Filmmaker Presentations Oct 19th- Riggs, Friedrich and Proctor

            I really enjoyed the more socio-politically driven filmmakers from this week! We really seem to have some elusive vanguards on our hands. It was especially interesting considering Gabby’s presentation of Jen Proctor. It must have been quite a challenge to pool together resources based off a few Interweb videos and a single interview via phone. Though in the same vein, Gabby also had a great chance to really get to know the filmmaker by speaking with her directly. And she really seemed to have a sense of who Proctor was, having described her as an intellectually soft-spoken person; though one more than happy to chat on at length.

            I felt as though there was a great deal to take away from Proctor’s philosophy on filmmaking too, as she favors re-purposing footage from home movies and various films. Her way of appropriation, subversion and deconstruction of filmic materials really fits in nicely with her collection of shorts. In addition, I’m really looking forward to seeing more of Nothing A Little Soap and Water Can’t Fix (2017) at ole Cucalorus! I’ll certainly carry over that anxiety elicited from Groundlessness the next time I step onto a plane!

            Considering Catherine’s project on Su Friedrich there seems to be even less source material and biographical information. However, based on what Catherine discussed in her presentation, a lot of Friedrich’s background and personal nuances can be felt through her works. I’m hoping to revisit Sink or Swim (1990) and Hide and Seek (1996) when I get the chance. In fact, I enjoyed her perspective self-portrait work, where she described creating a distance between herself and her film subjects (i.e. transferring “I” to a “she”). Through this approach Friedrich seems better able to curate her unique blend of documentary and personal experience, without necessarily losing focus in her work. And with regards to her addressing gender identity and a lesbian, cultural discourse, I believe that Friedrich and Marlon Riggs both paired well together as we approach more socially/politically conscious avant-garde artists.

            Riggs was by far my favorite filmmaker of the bunch this week. I feel as though he’s been the one filmmaker (of those we’ve explored so far) who has the most to say. I couldn’t imagine growing up in the Civil Rights era and then falling into the protests of Gay Rights in the eighties. He must have surely had an emotionally tumultuous life. However, he imbued his films with socially charged sentiments, offering his own lyrical poetry to the conception and representation of marginalized black and gay culture. I respected and greatly appreciated the way in which Riggs drew parallels between the freedom struggle of the sixties and that of the prevailing eighties. His explorations on the deconstructive nature of silence really helped to lend a sympathetic perspective.

I just so happen to be taking an African-American Experience cinema course with S. Richardson, and Riggs has helped contextualize a lot of what I’ve discovered through that course. I really hope that he had some influence of Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2017). I feel as though that work specifically is a salient film in our modern age. One which not only pioneers black writers and directors working today, but also offers a genuine portrayal of the black experience. Also the pulsing, rhythmic soundscapes gives Tongues United (1989) its own anxious feeling. As if the internal strife is bursting out through the soundscape.
 I’m glad to know that PBS was in favor of Riggs’s work and supported it throughout much of his career. These various artists, of which we’ve discussed and discovered as a class, deserve more of such attention and appraisal.