00:09.529 --> 00:16.360
Construct an autobiography before someone does
it for you.

00:16.360 --> 00:19.420
Shuffle, step, step, shuffle, step, step,
heel toe, step, step, shuffle, step, step,

00:19.569 --> 00:23.360
shuffle, step, shuffle, step,
heel toes.

00:23.370 --> 00:24.739
Step shuffle shuffle to shuffle.

00:24.950 --> 00:30.319
Shuffle, shuffle, to shuffle.

00:30.319 --> 00:37.250
I was born at a time when Shirley
Temple was making more money

00:37.549 --> 00:40.369
than any other female in the United States.

00:41.569 --> 00:45.090
I was taught early to perform, and perform I did.

00:45.819 --> 00:50.790
In Tangiers, I robbed an American Express with
my Swiss Army knife.

00:51.659 --> 00:57.060
I modeled myself on Charlie Chaplin who, unlike
Temple, was a man of action.

00:58.060 --> 01:02.259
My cross-dressing barely disguised the amateur
performer.

01:10.709 --> 01:16.379
I invented myself as an artist by reading
autobiographies and biographies of famous

01:16.379 --> 01:18.540
artists, poets, painters.

01:19.440 --> 01:23.639
Little did I know or think that these could be
fictive accounts.

01:24.379 --> 01:30.699
The qualities I sought out, risk taking,
discipline, challenging the

01:30.699 --> 01:35.449
bourgeoisie, reinforce my commitment to become
an artist.

01:36.709 --> 01:42.879
None of these books that became my guide on how
to be an artist were by or about

01:42.879 --> 01:43.879
lesbians.

01:50.010 --> 01:55.610
My grandmother was slipped out of her Ukrainian
village by an overburdened mother with too many

01:55.610 --> 02:00.330
children.
She was 13 and hid under straw in a horse-drawn

02:00.330 --> 02:04.360
carriage all the way to a German port town on
the North Sea,

02:04.569 --> 02:08.449
where she was put on a freighter to Ellis
Island, New York.

02:09.419 --> 02:11.339
She said she was 16.

02:13.500 --> 02:19.460
From Peoria to Hollywood, this is the story of
a second-generation Ukrainian daughter.

02:27.080 --> 02:31.110
Do I fit?
Do I fit?

02:33.690 --> 02:34.729
Do I fit, Shirley?

02:36.949 --> 02:41.110
Went looking for your home, Shirley, only found
a star.

02:43.589 --> 02:49.770
The emergence of the star system involved a
strict regulation of the type of knowledge

02:49.770 --> 02:51.690
produced about the actor.

02:52.740 --> 02:59.000
The picture personality was the result of a
particular production and

02:59.000 --> 03:01.389
circulation of knowledge.

03:03.289 --> 03:09.399
In the 1930s, millions of workers, millions of workers,
mom had hopes for me.

03:10.029 --> 03:11.649
I had all the lessons.

03:12.039 --> 03:18.809
In the mid-1930s, when 20 million people were on
relief, tap dance,

03:18.910 --> 03:24.240
I took elocution, and then one day I took
elocution swim.

03:24.470 --> 03:30.070
She led in box office grosses.
Millions of workers had more products named

03:30.070 --> 03:32.740
after her than any other star.

03:33.300 --> 03:34.740
reduced work hours.

03:35.229 --> 03:40.350
Speed up. Shirley awoke in the morning singing a
song entitled Early Bird.

03:41.380 --> 03:47.860
Bertie, with a yellow bill, sat upon my window
sill, cocked his

03:47.860 --> 03:53.929
shiny head, and said, "Ain't you shamed, you
sleepy head?"

03:56.639 --> 04:03.369
Looking for a lesbian, looking for a lesbian,
looking for coochie.

04:03.800 --> 04:05.869
Where is Shirley?

04:06.759 --> 04:08.529
Where is Shirley?

04:09.779 --> 04:11.660
Where is Shirley?

04:12.940 --> 04:14.289
Uh, sure.

04:15.429 --> 04:19.309
Where is she?
Oh, sure.

04:20.618 --> 04:22.088
Where is Shirley?

04:23.209 --> 04:25.019
Where is Shirley?

04:28.190 --> 04:31.459
Step on a crack and break your mother's back.

04:32.619 --> 04:38.809
One hundred mothers stood in a line with their prim and
anxious daughters waiting for the interview.

04:39.640 --> 04:44.179
A man in a suit sat behind an imposing wooden
desk and asked,

04:44.429 --> 04:46.609
Has she had acting lessons?

04:46.950 --> 04:50.630
Only in a neighborhood class, my mother said,
but she's had tap,

04:50.760 --> 04:53.980
ballet, modern, elocution, horseback riding.

04:54.799 --> 04:59.859
I'm sorry, ma'am, he said, but we're only
interested in those children who have been

04:59.859 --> 05:01.850
professionally trained in acting.

05:02.339 --> 05:03.420
Come back then.

05:04.850 --> 05:10.920
Autobiography does not develop endemically in
cultures where the individual does not oppose

05:10.920 --> 05:17.239
herself to all others, where she does not feel
herself to exist outside of others,

05:17.359 --> 05:24.190
but still less against others, but very much
with others in an interdependent existence

05:24.559 --> 05:27.829
that asserts its rhythms everywhere in the
community.

05:29.410 --> 05:36.140
Where lives are so thoroughly entangled that
each of them has its center everywhere and its

05:36.140 --> 05:38.200
circumference nowhere.

05:39.390 --> 05:44.369
The important unit is thus never the isolated
being.

05:45.570 --> 05:47.250
George Gusdorf.

05:48.929 --> 05:55.459
Do I fit?
Do I feel? The stairs loomed

05:55.459 --> 05:59.480
large.
My bangs were cut in an uneven, nearly straight

05:59.480 --> 06:01.190
line across my forehead.

