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Carolee Schneemann's "Autobiographical Trilogy"Author(s): Scott MacDonaldSource: Film Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 27-32Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211851
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MARTAMESZAROS
spective; taken on its own the film seems unbal-anced. I longed for much more of little Zsuzsa andmuch less of big Andras.
I don't takefilmmaking as seriously as male
directors do. I simply love shooting films-shooting's the greatest experience I've had in
mylife.-MM, Hungarofilm, '77/2.
MARTAMESZAROS
spective; taken on its own the film seems unbal-anced. I longed for much more of little Zsuzsa andmuch less of big Andras.
I don't takefilmmaking as seriously as male
directors do. I simply love shooting films-shooting's the greatest experience I've had in
mylife.-MM, Hungarofilm, '77/2.
2
NOTES
1. Lecturepublished asA Room of One's Own, 1928.2. Article in Women Look at Psychiatry, ed. Dorothy E. Smith& SaraJ. David, 1975.3. Interview nHungarofilm, 1977, no. 2.
NOTES
1. Lecturepublished asA Room of One's Own, 1928.2. Article in Women Look at Psychiatry, ed. Dorothy E. Smith& SaraJ. David, 1975.3. Interview nHungarofilm, 1977, no. 2.
SCOTTMACDONA
C a r o l e e &clWneemann$
%AutobiogFaplicalhi logy
SCOTTMACDONA
C a r o l e e &clWneemann$
%AutobiogFaplicalhi logyI have the sense that in learning, our best devel-opments growfrom works which initially strikeus as 'too much'; those which are intriguing,demanding, that lead us to experiences whichwefeel we cannot encompass, but which simul-taneously provoke and encourage our efforts.Such works have the effect of containing morethan we can assimilate; they maintain attrac-tion and stimulation for our continuing atten-
tion. -CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN'
Though Carolee Schneemann is still known pri-marily for her work as a performance artist (hernew book More Than Meat Joy reviews her con-siderable contributions in this area), she has beenan active film-maker since the mid-sixties. She hasnot made many films, but the accomplishmentsand challenges of her Autobiographical Trilogy-Fuses (1967), Plumb Line (1971), and Kitch 'sLastMeal (1978)-make her one of our most interestingavant-garde film artists. Ironically, however, the
more obvious pleasures of Schneemann's films-their unusual intimacy and emotional authenticity,their sensuous rhythms and gorgeous textures-frequentlyblind viewersto the considerableformalintricacyand ingenuity of her work.
Like subsequent sections of AutobiographicalTrilogy,Fuses was the result of severalyears labor;it was begun in 1964 and not completed until
I have the sense that in learning, our best devel-opments growfrom works which initially strikeus as 'too much'; those which are intriguing,demanding, that lead us to experiences whichwefeel we cannot encompass, but which simul-taneously provoke and encourage our efforts.Such works have the effect of containing morethan we can assimilate; they maintain attrac-tion and stimulation for our continuing atten-
tion. -CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN'
Though Carolee Schneemann is still known pri-marily for her work as a performance artist (hernew book More Than Meat Joy reviews her con-siderable contributions in this area), she has beenan active film-maker since the mid-sixties. She hasnot made many films, but the accomplishmentsand challenges of her Autobiographical Trilogy-Fuses (1967), Plumb Line (1971), and Kitch 'sLastMeal (1978)-make her one of our most interestingavant-garde film artists. Ironically, however, the
more obvious pleasures of Schneemann's films-their unusual intimacy and emotional authenticity,their sensuous rhythms and gorgeous textures-frequentlyblind viewersto the considerableformalintricacyand ingenuity of her work.
