This utopian view of experimental cinema seems to me to be incorrect.
Some of those I would call the very greatest experimental filmmakers
were also sexual harassers. Remember that many filmmakers had a position
of profesorship, which certainly conveys an aura of authority, or other
positions of power. Asking for sex from a very young and very admiring
student enrolled in one of one's courses is highly inappropriate, and
not only in my view, even if it is nowhere near as awful as the worst of
the actions we are hearing about today.
I do not wish to name filmmakers now very old or deceased, but I can
without searching my memory very hard quickly count to eight, not all of
them among the greatest filmmakers and not all of them professors. I
felt the need to chime in in response to the we are better than they
tone of this post. I am a bit out of the current scene and do not know
of currently active harassers in our little film world. It would be nice
to think that there are fewer today, and nicer to think that such
actions will be greatly reduced by the current shift in climate around
this issue.
Perhaps the old HIV slogan, Silence=Death, can be resurrected with a
slight rewrite now? I am not sure what to use instead of death though.
Fred Camper
Chicago
On 11/23/2017 8:21 PM, Pip Chodorov wrote:
Asking for a friend? Hilarious subject line.
I think experiemental film's freedom comes from its marginality.
In this business there is no money or power because these films are
outside the film industry and outside the art market. There is only
passion, sharing, and working in cooperative communities.
That is not to say that there is no competition or territoriality
between people or groups, we feel that maybe even stronger than in the
film industry or the art market. But there is certainly no sense of
entitlement over others due to one's position. There are no bosses, no
job interviews, no big opportunities, no moguls... Also the nature of
these film works are self-expression and thrashing out issues of
difference and marginality and self-identity so it is a very welcoming
community in those terms.
Of course there are other kinds of negative energies that can crop up
in our communitiy besides sexual haassment, other, more "experimental"
harassments that could be interseting to discuss...
- Pip Chodorov
At 21:06 +0000 23/11/17, Chuck Kleinhans wrote:
Given the proliferation of items in the news about sexual harassment
in the film industry, and entertainment, and politics and academe,
etc. why is this listserv so quiet on these issues? Nothing to report?
Chuck Kleinhans
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