06:01.540 --> 06:06.839
My French braids pinched my scalp, my patent
leather Mary Janes,

06:06.980 --> 06:12.500
a plaid and pleated skirt, and a starched white
blouse completed my attire.

06:13.440 --> 06:19.880
My small sweaty palm lay inside my mother's
large hands as she pulled me forward and said,

06:20.320 --> 06:24.829
Miss Gish, Miss Lillian Gish, I'd like you to
meet my daughter.

06:24.839 --> 06:30.239
Barbara Jean.
I remember meeting her and a man,

06:30.410 --> 06:34.519
D.W. Griffith, when my grandmother was a cook for
her.

06:35.950 --> 06:40.070
D.W. Griffith had gone into seclusion.
He took no phone calls,

06:40.230 --> 06:43.470
and his mailbox was crammed with unanswered
letters.

06:45.109 --> 06:50.459
Lillian Gish carried around with her a
statement he had made.

06:52.190 --> 06:56.500
Quote, today they have forgotten movement in
moving pictures.

06:57.130 --> 06:59.670
It's all still and stale.

07:00.920 --> 07:03.510
Too much today depends on the voice.

07:04.880 --> 07:09.339
Another pocket piece that Gish carried with
her read,

07:10.190 --> 07:12.859
What you get in movies is a living.

07:13.269 --> 07:15.190
What you give is life.

07:16.859 --> 07:20.850
She looks in the mirror and examines her large
broad face.

07:21.750 --> 07:27.170
Pitching her father's gray felt hat to a cocky
slant, she purses her lips.

07:27.820 --> 07:29.100
Something is missing.

07:30.029 --> 07:34.630
The charcoal on her cheek works well, giving
her a five o'clock shadow.

07:35.470 --> 07:40.200
The open blue collar of her dad's work shirt
falls from her child's shoulders.

07:41.649 --> 07:47.660
Pushing her strangling bangs from her eyes, she
takes a comb and parts her long brown hair in

07:47.660 --> 07:51.820
the middle.
Grabbing one side of the hair in her right hand,

07:51.910 --> 07:54.980
she pulls it toward her face and holds it below
her chin,

07:55.230 --> 08:00.510
and with her left hand, she pulls the hair on
the other side and holds both fronds in one

08:00.510 --> 08:03.149
hand, putting a rubber band around them.

08:04.380 --> 08:09.410
Below her chin held tightly now sprouts her new
brown beard.

08:10.600 --> 08:16.260
With my money tied in a hanky on a stick, my
Halloween costume is complete.

08:23.100 --> 08:27.279
I am eleven and cross-dressed for the first time.

08:30.329 --> 08:36.848
The female body, the male gaze, and the structure
of realism

08:37.419 --> 08:41.689
are only sex toys for the butch-femme couple.

08:42.818 --> 08:44.419
Sue Ellen case.

08:54.609 --> 09:00.780
The feminist subject is both inside and outside
of heterosexual ideology

09:01.489 --> 09:06.520
and is capable of change and changing the
conditions of her existence.

09:07.820 --> 09:09.679
Sue Ellen case.

09:13.520 --> 09:18.359
Penis, penis, who's got the penis?

09:19.809 --> 09:26.260
Penis-related posturings were always
acknowledged as roles,

09:26.570 --> 09:29.489
not biological birthrights.

09:31.099 --> 09:34.940
Sue Ellen case. Ah.

09:44.260 --> 09:46.469
I Paper tod

09:46.469 --> 10:00.030
00

10:00.030 --> 10:01.030
Ho ho ho, rip Sabo Adobo Adobo.

10:13.859 --> 10:17.650
My father and mother met on a blind date when
they were students at the University of

10:17.650 --> 10:22.229
Illinois.
One day, I found my mother's diary in the garage.

10:22.880 --> 10:24.919
It was tied with a skinny blue ribbon.

10:25.770 --> 10:27.599
I opened it and read.

10:28.669 --> 10:32.869
Johnny Hammer, tall, dark, and quite okay.

10:33.270 --> 10:36.119
Take 3.
Mom had hopes for me.

10:36.309 --> 10:42.099
Shirley Temple was a phenomenon of the first
magnitude for an audition.

10:42.349 --> 10:47.155
A big oak desk with a man
in a suit sitting behind it at the audition.

10:47.155 --> 10:51.784
Singlehandedly revived Fox. I went for an
audition.

10:52.044 --> 10:58.145
Tis a test, a green and yellow basket. I wrote a
letter to my mom,

10:58.155 --> 10:59.844
and on the way I dropped it.

11:00.539 --> 11:02.659
I am told I am bad.

11:02.929 --> 11:04.239
I wet my bed.

11:04.489 --> 11:09.520
I peel off the wallpaper next to the bed, and I
pick the neighbor's flowers.

11:10.500 --> 11:15.880
Mother makes me wear diapers over my pedal
pushers and pins a note on my shirt.

11:16.460 --> 11:20.690
Beware, I am a flower thief, it says.

11:20.929 --> 11:25.859
I wrote a letter to my mom, and on the way I
dropped it.

11:27.590 --> 11:32.489
I am scared to death, frightened to the core,
and I jump up and down,

11:32.580 --> 11:37.510
up and down.
I am on top of the bunk bed, and my baby sister

11:37.510 --> 11:40.080
is behind me, squeezed into the corner.

11:40.840 --> 11:46.179
I am trying to distract the babysitter, the
tall neighborhood boy with the greasy black

11:46.179 --> 11:50.690
hair.
If I keep jumping, he isn't able to touch me.

11:51.489 --> 11:54.880
If I keep jumping, I am safe.

11:55.960 --> 11:58.690
So we see it in the infants usually.

12:00.039 --> 12:06.080
Uh, the ability to, uh, willingness to
trust other people rather than to be

12:06.080 --> 12:07.630
mistrustful of other people.