Like subsequent sections of AutobiographicalTrilogy,Fuses was the result of severalyears labor;it was begun in 1964 and not completed until
1967. Though it is relatively brief (about 22 min-utes at 24 frames per second, 33 minutes at 16frames per second; Schneemann screens it at bothspeeds), the density of the imagery demonstrateswhy the film took so long to finish. Many kindsof sexual activitybetween Schneemann and JamesTenney and numerous aspects of the lovers' envi-ronment are recorded in slow, fast, and regularmotion; using a wide variety of camera positions
and maneuvers (the camera was hand-held, posi-tioned on a stable base, hung from the ceiling,taken to bed . . .), and in a wide range of exposurelevels determined by changing times of day, thecycle of the seasons, and by Schneemann's ex-plorationof the 16mm camera. The recordedfoot-age itself was manipulated in a number of ways,so that within Fuses we may see multiple printgenerations of the same image (printed right sideup, upside down, sideways. . .), multiple super-impositionsof photographedimagery,highlyeditedpassages of brief shots (with the splice marks, per-
forations, and flares providing their own imageryand rhythms), as well as dozens of levels and formsof imagerycreated by drawing, painting, and ani-mating directly on the developed film and by aseries of more bizarre procedures: baking imageryonto the film and hanging footage outdoors tointeractwith the elements, for example.
As is true in certain sorts of abstract expres-
1967. Though it is relatively brief (about 22 min-utes at 24 frames per second, 33 minutes at 16frames per second; Schneemann screens it at bothspeeds), the density of the imagery demonstrateswhy the film took so long to finish. Many kindsof sexual activitybetween Schneemann and JamesTenney and numerous aspects of the lovers' envi-ronment are recorded in slow, fast, and regularmotion; using a wide variety of camera positions
and maneuvers (the camera was hand-held, posi-tioned on a stable base, hung from the ceiling,taken to bed . . .), and in a wide range of exposurelevels determined by changing times of day, thecycle of the seasons, and by Schneemann's ex-plorationof the 16mm camera. The recordedfoot-age itself was manipulated in a number of ways,so that within Fuses we may see multiple printgenerations of the same image (printed right sideup, upside down, sideways. . .), multiple super-impositionsof photographedimagery,highlyeditedpassages of brief shots (with the splice marks, per-
forations, and flares providing their own imageryand rhythms), as well as dozens of levels and formsof imagerycreated by drawing, painting, and ani-mating directly on the developed film and by aseries of more bizarre procedures: baking imageryonto the film and hanging footage outdoors tointeractwith the elements, for example.
As is true in certain sorts of abstract expres-
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28
sionist paintings (Schneemann began her careeras a painter and continues to think of her approachas fundamentally painterly),2the structureof Fuses
develops from Schneemann's manipulation ofvisual rhythms. In the most general sense, the film
divides into two sections separated by a caesura ofpale green imagery of Schneemann, of some cowsin a field, and, as the caesura is ending, of Tenney.This 50-second passage (at 24 f.p.s.) is particu-larly noticeable because the imagery is barelyimprinted on the celluloid. Each of the two sur-rounding sections alternates between periods ofdense, multilevelled, highly kinetic imagery andoccasional passages of relativecalm. In general thesame kinds of imagery are seen in both sections;and in many instances, specific images seen duringthe first section-or images recognizably from the
same original rolls-are seen again, in a new con-text, during the second section. The second sectionextends the developments begun in the first andcontinuallyadds new ones, so it is somewhat longerand more complex. Within the two sections,imageryis organized contrapuntally.
Because of the density of Schneemann's imag-ery, its visual and metaphoric subtleties are oftendifficult to recognize without repeated screeningsand study on a rewind. At first the film may strikeone as chaotic, but it is informed by a delicatelyconstructed architecture of visual relationships,
involving color, texture, direction and kind ofmovement. Careful examination of even a briefpassage will discover a complex web of interrelatedvisual developments involving all aspects of theimagery. Schneemann's imagery is also consis-tently suggestive in a metaphoric sense, and manydetails become motifs as the film develops. Win-dows, for instance, come to suggest the relation-ship between the activities of the lovers indoorsand the cycles of nature visible through the win-dows, as well as the film process itself: the camera'sapertureand the film frame, like the windows, are
means for our seeing more clearly. The periodicjuxtaposition of Schneemann and the ocean sug-gests the lunar cycle of the female and the tides(we never see Tenney juxtaposed with the ocean).Kitch the cat's ever-presence is particularly im-portant; at public screenings Schneemann fre-quently indicates that she attempted to capturewhat Kitch-an "objective"observerunhampered
CAROLEECHNEEMA
by societal moral codes and fears-would look atin a given situation.
