The article associated with the clip compared the scene to lyrics in Beyonce’s song Flawless: “When you’re alone all by yourself/And you’re lying in your bed/Reflection stares right into you/Are you happy with yourself?/You stripped away the masquerade/The illusion has been changed/Are you happy with yourself?”

Definitely watch the clip because it is great, but the article and the end of the clip will spoil the plot for you, if that is a problem for anyone.

http://hellobeautiful.com/2014/10/17/viola-davis-takes-off-wig-how-to-get-away-with-murder/

So I’m waiting to talk about filming desire with the rest of the class before I post about it because if I’m being 100% honest it made me extremely uncomfortable. I’m curious to see what other’s reactions were. However, I do have something to share. I know I talked the other week about yoga pants being banned in high schools, but I came across this article, and it’s even better.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/15/all-the-items-of-clothing_n_5989098.html

I think we got our answer after watching “Filming Desire” in class.  Several of the filmmakers that were interviewed discussed the difficulty of shooting a woman’s sexuality without exploiting it for the male character’s pleasure.  One of the filmmakers stated that all female film directors had to reinvent how to make a film because all of the usual film tropes have been created by men and many objectify and insult women.  They said creating a feminist love scene was one of the most difficult parts of making the film, more difficult then any scenes with action sequences or large groups of people.  These filmmakers said they wanted to do their best to not objectify their female characters, given that many women on screen are objectified before they even begin speaking.

Nonetheless, it does appear that a feminist sex scene is possible.  It is possible to show the woman getting just as much respect and pleasure from the sexual act as the man.  Many filmmakers choose to do this by not explicitly showing the sexual act.  They will never show the naked body of a woman and the sex is implied or talked about in a voice over.  If a naked body is shown it is shown in its entirety, never cut up into segments.  This is a way around the inherent objectification that exists in many viewers that cannot be prevented by the filmmaker.  This is a reason shooting lesbian sex scenes or even romantic scenes between two women is difficult.  As the filmmakers in the documentary and as Kaplan writes about in “The Avant Gardes in Europe and the US” any relationship between two women is seen as pornographic and can be objectified even more than when it is a man and a woman together.  Thus although the feminist sex scene is possible, it is only possible when considering and working around the inherent opinions of the viewer.

In the film we watched last class, that touched on the filming of intimate love scenes, it was really great seeing so many interviews featuring female, film experts. I was very intrigued by their input on many of the topics that have been coming up in class. I also think the article “Avant Gardes in Europe and the USA” ties into the film because it discusses the tactics of  feminist filmmaking and where it is headed. Filmmakers Sally Potter and Lea Pool talked about similar things – mainly how the majority of desire comes from the imagination (making it difficult to depict on screen). If the filmmaker has an idea of what he or she wants his characters to be thinking/feeling in an intimate scene, that doesn’t necessarily mean that viewers will infer this information. Kaplan’s article discusses how it’s important to present new images of women that belie those that the commercial cinema constructs out of its patriarchal position.

“This often involves trying to represent relationships that are not constructed by the dominant order,” says Kaplan. My favorite part of the film was an interview with one of the female filmmakers whose name I can’t remember (in my eyes she resembled Susan Sarandon, if that helps). She talks about how feminists have been enraged by the objectification of women in the history of filmmaking. However, she says: “I’ve never had a problem with this. I think it’s natural, while being intimate, to view the other as an object of desire. I have a problem with the obvious fear of filming male genitals that has always been present.” The problem lies in the fact that males have not been depicted as objects of desire – which they obviously are seeing as half of the people on this earth are attracted to men…

This was the argument in the film that struck me the most because I completely agree with it. There has always been a huge stigma against shooting male genitals, while the erotic areas of a women’s body have always been cut up and exploited. Equalizing this double standard could be a great stride in feminist filmmaking. It is the shooting of men that also needs work.

I really appreciated this article because for once it put the focus not on what women can change and do differently, but what America’s society today can change in regards to the way we view mothers in the professional world. Slaughter is a successful working woman and mother who points out that the idea of women being able to have a satisfying amount of time with their children in addition to a high-powered career is unrealistic (particularly trying to do both at the same time). However, Slaughter emphasizes that this is not something the mothers are doing wrong, but is rather a problem within the professional world and how it views female parents.

One of my favorite moments in the article was when Slaughter said: “Whenever I am introduced at a lecture or other speaking engagement, I insist that the person introducing me mention that I have two sons. It seems odd to me to list degrees, awards, positions, and interests and not include the dimension of my life that is the most important to me – and takes an enormous amount of my time.” Slaughter commented on how genuinely sad it is that working women feel the need to suppress their maternal circumstances while on the job, and act like their situation has no effect on them whatsoever while at work. This is a problem in our working society.

I agree with Slaughter in the sense that the “family” discussion needs to be worked into the mix more during professional conversation. She brought up a female principal who continued to reference her children and end meetings early to get back to her family. Although many thought the principal was demeaning herself and making her co-workers see her in a less-serious light, it was in fact a deliberate choice. Her point was that reasonable compromises can start to be made for working mothers if the professional atmosphere becomes slightly more welcoming and understanding on the topic.

Women who want to be mothers these days are faced with three choices: either choose between the career and motherhood, become a mother while settling for a less demanding job, or try to juggle an extremely high-maitenance position with caring for your children. Slaughter points out that none of these options, at least for women who desire to be mothers, are very appealing. The fourth option could benefit everyone: changing the values of society today and creating a society that puts professional and personal choices on the same level.

So below is a link to an article examining what men and women look at when they look at various advertisements. Some of the data is broken down by gender others aren’t but this kind of data explains the differences (when they exist) between genders. It’s  a fairly quick read and the data is easy to interpret.

The results are rather shocking however, While you’d expect men to ogle a women’s breasts in an ad the opposite is true, men look more at faces while women take in the body as a whole. Except the opposite is true when looking at male models, men will look at the body, women at faces.

http://www.businessinsider.com/eye-tracking-heatmaps-2014-7