12:08.450 --> 12:12.690
But I think if a parent would constantly bear
in mind that the child owes him or her nothing,

12:12.760 --> 12:16.559
and as soon as then they give the child
everything they can in the way of developing

12:16.559 --> 12:20.530
and helping the child grow. One day Marian took
Johnny home to meet her mother,

12:20.679 --> 12:24.940
Anna Kos.
Johnny was shocked that there was an outhouse

12:24.940 --> 12:29.919
in the backyard.
Later, whenever he bragged about installing a

12:29.919 --> 12:35.869
flush toilet for Marian, my mother protested
and said he was just making it up.

12:37.159 --> 12:40.109
My dad runs a Flying Red Horse gas station.

12:40.679 --> 12:43.799
My dad's pillow is black from the grease in his
hair.

12:45.030 --> 12:49.099
One time I heard him calling from his bed for a
gun to blow his brains out.

12:50.039 --> 12:51.630
He says he has a migraine.

12:53.419 --> 12:56.419
Mother empties bottles of beer down the kitchen
sink.

13:00.010 --> 13:06.320
I think we all have had experiences, and I
suppose most people do have experiences that

13:06.320 --> 13:08.039
they, they have, uh.

13:09.479 --> 13:12.789
In reality, they've not been able to trust
somebody.

13:12.909 --> 13:14.469
This person has let them down.

13:25.599 --> 13:26.599
He

13:32.830 --> 13:33.830
Yeah.

13:41.229 --> 13:46.710
I promise not to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth.

13:47.440 --> 13:52.349
She was running around and around the red
wooden scooter which had fallen over,

13:52.679 --> 13:55.549
delighted by the little animal that darted out.

13:56.200 --> 13:58.080
She said, it's a miss.

13:58.359 --> 13:59.429
It's a miss.

14:00.309 --> 14:06.840
This story would be told again and again in the
family until it became as much a part of her

14:06.840 --> 14:08.679
story as her name.

14:11.559 --> 14:18.489
Her speech, even when theoretical or political,
is never simple

14:18.780 --> 14:24.099
or linear.
She draws her story into history.

14:24.929 --> 14:26.409
Helene Czu.

14:29.549 --> 14:36.530
It's a niece. In the backyard was an old
nectarine tree that the children liked to play

14:36.530 --> 14:40.429
beneath.
In the spring, after the warm rains,

14:40.599 --> 14:44.440
they would dig holes and bury their favorite
small toys.

14:44.640 --> 14:47.159
Then, in the winter, they would dig them up again.

14:48.059 --> 14:51.919
It was a memory game, and if one could not find
a toy,

14:52.090 --> 14:57.080
the other might, and so history could be told
and retold.

14:58.500 --> 15:05.219
Today, when I eat an overripe nectarine in the
heat of summer, I remember a toy I

15:05.219 --> 15:12.109
never found.
The garage is a

15:12.109 --> 15:13.900
fantasy place for me.

15:14.309 --> 15:18.909
It is dark and mysterious, and everything can
change its order.

15:20.349 --> 15:25.549
After the chickens are all gone, I make a
haunted house in the old chicken coop.

15:26.530 --> 15:30.979
I shred burlap bags and hang strings from the
roof to the floor.

15:31.700 --> 15:34.630
I break a mur and pour ketchup on it.

15:35.510 --> 15:38.119
In a bowl, I have peeled grapes.

15:39.250 --> 15:43.789
A rubber glove is filled with ice cubes and
hung neck high.

15:45.140 --> 15:52.140
The best event is a series of rubber tubes I've
taken and strung together so that the visitor

15:52.140 --> 15:54.489
must crawl through on hands and knees.

15:55.719 --> 15:57.119
The coop is dark.

15:58.500 --> 16:01.090
Scary sounds come from a record player.

16:02.119 --> 16:04.700
And I collect dimes at the door.

16:07.080 --> 16:14.049
In 1973, I traveled around the world on a motor
scooter with a fresh boy out of Oklahoma

16:14.049 --> 16:16.909
who promised to travel with me if I married him.

16:17.830 --> 16:23.559
The smell of diesel fuel brings back the early
mornings driving the Lambretta through Turkey,

16:23.849 --> 16:30.719
Syria, Iraq before he fell from the machine
weakened by jaundice hepatitis picked up from

16:30.719 --> 16:34.960
the aluminum poles of the tent he bought
secondhand in Florence.

16:36.549 --> 16:40.919
I wrote every 2 weeks from all 18 of the
countries we visited.

16:41.940 --> 16:44.260
All the letters are from me to her.

16:45.320 --> 16:50.200
She saved every letter.
The only letter I have from her is after I

16:50.200 --> 16:53.840
left my marriage and was living with two
friends in Berkeley.

16:55.700 --> 16:57.010
How are you, honey?

16:57.429 --> 17:00.650
I want you to know that I love you and you're
very dear to me.

17:01.219 --> 17:03.539
You did worry me a great deal, and you do.

17:04.359 --> 17:07.180
I can't help but be concerned about your
welfare.

17:07.880 --> 17:13.599
I'm glad, very glad, that you decided that real
life isn't dealt with drugs.

17:14.130 --> 17:15.199
Keep it up, honey.

17:15.689 --> 17:20.239
I know that in some sections of your society it
will be very hard to say no.

17:22.219 --> 17:26.930
She calls me Barbs and signs her letters your
old mother.

17:28.060 --> 17:29.540
I love her handwriting.

17:30.359 --> 17:36.910
I am standing on my head in the bed trying to
hold the semen in for the longest

17:36.910 --> 17:39.939
time.
His sperm count is low.

17:40.670 --> 17:41.790
He cries.

17:42.619 --> 17:44.530
But I am relieved.

17:46.170 --> 17:49.089
I realize I want to stay home and paint.

17:50.310 --> 17:51.500
Not be a mother.

17:53.890 --> 18:00.479
Let's go then to our panel to find out what it
is that they think they expect in marriage.

18:09.099 --> 18:13.420
She walked into the living room of the house
they had built in the woods.

18:14.449 --> 18:21.439
There, by the wood burning stove, was the 8 by 10
enlarged photo of her in the wedding dress.