The fact that the visual explosiveness of Fusesis a result of precise, long-term filmic labors, and
persistent concern with the frame-by-frame nu-
ances of color, texture, and metaphoricimplicationdemonstrates a view that real eroticism exists in adialectic with serious, ongoing commitment. Thesexual spontaneity and abandon of the lovers isthe product of a continual creative exploration byequal partners involved simultaneously (and, asis evident from the passage of the seasons, over aconsiderable period of time) both in love-makingand film-making. The film reveals each of the
partners in the same detail and for approximatelthe same amount of film time, emphasizing acentral equity in the relationship and a mutually
generative interaction between the processes oflove and art.
Schneemann's detailed development of a spe-cifically natural context for the lovers' eroticismsuggests that sex is not a single experience with itsown limited, "proper" place and function, as usu-ally seems the case in popular and/or pornographifilm and literature, but ratheris a formativemodefor human apprehension of the world. Schnee-mann and Tenney are presented as physicalbeings,members of a species, different in obvious ways
from the animals and plants which live in prox-imity with them, but similar in their fundamentaldependence on their senses, on the resources oftheir bodies. Schneemann's juxtaposition of indi-vidual parts of the lovers' bodies with details oftheir natural environment-she cuts from a close-up of her pubic hair to a long-shot of a clump oftrees, from Tenney's genitals to a bunch of grapeshanging on an arbor-continually reaffirms thisattitude, as does her "domestication" of the film-making process itself. In Fuses the camera is nota detached observer with its own set of rules. It's
a participant in the experience, functioning bothas a stimulus and receiver of stimulae. The factthat the imagery recorded by the camera wasphysically handled and explored by Schneemannfor years makes the finished film an extension ofthe tactile experiences it records. In this sense,Fuses can be thought of as a kind of natural accre-tion which, like the husk of a cicada or a cham-
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CAROLEECHNEEMANN
bered nautilus, is an index to the life processeswhich created it.
LikeFuses, the second part of the Trilogydevel-
oped directlyout of very intimate experiences over
a period of several years (it was started in 1968,completed in 1971). Plumb Line begins and endswith a 75-second passage which acts as a frame.This passage opens with a still shot of a man'sface with a plumb line swinging in front of it. The
plumb line disappears;the image of the face beginsto move and, simultaneously, to burn. This isfollowed by two more images-Schneemann andthe man in a windowembracing;a multi-quadrantblue-toned image of the man's face-which alsoburn; and finally a hand enters from screen left,fingerpaints the title in silver paint, washes the
title off, and signs "Carolee Schneemann" as the
image fades to deep red. Within this frame thefilm develops an intricate set of visual and audi-
tory rhythms and interrelationships. At first, wesee complex quartered images (four 8mm imagesarefrequently printedwithin a single 16mmframe,separated into two pairs by a narrow band downthe middle of the image) and full-frame images ofSchneemann, or of Schneemann and the man, ina variety of locations: in St. Marks Square in
Venice, at the beach, drivingthrough countryside,inside an apartment. The sound track begins sev-veral minutes into the film, at firstjuxtaposedwitha passageof full-frameimages of still photographs.It's a frequently disconcerting collage of bits of
music, sirens, a cat chanting, a tape recorderbeingturned on and off, agonized roars(they sound likea lion's, but were in fact Schneemann'sown), and,
29
later in the film, grim passages of narration bySchneemann recalling, in a troubled voice, a
period of physical illness and emotional distur-bance. During the film both the sound and visuals
grow increasinglycomplex; everythingseems to be
happening at once: the various quadrants of thequarteredimage reveal different imageryin differ-ent kinds of motion, sometimesin double exposure;the band which bisects the frame is painted and/or scratched. Finally, the visual imageryslows andfor a time is dominatedby blue-toned, still passagesof quarteredand full-frame images interruptedbymoments of dark leader; then, Schneemann'snarration is added to the track, and both thevisuals and sounds move toward maximum den-
sity. Near the end, we see Schneemann attackinga series of projected images, which leads into the
Frameenlargementsfrom USES
repetitionof the passagewhich begins the film.Within any particular section of Plumb Line,
details of image and sound are arranged contra-
puntally; as the film develops, these details arereiteratedat intervals, though both their contextsand the specific manipulations employed varywith each repetition. The film's complexities are
fascinating in themselves (for sheer visual and
auditory intricacyPlumb Line is at least the
equalof Kubelka's Unsere Afrikareise), but the parti-culars of the imagery suggest the meaning andfunction of these complexities. Whatever the par-ticular nature of the 8mm footage, the scrap audio
tapes, and the snapshots which were the film'sraw material, Schneemann's exploration tends todiscovera consistent sexual politic. Most obvious,
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CAROLEECHNEEMA
perhaps, is the frequency of imagery which sug-gests the man's phallic power. The plumb lineitself is perhaps the most obvious instance (Schnee-mann: "The plumb line stands for a phallic mea-sure, a phallic exploration and determination of
space"); but there are many others. The firstimage in the body of the film is of a man sweeping;in several instances we see him holding a short2 X 4, and standing next to a longer one; andthe Venetian imagery emphasizes spires, towers,pillars, arches.3 Even the vertical band down thecenter of the quarteredimage is suggestive.
