Film Feminisms: A Global Introduction

387 Pages·2018·34.115 MB·English

by  Kristin Lené Hole, Dijana Jelača

FILM FEMINISMS
Film Feminisms offers a global and updated overview of the history,
present-day concerns, and future of feminist film and theory. It introduces
frameworks from phenomenology, affect theory, and psychoanalysis to
reception studies, new media theories, and critical historiography, as well
as engaging with key issues in documentary ethics, genre theory, and star
studies.
This new textbook situates feminist film theory within the larger framework
of transnational scholarly approaches, as well as decolonial, queer,
disability studies, and critical race theories. It offers a much-needed update
on pedagogical approaches to feminist film studies, providing discussions
of filmmakers and films that have been overlooked in the field, or that are
overdue for further analysis.
Each chapter is supported by a variety of pedagogical features including
activities, key terms, and case studies. Many of the activities draw on
contemporary digital media, such as social media and streaming platforms,
to update the field to today’s changing media landscape.
Kristin Lené Hole is an Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Portland State
University. She is the author of Towards a Feminist Cinematic Ethics: Claire
Denis, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-Luc Nancy (2016) and co-editor of
The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Gender (with Dijana Jelača, E.
Ann Kaplan, and Patrice Petro, 2017).
Dijana Jelača is Adjunct Professor in the Film Department at Brooklyn
College. She is the author of Dislocated Screen Memory: Narrating Trauma
in Post-Yugoslav Cinema (2016).

FILM FEMINISMS
A Global Introduction
Kristin Lené Hole and Dijana Jelacˇa
First published 2019
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Kristin Lené Hole and Dijana Jelača
The right of Kristin Lené Hole and Dijana Jelača to be identified as authors of this work has
been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hole, Kristin Lené, author. | Jelača, Dijana, 1979– author.
Title: Film feminisms / Kristin Lené Hole and Dijana Jelača.
Description: London ; New York : Routledge, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015389 | ISBN 9781138667891 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138667907 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781315618845 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Feminism and motion pictures. | Women in motion
pictures. | Feminist film criticism.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.W6 H63 2018 | DDC 791.43/6522—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015389
ISBN: 978-1-138-66789-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-66790-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-61884-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To our daughters, Pola and Sava

CONTENTS
List of figures viii
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Women filmmakers and feminist authorship 6
Chapter 2: Spectatorship and reception 52
Chapter 3: Cinema and the body 89
Chapter 4: Stars: gendered texts, circulating images 134
Chapter 5: Documentary: local realities, (trans)national
perspectives 175
Chapter 6: Feminism and experimental film and video 222
Chapter 7: Narrative film: gender and genre 265
Chapter 8: From film to new media: emergent feminist
perspectives 307
Index 350
VII
FIGURES
1.1 Alice Guy Blaché 12
1.2 Germaine Dulac 13
1.3 One of the earliest uses of split screen to show parallel
action (Suspense, Lois Weber, 1913) 14
1.4 Zora Neale Hurston 15
1.5 A still from La tigresa (Mimí Derba & Enrique Rosas, 1917) 16
1.6 Alla Nazimova in Salome (Alla Nazimova & Charles
Bryant, 1923) 16
1.7 A still from The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte
Reiniger, 1926) 17
1.8 Elizaveta Svilova seen at the editing desk in Man with a
Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) 18
1.9 Yuliya Solntseva as Aelita, the Queen of Mars (Yakov
Protazanov, 1924) 19
1.10 Esfir Shub in Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie
Camera (1929) 20
1.11 Aleksandra Khokhlova in Lev Kuleshov’s By the Law
(1926) 21
1.12 Kinuyo Tanaka in Burden of Life (Jinsei no onimotsu,
Heinosuke Gosho, 1935) 23
1.13 Still from The Widow (Nam-ok Park, 1955) 24
1.14 A still from Mossane (Safi Faye, 1996) 25
1.15 Rosaura Revueltas as Esperanza in Salt of the Earth
(Herbert J. Biberman, 1954) 28
1.16 A still from Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce,
1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975) 31
1.17 Lina Wertmüller’s Love and Anarchy (1973) 34
1.18 Samira Makhmalbaf directing on the set of Blackboards
(2000) in the documentary How Samira Made the
Blackboard (Maysam Makhmalbaf, 2000) 39
1.19 An unlikely friendship in Facing Mirrors (Aynehaye
Rooberoo, Negar Azarbayjani, 2011) 43
1.20 Kirsten Johnson’s ailing mother in Cameraperson (2016) 46
2.1 The male gaze and camera lens turned towards a woman
(Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) 54
2.2 In Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015), a woman longingly turns
her gaze and camera lens towards another woman 55
VIII
FIgures
2.3 Judy/Madeleine being punished by her controlling lover
(Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) 56
2.4 Repressed lesbian desire in Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) 58
2.5 Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #43 60
2.6 The stigma of same-sex desire in The Children’s Hour
(William Wyler, 1961) 63
2.7 King Kong and vulnerable yet seductive white femininity
(King Kong, Peter Jackson, 2005) 66
2.8 The return of the repressed in Black Girl (Ousmane
Sembene, 1966) 69
2.9 The female-centric comedy Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, 2011)
was a huge box-office success, predominantly catering to
female audiences 71
2.10 Jackie Stacey’s chart of the contrasting paradigms of
film studies and cultural studies. From Star Gazing:
Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship (1994: 24) 73
2.11 Buffalo Bill as a gender-bending serial killer in The
Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) 74
2.12 Female bonding in The Color Purple (Steven Spielberg,
1985) 75
2.13 Xena and Gabrielle, the inspiration for femslash
fanfiction (Xena: Warrior Princess) 78
2.14 Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o: “Twitter movie” and the
power of grassroots fan activity 79
2.15 The all-female remake of Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016)
was targeted with a sustained negative campaign by
online trolls from the moment the project was announced 80
2.16 A crazed fan in Misery (Rob Reiner, 1990) 82
2.17 Julie Ganapathi (Balu Mehendra, 2003), an Indian Tamil
remake of Misery (Rob Reiner, 1990) 83
3.1 Scenes from Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses (1965) 94
3.2 Scenes from Carolee Schneemann’s Fuses (1965) 94
3.3 Differing representations of space: Take Shelter (Jeff
Nichols, 2011) 95
3.4 Differing representations of space: Friday Night (Claire
Denis, 2002) 95
3.5 A “thin image” in History and Memory (Rea Tajiri, 1991) 97
3.6 “He still nags me about it as if I have given you something
that only belongs to him.” Hatoum translates her
mother’s letters from the Arabic in Measures of Distance
(Mona Hatoum, 1988). Here, her mother discusses her
father’s reaction to the nude photos Hatoum took of her. 98
3.7 Nénette floating in Nénette and Boni (Claire Denis, 1996) 101
3.8 Boni follows the trail of brioche (Nénette and Boni,
Claire Denis, 1996) 102
Ix