women’s experimental cinema fills a significant and long- lamented gap within film studies, and in feminist film studies in particular. 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 Women’s Experimental Cinema an exceptional group of women artists.”-Alex andr a Juhasz, editor of Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video “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.
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 sug- gesting alternative films for classroom use. 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. The 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 1950s and 1960s, how Barbara Rubin both objecti- fied the body and investigated the filmic apparatus that enabled that objectification in her film Christmas on Earth (1963), and how Cheryl Dunye uses film to explore her own identity as a black lesbian artist. 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. The essays rescue the work of critically neglected but influential women filmmakers for teaching, further study, and, hopefully, restoration and preservation. In each essay in this collection, a leading film scholar considers a single filmmaker, supplying biographical information, analyzing various influences on her Women’s Experimental Cinema work, examining the development of her corpus, and interpreting a significant number of individual films. Film studies/Women’s studies Blaetz, Women’s Experimental Cinema provides lively introductions to the work of fifteen avant- Robin Blaetz, garde women filmmakers, some of whom worked as early as the 1950s and many of whom editor editor are still working today.
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