Other dimensions of this sexual politic are re-vealed through Schneemann's suggestive use ofsuperimposition. Once in full frame and later individed frame we see a close-up of the man kissingSchneemann, superimposed with the same image
printed in reverse. The result is that Schneemann'sface is covered up and the man appears to bekissing himself. In a number of instances super-imposed images of the man's face looking in differ-ent directions create a Janus-faced figure whosedangerous smile suggest a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hydedouble nature. In still other instances, we see theshot of the man holding the 2 X 4 superimposedwith an image of Schneemann so that she seemsto become part of his equipment. In one full-framesuperimposition we see a shot of the man andSchneemann with an image of a tiger superim-
posed over him; the tiger is moved so that it seemsto pounce on Schneeman. The implications ofsuch imagery are confirmed by dozens of shots ofthe man looking confident and self-satisfied, theshots of Schneemann walking back and forth,back and forth-like a caged animal-in St.Marks Square, and by the pain evident in thesound track. Since the imagery Schneemann usedto develop the permutations for Plumb Line was,in fact, a physical remnant of the relationship,Schneemann's intricate exploration of this ma-terial and her organization of it into a multi-
faceted,cohesive
whole is evidence of an implicitdecision to take control of what had injured her.Herspecificchoice of the step-printer s particularlysignificant in this regard: "The rhythms are allabout the passage through the gate of the step-printer. As I was working, the gate became a vul-vic metaphor for how much desire, how muchrecognition was going to be impressed on the fin-
ished film."4 The making of the film, in otherwords, was a process of examining the remnantof the relationship so that they could be used as
part of her own growth as a film-maker. This isconfirmedby the particularsof the framingimages
all of them have in common the creation of aperformance space and time, within which wewatch a double-levelled procedure: we examine
projected images and (suggestively, once theplumb line has disappeared) we see a record ofSchneemann attacking this imagery from outsideits space. The images from the relationship aretransformedfrom evidence of a lover'sbetrayal tothe receivers of actions initiated by Schneemannand the record of the entire process becomes anintegralpartof a new work.
Fuses lyricizes the passionate center of one loverelationship and Plumb Line exorcizes the painfudisintegration of another; Kitch's Last Meal reveals a third relationship functioning within aneverydaydomestic context. The film exists in mul-
tiple versions, in lengths up to five hours. The version Schneemann generally uses at public screenings lasts about 90 minutes. We see Kitch eating,cleaning herself, exploring her environment; andwe see Schneemann and a man (film-maker An-thony McCall) walking, talking, making loveworking, doing everyday chores. . . . These activi-
ties are punctuated by the periodic freight traintraffic on the tracks which pass the house. Wehear collage tapes composed of comments bySchneemann about her work as a film-maker andabout the film we're watching ("My film is aboutdigestion"), discussions between Schneemann andMcCall (including his discomfort with her taperecorder: "They'll be listening," he complains atone point), the sounds of the train, the radio, kit-chen activities and the other recurrent aspectsof daily living, and Kitch's purringand meowing.
