Sphere of Action (1999)

B. Ruby Rich's Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of Feminist Film Movement is necessary, passionate and beautifully written call to arms for feminist film community to remember that ideas are not imbedded exclusively within our lonely, computer-shackled selves, but demand collective action to imagine better It is without question one of most significant film books published in past year, with brilliant deconstructions of legendary feminist films and searing exposes of events and people who formed feminist film movement. importance of this book resides in how it deftly wrenches all of us from thinking that feminist film theory represents merely theoretical paradigm, an arcane academic lingo or bourgeois individual pursuit for tenure and publication. Rich reminds us that feminist film is a discipline that began as movement where the present landscape of feminism and film has been deprived of its own history, substituting canon of texts for set of lived experiences. Chick Flicks zeroes in on overlooked, underanalyzed public sector of feminist film culture: film exhibition, film festivals, feminist film conferences and journals. As more and more academic film departments codify film studies and professionalize their production and screen-writing areas into industry clones, Rich's refocus on alternative media institutions provides an important reclamation of rich, varied histories of field. very first sentence of book sets out her agenda: The aim of this book is both modest and grandiose: to bring history, theory, and experience back into better communication with one another, and to marshal trio into synthesis that exposes its process and preserves its parts in as rough-edged, disparate, even contradictory form as possible. Surveying current scene, Rich observes that overall, there is growing acceptance of feminist film as an area of study rather than as sphere of action. She worries that heavy emphasis on feminist film theory in academy in 1990s has neutralized larger social and political issues that once provided context for filmmakers to engage in debates about film form, content and practice. communities that she describes anchored feminist media artists in larger political spheres of controversy, debate and social change. Rich adamantly emphasizes moments connecting feminist film and feminist movement. She hails feminist film pioneers like Chantal Akerman, Michelle Citron, Julie Dash, Ulrike Ottinger and Michelle Parkerson, who are inventing new vernaculars for future. Rich's polemical accounts of her various theoretical debates, love affairs and programming schemes will perhaps irritate some academic film theorists in its ruthless braiding of politics and personal life, great films and even greater gossip. Rich is not always nice and polite to everyone here. She takes stands and comes out against those whose positions rankle her (such as academic film theorists E. Ann Kaplan, Annette Kuhn and Annette Michelson). Rich names names, reclaiming women and men who forged feminist film and feminist causes into one of major events of this century. Rich describes large, lively transnational community of feminist film commandos, spanning Canada, United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia, brimming with committed scholars, critics, programmers, filmmakers and politicos. She writes many footnote-free chapters with tell-all revelations that are sure to spark debates about academic: propriety and seriousness among those who like their politics in faculty meetings rather than at film exhibitions. But beyond elegant writing and well-told tales, Rich's personal history pumps life into theories college students now study in feminist film courses. Autobiographical sections, or prologues, establish political and personal contexts for her landmark critical essays on feminist film, originally published between 1972 and 1991. …