18:22.540 --> 18:27.119
The photo had been taken from its frame and
mounted on a dartboard.

18:28.199 --> 18:34.270
Over a dozen knives stuck in the photo as a
result of target practice.

18:35.369 --> 18:40.339
She had gone back to ask for her half of the
communal property.

18:41.800 --> 18:46.030
She doesn't know that there are many uneasy women,
many women who,

18:46.400 --> 18:51.130
uh, are, I would say, as unsatisfied as they
are dissatisfied,

18:51.709 --> 18:56.770
uh, and this has even been suggested as a
possible reason for some of those alarming

18:56.770 --> 18:58.280
divorce statistics.

19:12.680 --> 19:12.869
Picassos and we'd like to think of ourselves as
somewhere in between,

19:12.880 --> 19:13.880
perhaps not a

19:12.910 --> 19:27.739
a goddess

19:27.739 --> 19:29.140
but certainly not a doormat.

19:29.959 --> 19:36.280
But other people commenting about women have
said that we are doers rather than thinkers,

19:36.280 --> 19:42.119
that we tend to respond to a situation and not
to innovate, and yet the concept of personal

19:42.119 --> 19:47.839
growth has within it, I think, the element of
deciding for myself what shall happen.

19:48.040 --> 19:54.030
Not recognizing themselves in the reflections
of cultural representation,

19:54.439 --> 19:57.400
women develop a dual consciousness.

19:57.810 --> 20:04.439
The self as culturally defined and the self as
different from cultural

20:04.439 --> 20:05.589
prescription.

20:06.199 --> 20:07.199
Susan Friedman.

20:07.979 --> 20:07.989
Oh.

20:20.239 --> 20:25.630
Uh, not much can be expected from the marriage.

20:28.329 --> 20:31.239
a husband, or you have a husband.

20:32.989 --> 20:35.540
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

20:35.790 --> 20:38.500
Humpty Dumpty had a big fall.

20:38.750 --> 20:44.619
All the king's horses and all the king's men
couldn't put Humpty together again.

20:45.569 --> 20:49.640
Um, bachelorhood and spinsterhood extended
beyond a given

20:49.880 --> 20:56.849
age blocks many people from
certain kinds of participation in the

20:56.849 --> 21:02.290
community, and it becomes more
difficult for them to feel as if they could be

21:02.290 --> 21:03.880
productively part of the community.

21:05.260 --> 21:12.089
Autobiography is not a timeless process but is
embedded in ongoing history in the

21:12.089 --> 21:17.729
search for identity of the individual and the
communities in which she lives.

21:21.069 --> 21:27.849
It is 1968 and I joined the students and
faculty protesting the minimal wage increase

21:27.849 --> 21:31.750
that Hayakawa has imposed at San Francisco
State College.

21:32.800 --> 21:37.270
The Black Panthers support the strike and
demand their civil rights.

21:38.209 --> 21:40.680
I hadn't heard of gay activism.

21:41.530 --> 21:44.010
I hadn't even heard of feminism.

21:45.739 --> 21:51.329
It is 1970 and I am joining the Santa Rosa
Women's Liberation Group.

21:52.130 --> 21:56.930
We meet in my apartment right across the street
from the junior college where I am teaching.

21:58.530 --> 22:01.650
One of the women says that she is a lesbian.

22:02.290 --> 22:06.319
I am 30 and it is the first time I hear this
word.

22:07.489 --> 22:09.329
What is that?
I ask.

22:09.619 --> 22:14.369
It's a woman who loves other women and, in
particular, one woman,

22:14.650 --> 22:18.699
she tells me.
I think it sounds real good.

22:21.209 --> 22:23.760
A woman had her leg against mine.

22:24.969 --> 22:29.640
We were sitting in the audience watching One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

22:30.339 --> 22:32.099
It was 1970.

22:33.209 --> 22:37.560
When her knee pressed against my own, I felt an erotic rush.

22:38.329 --> 22:39.520
Was I a lesbian?

22:40.560 --> 22:41.739
It didn't matter.

22:41.949 --> 22:44.739
In 1970, life was in the rushing.

22:46.430 --> 22:50.979
Marie came home with me that night, and we were still up to see the dawn.

22:51.839 --> 22:53.170
I was a lesbian.

23:17.630 --> 23:18.630
I

23:34.150 --> 23:40.530
If the lesbian sees the woman, the woman may see the lesbian seeing her.

23:41.839 --> 23:43.010
Marilyn Fry.

23:43.479 --> 23:45.949
In my thirties, I am a dike adolescent.

23:46.319 --> 23:48.969
I follow my clit from lover to lover.

23:49.520 --> 23:54.390
A friend calls me a sex addict and says she feels sorry for me.

23:54.520 --> 23:58.150
The battery, the charge, right, put it in the eject mode.

23:59.219 --> 24:02.369
I don't know.
I mean, it's just things that have to be found

24:02.369 --> 24:08.589
out.
Um, apes, apes, apes, apes, uh huh,

24:08.709 --> 24:12.189
visually compatible tapes, uh huh, uh huh.
Oh, the lens.

24:12.199 --> 24:15.339
Oh, you're looking, but you really don't know because you're not looking through the lens.

24:15.430 --> 24:16.719
Historical distortion.

24:17.270 --> 24:20.910
Oh, when I get close to you, the lens, but you really don't know because you're not looking

24:20.910 --> 24:24.510
through the lens.
There's a curvature to the viewing distortion.

24:24.849 --> 24:31.500
Looking at this story, the shoes would be very strange,
very strange,

24:32.359 --> 24:37.739
about 6 inches, 3 feet away from me.
Now she's,

24:38.030 --> 24:41.010
about 6 inches.
She's utterly out of focus.

24:41.439 --> 24:44.119
Forward, forward.
I don't know where it has to be put forward to

24:44.119 --> 24:45.319
be activated.
I can't.