While the durability of 16mm film-as com-
pared to 8mm-made it an obvious choice forthe highly tactile experience of making Fuses,and while the transformationof 8mm imageryintoa new, less intimate 16mm form was appropriatefor Plumb Line, the intimate domesticity whichsurrounded Kitch is reflected in Schneemann'suse of Super-8 for the third diary, and in herdecision to allow the filmed imageryto stand on its
30
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CAROLEECHNEEMANN
own, without the mediation of complex printingprocedures or the addition of directly appliedimagery. On the other hand, Schneemann diddevise a formal procedure which adds a dialec-tically fruitful dimension to the informal imagery.
This procedure involves, first, her decision tomake Kitch 'sLast Meal a double-image presenta-tion in which two Super-8 projectorsare arrangedso that one image is slightly larger, and directlyabove, the other; and, second, her editing the vari-ous reels and tapes so that the image projected bythe two projectors, and the sound supplied by thetape recorder, interact with one another in subtleand suggestiveways.
The interrelationships between the three infor-mation sources in Kitch's Last Meal come to implya pervasive emotional or spiritual dimension be-
hind the events. We can feel how Schneemann'sinvolvementin a web of domestic interrelationshipsover a period of years came to infuse the variousthreads of that web with increasing meaning. Asthe train passes the house day after day, it comesto herald Kitch's inevitable death and, implicitly,to imply the frailty and evanescence of the entireweb. As we see Kitch growing obviously ill, and atthe end, when we see the jolting, sorrowfulimagesof Schneemann holding the flat, stiff carcass ofher dead cat, we realize that the everydayroutinescaptured in the film are, in a basic sense, an illu-sion:
every day of routine is really another trans-formation, a further ticking away of the limitedminutes of the film and of the life it records.
If the sexual explicitness of Fuses has causedSchneemann censorship difficulties in some quar-ters, the choice of double Super-8 projection withtaped sound makes screening Kitch's Last Meala challenge of a different sort. Except, perhaps,for a rather limited period during the sixties, andexcept for a few screening rooms scattered aroundthe country now, there has been little opportunityfor a film artist who wants to be creative with theconditions of
projection,as well as
with the imag-ery recorded on the celluloid, to see her workscreened, much less screened well. In the presen-tations of Kitch's Last Meal I've attended, themost workable projection arrangement has beento set up the projectors and tape recorder withinthe audience. The use of three separate sourceshas requireda certainamount of testingand adjust-
31
ment before screenings, as well as breaks duringthe presentation so that new reels and tapes canbe synchronized. Since these difficulties are analmost automatic function of prior aesthetic decisions by Schneemann, her determination to use
this unusual method reflects not only a need tolive within the economic limitations which plaguemanyfilm artists, but a serious commitment to the
immediacy and potential of the smaller gaugeIronically, in fact, while Schneemann's own concern that the three sources of imagery be perfectly in sync-"that film is cut like a straitjacketIt's very, very fragile. There can't be six extraframes in all the apparentcasualness of it"-makesfor screening difficulties, the adjustment of theprojectorsand tape recorder within the screeningspace tends to humanize the film technology itself
and, appropriately, to give screenings the feel ofa group of friends getting together to show homemovies. Fittingly, in other words, a screening ofSchneemann's domestic epic tends to create onetenuous web of interrelationships from the expe-rience of exploringa previousone.
