ann marie fleming ’ s films gender, memory and survival

Ann Marie Fleming’s Films

Gender, Memory and Survival

Questions The Films We’ve Watched For the Students For Director Fleming

Films 1. Stickgirl & Female Artist: great expectations. (1997) amf‘s tiresias (1998) 動畫 i love my work (1994) drumstix2. Desire, Life and Survival you take care now (1989) new shoes: an interview (1990) Pleasure film (ahmed‘s story) (1995) blue skies 2002 (2002) buckingham palace (1993)

Films 3. Memory and Family (see last

week’s outline) waving Pioneers of X-Ray Technology

Questions for the Students

1. Stickgirl & Female Artists: In revising the story of Tiresia, what doe

s the film say about different genders’ experience of sexuality?

How do the films such as Great Expectations, Drumstix and I Love My Work, present female artists?

Questions for the Students

2. Desire, Life and Survival

How is “pleasure” defined (Pleasure film) ? How are accidents survived (you take care now & blue skies )?

How is reality contrasted with fantasy images? Why does the interview have to be finished in five minutes?

Questions for Director Fleming

At the end of “Buckingham Palace,” does the Executor get to kill the Perfect Western Man?

Your interviews are not just interviews; you tend to mix them with some other images and words (animations, some narration and some other footage). That’s why for me these films present a central theme, but then also several related ideas. In “New Shoes” when did you come up with the idea of media voyeurism? Before or after the interview? How about “Pioneers of X-Ray Technology”?

Female Artists “Great Expectations”—frustrations and

dreams

Female Artists “I Love my Work”—burdens in daily life

rejected by painting the door

Female Artists “Drumstix”

Tiresia Women do have better sex, but there is

no other benefit to it.

Tiresia Cassandra gets a better vision and

loves it.

You Take Care Now Two parts: about a rape and an accident, with

some repetitions of words and images Mental and Disparate Visual Images of

intrusion, male violence and lost dignity:

You Take Care Now Repetitions: Images of women

You Take Care Now Survival: “Whatever it was, Alice fell

quickly through it.” ending of Part I: ‘. . .Your

friend from the train is there, and asks you how your day was? You say, "I had a really bad day, a really bad day? But then you look down at yourself, and you are all in one piece, and you think, at least I'm still okay.’

End of Part II: ‘And you wonder what you ever did to get raped and run over in one lifetime. And you realize that there is only one.’

You Take Care Now Memory and Representation (2):

Part I: “So, you take a picture of yourself so that you can remember what the Mona Lisa looks like when she realizes Leonardo is just another letch. “

You Take Care Now Memory and Representation (2):

Part II: Ross takes a picture of you. You lie there, small and helpless and black and white. And it looks like this:

. . .

And you think, wow, pictures don't tell you anything.

Pleasure Film life –unexpectedly changeful:

“Happiness is so elusive

Its nature's so abusive

that the moment things start swinging right

Apprehension wraps you tight.” desire –cannot be kept, or not what one

needs (Ahmed’s story)

Blue Skies 2002 Ritual of surviving trauma and

Acceptance of difference cultures.

New Shoes: Reality vs. Fantasies

Reality:

-- how different people deals with breaking up differently. This woman cannot remember the lover’s name, but her ex-boyfriend seems to be obsessive and violent.

-- Her memory: quite detailed.

New Shoes: Reality vs. Fantasies

Fantasies: 1) cannot go home; 2) birds flying up when she was shot and faced the sky

Class Announcements

Pre-Evaluation The Novels Next week’s readings: Handouts (“Tricks

with Mirror” “CanLit” “This is a Photograph of Me” “Cape Breton is the Center of Thought Control”) and Decline of the American Empire