24:45.459 --> 24:50.089
Why it would let me take a look, but I mean, I want to place myself in a relationship with a
viewer.

24:50.089 --> 24:52.979
Oh, the lens.

24:53.130 --> 24:54.689
You're looking.
They love you already.

24:54.890 --> 24:58.040
Wave these cameras, wave these cameras, wave these cameras.

24:58.170 --> 25:05.089
The one who speaks is not the one who writes,
and the one who writes is not the one

25:05.089 --> 25:08.599
who is.
Roland Barthes.

25:09.050 --> 25:14.050
The smell of diesel fuel brings back early mornings driving the Lambretta through Turkey,

25:14.250 --> 25:19.050
Syria, Iraq, before she fell from the scooter weakened by a drought with jaundice,

25:19.050 --> 25:24.930
hepatitis picked up from the falls of the tent,
she bought secondhand.

25:25.005 --> 25:30.474
And presumably picked up from the aluminum poles of the tent I'd bought secondhand in

25:30.474 --> 25:34.625
Italy.
People on the street ask me if I'm Chinese.

25:34.915 --> 25:40.954
It works to unsettle rather than to
consolidate the boundaries around identity.

25:41.810 --> 25:48.640
Not to dissolve them altogether, but to open
them to fluidities and heterogeneities

25:48.969 --> 25:52.160
that make their renegotiations possible.

25:53.130 --> 25:54.329
Biddy Martin.

26:06.319 --> 26:08.770
I am a lesbian couple.

26:09.729 --> 26:12.430
I am a lesbian couple.

26:13.000 --> 26:15.310
I am a lesbian couple.

26:15.839 --> 26:17.839
I am a lesbian couple.

26:21.949 --> 26:25.719
You? Oh no.

26:30.420 --> 26:37.260
Oh, a frightened deer was jumping over logs
running away from the burning forest.

26:38.069 --> 26:42.969
The mother was nowhere to be found, perhaps
lost in the destructive flames.

26:44.349 --> 26:48.890
She turns to her mother and asks, who's turning
the pages?

26:50.410 --> 26:53.369
Bambi is the first film she sees.

26:56.140 --> 27:02.579
Lesbian relationships do tend to recreate
mother-daughter emotions and

27:02.579 --> 27:08.010
connections.
Nancy Chodorow: I am red flame, and she is

27:08.010 --> 27:09.130
wildfire.

27:09.500 --> 27:13.520
At recess, we gallop the school playground as if
it were our pasture.

27:14.209 --> 27:17.050
We are wild horses and not to be tamed.

27:17.500 --> 27:24.260
One day, another girl lassos me, and I lunge at
her mad with rage and bite her arm until she

27:24.260 --> 27:25.459
lets loose the rope.

27:25.750 --> 27:27.069
And I am free.

27:28.189 --> 27:30.479
She has to get a tetanus shot.

27:30.770 --> 27:34.319
Another recess.
I am Dale Evans and riding my mare,

27:34.530 --> 27:35.619
my girlfriend.

27:36.089 --> 27:40.310
I use the sashes from her dress as reins, and
when I yell 'ho,'

27:40.829 --> 27:42.199
she doesn't stop.

27:42.530 --> 27:47.739
I determinedly set my heels and hold on as the
sashes pull loose from the dress.

27:48.839 --> 27:53.180
The school principal sits behind her desk and
calls me in.

27:53.510 --> 27:58.660
She is sewing the dress with needle and thread,
and I am shamed.

28:00.520 --> 28:05.469
When I was a little girl, I made up a game
called the Truth Club.

28:06.160 --> 28:10.949
Once you were sworn into the club, as I did
with all my girlfriends,

28:11.079 --> 28:14.709
you had to answer any question put to you
truthfully.

28:16.430 --> 28:23.000
I think the intention of the game was to reveal
the secrets and falsehoods I experienced living

28:23.000 --> 28:25.500
in a middle-class American family.

28:27.550 --> 28:33.859
The fearful isolation, the fearful isolation,
the fearful isolation of homogeneous homes

28:33.859 --> 28:39.810
where manners were elaborate rituals for
getting at or avoiding the truth.

28:40.459 --> 28:42.010
Nab Serest.

28:52.750 --> 28:57.150
My sister and I got one of those folding
postcards from Nevada with a lot of desert

28:57.150 --> 29:02.180
scenes on it.
The next door neighbors ask where my dad is.

29:02.510 --> 29:04.829
I say he is away on a trip.

29:06.760 --> 29:12.069
Mom, Marcy, and I sit at the red mahogany kitchen
nook and cry.

29:12.989 --> 29:18.420
Another game I made up was called Tommy.

29:18.869 --> 29:22.589
I was Tommy, and all my girlfriends were in need
of protection.

29:23.390 --> 29:28.650
I got them to climb into a giant palm tree from
whose fronds I would swing,

29:28.780 --> 29:35.329
striking blows with my feet to fearful invaders
such as tigers and other

29:35.329 --> 29:36.770
imagined marauders.

29:42.650 --> 29:45.319
I made it up as a kid.
I made it up as a kid.

29:55.319 --> 29:59.599
I made up games as a kid, like you likewise,
likewise, you,

29:59.680 --> 30:06.400
you make up games. I like to, I like to, I like to
make up games.

30:08.739 --> 30:15.300
I came out in 1970, and I drove from San
Francisco to Portland on my motorcycle to

30:15.300 --> 30:17.670
celebrate International Women's Day.

30:18.540 --> 30:22.810
For the first time, women gather together
publicly in a city park.

30:23.260 --> 30:28.939
I am thrilled and excited and document the
event with my 8 millimeter movie camera.

30:30.020 --> 30:34.969
When I film a businessman in a suit, he shoves
the camera in my face.

30:35.790 --> 30:41.329
A photo of this rude and aggressive action
appears in the Oregon press the next day.

30:44.969 --> 30:46.959
But hey,

30:52.040 --> 30:53.040
la, how can they like you? How could they like
to?