Though Fuses, Plumb Line, and Kitch's LastMeal were not conceived as a trilogy, togetherthey demonstrate a consistent and coherent aes-thetic challenge to those experiential realitieswhich seem to limit-and thereby diminish-ourpotential for living authentic and realized lives.5
Fuses challenges societal taboos which would de-fine sex as a minor, short-lived part of a relation-ship, which would banish if from our sight and ourserious considerations, and which would use it toenact sexist definitions of maleness and female-ness; and it presents this challenge in a film formwhich consistently defies the "rules" establishedby a film historywhich, far too often, has laboredto make us comfortable with the most restrictedforms of human interaction in the simplest, least-demanding film language. Plumb Line challengesthe potentiallydebilitating effects of emotional loss
by aesthetically converting its filmic remnants intoa film form which simultaneously faces facts-inthis case the facts of a subtle, but powerful sexistmanipulation-and absorbs them into a process ofcreative metamorphosis. Kitch's Last Meal chal-lenges the notion that domestic life is of minorfilmic significance. The film's form-its epiclength (it's certainly one of the longest serious
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films ever made in the small, intimate gauge);the complex interweaving of its three strands; itstotemic stacking of one image above another; evenits title, which echoes "Custer's Last Stand" and
"Krapp'sLast Tape"-is the artist's confrontation
of the inevitability of death. Yes, Schneemannseems to say, what we love most will change and
disappear, and often despite the security we mayfeel around us; but the answer is not to withdrawour love, but to intensify it. If we can't live forever,we must live more sensitively, more deeply, in thetime we have.
NOTES
1. Carolee Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy. ed. Bruce Mc-Pherson(New Paltz, N.Y.: Documentext, 1979), p. 9.
2. Schneemann made this clear in an interview I conductedwith her on November 2, 1979: "I'm a painter, working with
my body and ways of thinking about movement and environmentthat come out of the discipline of having painted for six or eighthours a day for years. That's got to be the root of my languagein any medium. I'm not a film-maker. I'm not a photographer.I'm this painter who's working again with extended, relatedmaterials. I don't want to feel that as a film-maker I'm com-
peting with people who have defined that one area as their
specific and complete focus." The other quotations in thisessay are taken from the same interview. which was publishedin Milleniuni FilmJournal, Fall 1980.
32
films ever made in the small, intimate gauge);the complex interweaving of its three strands; itstotemic stacking of one image above another; evenits title, which echoes "Custer's Last Stand" and
"Krapp'sLast Tape"-is the artist's confrontation
of the inevitability of death. Yes, Schneemannseems to say, what we love most will change and
disappear, and often despite the security we mayfeel around us; but the answer is not to withdrawour love, but to intensify it. If we can't live forever,we must live more sensitively, more deeply, in thetime we have.
NOTES
1. Carolee Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy. ed. Bruce Mc-Pherson(New Paltz, N.Y.: Documentext, 1979), p. 9.
2. Schneemann made this clear in an interview I conductedwith her on November 2, 1979: "I'm a painter, working with
my body and ways of thinking about movement and environmentthat come out of the discipline of having painted for six or eighthours a day for years. That's got to be the root of my languagein any medium. I'm not a film-maker. I'm not a photographer.I'm this painter who's working again with extended, relatedmaterials. I don't want to feel that as a film-maker I'm com-
peting with people who have defined that one area as their
specific and complete focus." The other quotations in thisessay are taken from the same interview. which was publishedin Milleniuni FilmJournal, Fall 1980.
INDIAN INEMNDIAN INEM
3. Schneemann: "In Venice there were all these men followinme aroundand everywherespiresand towers."4. Schneemann used an old-fashioned step-printer (a devicwhich allows the film-maker to print film a frame at a time) t
develop permutations from 8mm film scraps and scrapboophotos which had been recorded during the course of the rela
tionship. The step-printer allowed her to manipulate thmovement within the imagery by printing the same frame oveand over so that the imagery is still, by printing consecutivframes and creating normal motion, and by re-orderingframeso as to create reverse motion, erratic motion, acceleration anddeceleration. She was able to print four separate 8nmm ramewithin a 16nmmrame, and to vary the configurations of thesframes-within-the-frame by printing the same, or different
images in each of the four quadrants, by "mirror printingthe same image four times so that one half of the 16mm framis the reverse of the other (this creates a kaleidoscopic effecwhen the 8mm imagery is moving), by turning 8mm imageupside down, and by superimposing more than one image withione or moreof the quadrants.5. Autobiographical Trilogy has been mysteriouslyabsent from
several recent surveysof augobiographical film-making: Schneemann is not discussed in the autobiography/diary section othe first issue of MilleniumnFilm Journal (it includes P. Adam
Sitney's long essay, "Autobiography in Avant-Garde Film")and she was not included in extensive retrospectives of auto
biographical film at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1978 and a
Anthology Film Archives in summer, 1979, despite the facthat her work predates and is more fully autobiographical tha
many of the films which were included. Nevertheless, whedefinitive retrospectives of this genre of avant-garde film arheld, and definitive histories are written, Schneemann is surto have a prominent place.
