Part of Fall 1990
Discussing a variety of avant-garde films by women from the 1920s through to the 90s, American filmmaker and film historian Sandra Davis examines what constitutes The Symbolic Process. Davis explores how women have continually created new forms of symbolic image-making within the avant-garde.
Davis’ retelling of film history begins with Germaine Dulac’s The Seashell and the Clergyman and takes us up to contemporary works by younger American women filmmakers Mary Fillipo and Julie Murray. The talk traces a shift within feminine image-making from the use of the symbol in the narrative sense (such as the seashell within the surrealist context of the Dulac film) to a symbolism of the film form itself. Davis poses the question of whether there remains for women any unique uses of symbolic image-making, or has the symbol now just become a vacant sign?
The following films will be shown in conjunction with the talk:
The Seashell and the Clergyman – Germaine Dulac, 35 min, 1927.
Go Go Go – Marie Menken, 12 min, 1962-64.
Frameline – Gunvor Nelson, 22 min, 1984.
Kristalnacht – Chick Strand, 7 min, 1979.
A Love We Cannot Lose – Nina Fonoroff, 9 min, 1989.
Peace ‘O mind – Mary Fillipo, 8 min, 1983.
Tr’cheot’my P’sy – Julie Murray, 3.5 min, 1990.