31:00.920 --> 31:04.010
Papa black sheep, have you any wool?

31:04.339 --> 31:07.839
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

31:08.310 --> 31:13.609
In talking about the past, we lie with every
breath we draw.

31:14.280 --> 31:19.079
William Maxwell.
After I come out, I have to do the same things

31:19.079 --> 31:23.910
that I did while I was straight, so I leave for
Africa with my first woman lover.

31:24.280 --> 31:30.829
We meet village women who work all day
winnowing broken grade C rice for no wages.

31:31.280 --> 31:35.000
They can only take home half the rice for their
pay.

31:36.239 --> 31:40.989
Each morning they walk miles to the rice fields,
work all day,

31:41.199 --> 31:42.770
and then return home.

31:43.520 --> 31:45.739
There is no water available.

31:46.030 --> 31:51.219
We take a gallon of water to share with them,
and they dance in return.

31:56.469 --> 32:03.010
Autobiography is the literary consequence of
the rise of individualism as an

32:03.010 --> 32:04.180
ideology.

32:05.300 --> 32:11.770
The cultural precondition for autobiography is
a pervasive concept of individual

32:11.770 --> 32:17.729
life, a self-consciousness that is the late
product of a specific

32:17.729 --> 32:21.439
civilization, George Gurdjieff.

32:22.130 --> 32:27.280
Each story is at once a fragment and a hole, a
hole within a whole.

32:27.650 --> 32:30.260
The same story has always been changing.

32:30.849 --> 32:34.760
Things which do not shift and grow cannot
continue to circulate.

32:35.469 --> 32:37.260
Trinte Min Hall.

32:37.469 --> 32:43.229
The first time I showed my Super 8 films was in
a lesbian coffeehouse in Oakland,

32:43.670 --> 32:47.589
California.
The women protested that the work was

32:47.589 --> 32:50.739
heterosexual and had too many shots of men.

32:52.030 --> 32:57.380
Most of them left; two women stayed, a
lesbian couple who were raising children.

32:58.579 --> 33:05.569
Nancy and Brett understood that I had just come
out and accepted the images as part of my past.

33:07.609 --> 33:13.680
Before she was homo, she was hetero, so when she
was homo, she was very,

33:13.729 --> 33:14.939
very homo.

33:16.380 --> 33:22.189
I am kneeling on the floor beside her bed
watching her put on her bra for the umpteenth

33:22.189 --> 33:25.560
time.
The large fullness of them.

33:26.180 --> 33:31.569
The erect dark brown nipples, the way they
looked like they could fit in a curve of your

33:31.569 --> 33:34.890
hand like an upside-down capital C.

33:35.599 --> 33:40.859
The way she leans over and they fall into the
bra cup like they are coming home.

33:41.810 --> 33:44.979
Fascinates me. I am 7.

33:45.229 --> 33:46.319
I am 9.

33:46.630 --> 33:47.819
I am 10.

33:48.189 --> 33:50.939
I am 12 and still watching.

33:54.260 --> 33:57.229
One time I tell her I think she might be a
witch.

33:57.969 --> 34:00.750
I am earnest and quite serious.

34:01.760 --> 34:04.060
I'm not sure, but maybe she's a witch.

34:05.020 --> 34:09.669
She is putting on makeup at her elaborate
dressing table with mirror,

34:09.750 --> 34:13.570
lace covering, and all kinds of bottles of
perfume and lotions.

34:15.120 --> 34:19.060
I gather up strength and blurt out, Are you a
witch?

34:20.229 --> 34:26.810
Oh Barbie, what's got into you?
She asks, half amazed and half alarmed.

34:29.439 --> 34:32.989
Years later, I am in a San Francisco
therapist's office.

34:33.789 --> 34:36.218
She tells me my mother is seductive.

34:36.959 --> 34:38.489
I can't believe it.

34:38.939 --> 34:44.010
Not my mom, not mother, not the witch with the
bra cups.

34:46.510 --> 34:47.659
Eyebrow raised.

34:47.949 --> 34:50.290
A lesbian is a double subject.

34:50.550 --> 35:11.550
kissing

35:11.550 --> 35:11.810
is a homo-biograph, a lesbian, flirt, breathe,
breathe.

35:11.840 --> 35:15.010
That means that I don't have any independence.
Eyebrows.

35:17.550 --> 35:23.060
I was Billie Joe's best friend until Judy Buss
moved into the neighborhood.

35:23.429 --> 35:30.110
I sat on her swing in the backyard, idly
pushing myself back and forth as Judy

35:30.110 --> 35:35.070
Buss knocked Billie Joe to the ground and
became my new girlfriend.

35:36.560 --> 35:42.959
Very often you have to make a definite
effort of will and insight

35:43.360 --> 35:49.379
to find out what you are. Oh.

35:51.000 --> 35:52.000
Oh.

36:03.689 --> 36:08.199
For oh.

36:11.719 --> 36:13.590
Am I a genetic lesbian?

36:14.459 --> 36:19.989
Get out the family tree and trace the single
woman, the divorcee.

36:22.879 --> 36:25.669
Look at movies taken before you were born.

36:26.510 --> 36:29.699
Witness a world in which you did not exist.

36:31.050 --> 36:36.239
The nervous directors were sitting in the first
rows at the Spanish Theater during the 9th

36:36.239 --> 36:40.409
International Women's Director Festival when
the awards were announced.

36:41.310 --> 36:48.100
Marisa Pareda, star of Pedro Almodóvar's High
Heels, opens the envelope,

36:48.750 --> 36:55.219
and the audience award for the best documentary
goes to Nitrate Kisses.

36:56.159 --> 37:02.699
I put on my latex gloves, climbed the stairs
to the stage and received the check safely.

37:03.889 --> 37:08.560
Marisa doesn't get the pun, and my Spanish
isn't fluent enough to be clear.