3. Schneemann: "In Venice there were all these men followinme aroundand everywherespiresand towers."4. Schneemann used an old-fashioned step-printer (a devicwhich allows the film-maker to print film a frame at a time) t
develop permutations from 8mm film scraps and scrapboophotos which had been recorded during the course of the rela
tionship. The step-printer allowed her to manipulate thmovement within the imagery by printing the same frame oveand over so that the imagery is still, by printing consecutivframes and creating normal motion, and by re-orderingframeso as to create reverse motion, erratic motion, acceleration anddeceleration. She was able to print four separate 8nmm ramewithin a 16nmmrame, and to vary the configurations of thesframes-within-the-frame by printing the same, or different
images in each of the four quadrants, by "mirror printingthe same image four times so that one half of the 16mm framis the reverse of the other (this creates a kaleidoscopic effecwhen the 8mm imagery is moving), by turning 8mm imageupside down, and by superimposing more than one image withione or moreof the quadrants.5. Autobiographical Trilogy has been mysteriouslyabsent from
several recent surveysof augobiographical film-making: Schneemann is not discussed in the autobiography/diary section othe first issue of MilleniumnFilm Journal (it includes P. Adam
Sitney's long essay, "Autobiography in Avant-Garde Film")and she was not included in extensive retrospectives of auto
biographical film at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1978 and a
Anthology Film Archives in summer, 1979, despite the facthat her work predates and is more fully autobiographical tha
many of the films which were included. Nevertheless, whedefinitive retrospectives of this genre of avant-garde film arheld, and definitive histories are written, Schneemann is surto have a prominent place.
CHIDANANDAASGUPT
N e w Directions i n I n d i a n Cinema
CHIDANANDAASGUPT
N e w Directions i n I n d i a n Cinema
Indian cinema faces the eighties, indeed the twenty-first century, with a confidence few countries can
equal. As a mass medium as well as an art, it ison a continuous upswing. Over 700 features in 16
languages (more than half of them in color) were
made in 1979. The equivalent of some $225 millionare annually invested in the production sector ofwhat is the tenth largest industry in a fast indus-
trializing country. The all-India film made in
Hindi, a language spoken in five states but widelyunderstood in others, is made mostly in Bombayand accounts for about 25% of the total produc-tion; the rest is made in 15 regional languages at
Indian cinema faces the eighties, indeed the twenty-first century, with a confidence few countries can
equal. As a mass medium as well as an art, it ison a continuous upswing. Over 700 features in 16
languages (more than half of them in color) were
made in 1979. The equivalent of some $225 millionare annually invested in the production sector ofwhat is the tenth largest industry in a fast indus-
trializing country. The all-India film made in
Hindi, a language spoken in five states but widelyunderstood in others, is made mostly in Bombayand accounts for about 25% of the total produc-tion; the rest is made in 15 regional languages at
a relatively low cost. The number of cinemagoers-about 10 million a day-is restricted only by thedearth of cinema theaters (9500), especially inrural areas. A "parallel" cinema with a markedlygreater creative energy, arising in the regional
languages, has begun to turn sideways and poachinto "commercial" territory.
Television, with only a half million or so sets forIndia's population of more than 600 million, is
heavily dependent on film for its programming;in any event, since TV sets are very expensive interms of Indian incomes, it can have no effect
except on a tiny elite for many decades. The field
a relatively low cost. The number of cinemagoers-about 10 million a day-is restricted only by thedearth of cinema theaters (9500), especially inrural areas. A "parallel" cinema with a markedlygreater creative energy, arising in the regional
languages, has begun to turn sideways and poachinto "commercial" territory.
Television, with only a half million or so sets forIndia's population of more than 600 million, is
heavily dependent on film for its programming;in any event, since TV sets are very expensive interms of Indian incomes, it can have no effect
except on a tiny elite for many decades. The field