37:09.610 --> 37:14.760
Later, when we celebrate and are toasting with
champagne, I tell her that gloves are one of

37:14.760 --> 37:19.350
the safe sex devices for lesbians who are
dating and having sex.

37:20.510 --> 37:22.219
She listens attentively.

37:23.169 --> 37:24.209
Hello, Sherry.

37:25.110 --> 37:26.110
Oh, hello.

37:54.000 --> 37:55.000
It's unusual for women to have fun in a cafe.
Oh no,

38:08.169 --> 38:14.060
you have this urge to make, which, uh, which
certainly is not restricted to the persons in

38:14.060 --> 38:20.979
our society called artists, this kind of
making, which pushes you out to other people and

38:20.979 --> 38:22.209
out to other things.

38:22.699 --> 38:24.679
Necessarily grows you.

38:26.570 --> 38:32.399
I discovered art in a book of reproductions of
famous paintings from the Metropolitan Museum.

38:33.689 --> 38:37.429
On one page was a description of the painting
and the artist.

38:37.879 --> 38:42.340
On the other page was the color reproductions
loosely glued to the middle of the sheet of

38:42.340 --> 38:47.189
paper.
As a child, the painting I liked best was

38:47.189 --> 38:48.699
Monet's Water Lilies.

38:49.620 --> 38:55.689
Maybe it was the way the reproduction floated
on the page like a lily floats on water.

38:58.409 --> 39:04.090
Clothed in her silk pink pajamas, turned away
from me on her living room couch that serves as

39:04.090 --> 39:07.699
a bed in this small LA studio apartment.

39:09.060 --> 39:13.139
She is dying, and she asked me to crawl in
beside her for comfort.

39:13.929 --> 39:15.580
I am terrified.

39:15.830 --> 39:17.949
That's incest, I think.

39:18.189 --> 39:21.719
I can't.
This remains a regret.

39:23.310 --> 39:28.179
When my mother died, she asked me to throw her
ashes out over the Santa Monica Bay.

39:28.389 --> 39:31.459
I was in the helicopter.
The sun was setting,

39:31.750 --> 39:36.889
and I threw out the box of ashes.
The wind blew them back in my face.

39:45.020 --> 39:50.899
Oh.
I abandoned the notion that to be white is

39:50.899 --> 39:52.449
to be unmarked by race.

39:53.909 --> 39:59.340
White feminists and lesbians should render
their own histories

39:59.709 --> 40:05.830
and subjectivities complex by
attending to their various

40:05.830 --> 40:12.790
implications in overlapping social, discursive
divisions and their

40:12.790 --> 40:19.669
histories.
Barbara Smith and Audre Lorde, speaking at the

40:19.669 --> 40:26.060
first lesbian conference at UCLA in 1973, said
what I will never forget.

40:27.100 --> 40:32.070
If you hear a racist comment, do not let it go
by.

40:32.959 --> 40:38.629
We had hiked a long way through the hills, and
the camp's swimming pool was a welcome relief

40:38.629 --> 40:44.020
from the heat when I overheard an anti-Semitic
remark by a boy child in the water.

40:44.870 --> 40:50.770
I was the closest to him, and I reacted almost
instantaneously with a direct reply.

40:51.120 --> 40:56.449
I'm Jewish, and what you have said is both
untrue and hurts me personally.

40:58.600 --> 41:04.919
The lesbian's definition of herself is part of
the larger movement by all oppressed people to

41:04.919 --> 41:08.139
define ourselves. Mabigrist.

41:16.760 --> 41:17.760
do

41:23.879 --> 41:24.659
or better.

41:31.969 --> 41:37.790
Be.
One of the things

41:39.949 --> 41:43.540
that I suspect many people might wonder is
whether or not,

41:43.620 --> 41:46.939
uh, many women cut down on their own sense of
personal growth,

41:46.979 --> 41:50.929
and I suppose men do this too because they
accept what is,

41:50.979 --> 41:56.689
uh, there's a kind of resignation about their
situation, um,

41:57.679 --> 42:00.780
what, what happens to the person who starts
testing, uh,

42:00.820 --> 42:02.530
what kind of movement is possible?

42:03.639 --> 42:05.590
Oh, baby, let's go down.

42:13.889 --> 42:14.330
And

42:23.840 --> 42:24.139
Slow, low,

42:37.469 --> 42:44.419
low, low, low, low, low, low, low.
You Mm.

42:48.959 --> 42:51.780
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

42:57.780 --> 43:02.889
Lesbians who are in a relationship for a long time develop a fusion,
a movement of gesture and body that displays bonding.

43:03.179 --> 43:07.449
A movement of gesture and body that displays bonding.

43:08.250 --> 43:09.699
Barbara Hammer.

43:18.080 --> 43:22.709
I think that there is a complementarity in marriage that's important.

43:23.139 --> 43:28.120
Uh, someone has said we, we don't, we marry those we would not have as our best friends,
and I think that this is an important truth.

43:28.199 --> 43:30.550
And I think that this is an important truth.

43:30.919 --> 43:36.949
She adjusts the frame and focuses on the lesbian couple where a solitary figure once stood.
You know, when you were talking about how much

43:36.949 --> 43:40.280
stood. You know, when you were talking about how much
you wanted to have a sense of place, have a sense of order,

43:40.280 --> 43:44.550
you wanted to have a sense of place, have a sense of order,
and how much you wanted to have a relationship that carried through many things,

43:44.669 --> 43:49.179
and how much you wanted to have a relationship that carried through many things,
and then just after that you met Fleury, almost like a calling for that kind of commitment

43:49.639 --> 43:55.189
and then just after that you met Fleury, almost like a calling for that kind of commitment
because it was a calling, kind of an announcement saying you were ready.

43:55.189 --> 43:58.540
Because it was a calling, kind of an announcement saying you were ready.
More joint um.

43:59.280 --> 44:01.719
More joint um.

44:03.050 --> 44:09.929
Uh, preoccupation perhaps and those people who think they have to have a self-identity and
keep themselves separate.

44:09.929 --> 44:14.580
Keep themselves separate. OK, we're going to be domestic partners,
and this is the very last day that it's possible.

44:15.090 --> 44:18.169
And this is the very last day that it's possible.
There she is.

44:18.370 --> 44:22.250
There she is. We didn't have to take a blood test.

44:23.000 --> 44:27.550
It's going incognito now, folks. She's even called up her place of employment
and told them that she'll be in late because she's, uh,

44:27.550 --> 44:31.179
and told them that she'll be in late because she's, uh,
going to city hall, sign the papers.

44:31.189 --> 44:34.300
Going to city hall, sign the papers.

44:35.070 --> 44:40.840
I am standing nude on a boulder in the middle of a stream with my date for the Women's music
festival.

44:40.840 --> 44:42.020
Festival.

44:42.270 --> 44:48.709
All around us are other women in the sun lying on gray rounded boulders with the water slowly
moving around them.

44:48.709 --> 44:49.820
Moving around them.

44:50.830 --> 44:57.219
Across from us on another larger boulder is the woman who is to become my life partner.

44:58.219 --> 45:05.110
She too is nude but tall and shy, and her big wide eyes stare and
catch me.

45:05.110 --> 45:09.169
Catch me. I have to get to work to support these benefits.

45:09.899 --> 45:15.149
This is it. This is what courtship is for.

45:15.399 --> 45:16.889
This is what dating means.

45:17.330 --> 45:20.489
Hi, we want to pay our money for a domestic partnership.

45:20.919 --> 45:23.590
What does it cost? 3.

45:26.280 --> 45:29.679
That is it. $5 change at a piece of paper.

45:29.879 --> 45:32.159
That's it. The rest of what we were brought up to think it
was gonna be no flowers, no, uh, no party that's a bouquet.

45:32.159 --> 45:38.350
Was gonna be no flowers, no, uh, no party that's a bouquet.

45:39.580 --> 45:40.580
Yeah.

45:46.229 --> 45:48.739
That's it.
You did it, didn't you?

45:48.810 --> 45:49.969
It's wonderful.

45:50.179 --> 45:53.679
And to run into somebody who's doing same-sex
adoption.

45:54.300 --> 45:55.790
What a day.
What a city.

45:55.939 --> 45:58.580
Oh, what a great place to live.
If we'd lived any longer,

45:58.620 --> 46:00.739
we could have worked on Kay.
We'll do it more next year.

46:00.860 --> 46:07.820
We will, we will. We in the West, I think, have
entirely different family relationships than

46:07.820 --> 46:09.780
the people on the East Coast because so many of
us.

46:09.935 --> 46:14.044
We have moved out here away from families and
people that were close to us in the East,

46:14.114 --> 46:17.955
and we don't have the same problems to cope
with here that the eastern people do have.

46:18.125 --> 46:22.445
We don't have a grandmother next door and an
aunt across the street and somebody else facing

46:22.445 --> 46:23.534
us from another direction.

46:23.804 --> 46:25.645
With the same person.

46:26.250 --> 46:32.590
All kinds of things that may not change very
much, but it's very exciting.

46:33.080 --> 46:34.500
We went into City Hall at 9.

46:35.000 --> 46:36.080
We're out at 9:30.

46:38.100 --> 46:42.379
Our lives have been completely changed because
we are legal folks.

46:42.419 --> 46:46.370
We are legal no matter what you think.
There's not a lot behind this yet,

46:46.540 --> 46:49.050
but there will be.
There's recognition.

46:49.300 --> 46:51.439
There are smiles, there's congratulations.

46:51.699 --> 46:56.459
There's acknowledgement, the fact that we can
walk in and stand up there together and do this.

46:57.699 --> 46:58.699
Right.

47:09.790 --> 47:11.919
I am a lesbian couple.

47:12.860 --> 47:15.070
I am a lesbian couple.

47:24.050 --> 47:30.199
The concept of the self derives from models
supplied by the ambient culture.

47:30.889 --> 47:33.429
Lesbians in advertising.

47:33.889 --> 47:38.530
Lesbians tend to clone one another, especially
in long relationships.

47:40.370 --> 47:45.489
Dykes are constructed on the street, in the
bars, and in the bookstores.

47:45.610 --> 47:48.399
The image reproduces the norm.

47:49.250 --> 47:51.719
But where did the clones come from?

47:54.399 --> 48:00.239
Joanne Lula found out, and I think, uh,
this is my impression too, that the majority of

48:00.239 --> 48:05.320
lesbians do not are butchered.
It seems to me we're both sort of more in the

48:05.320 --> 48:09.500
middle.
I am walking with a woman lover down Newberry

48:09.500 --> 48:13.590
Street in Boston when an angry man runs at us
with a knife.

48:14.320 --> 48:19.939
I am thrown out of an Irish restaurant in New
York City for kissing another lover at a table

48:19.939 --> 48:21.459
on Saint Patrick's Day.

48:22.270 --> 48:25.120
A man jeers at me from his car.

48:25.620 --> 48:27.659
I am a visible lesbian.

48:44.610 --> 48:48.679
Now, one of the signs of growth, I think, is
emotional maturity.

48:48.969 --> 48:53.060
It is the willingness to make decisions and
possible mistakes.

48:53.370 --> 48:57.530
And it is the willingness to be responsible for
whatever happens thereafter.

48:58.169 --> 49:03.219
So that the women who do not choose to grow,
who do not invest in personal growth,

49:03.610 --> 49:07.600
may perhaps feel that belonging is more
valuable, in fact.

49:07.729 --> 49:11.010
So valuable that they're unwilling to pay any
other price.

49:12.590 --> 49:16.550
But I remember this guy coming up and he was
standing next to you, and all of a sudden he got

49:16.550 --> 49:20.830
rude, like, 'Are you a boy or are you a girl?'
Like, it never dawned on me that he wouldn't

49:20.830 --> 49:24.949
know the difference, but he was really
confrontational and it scared me.

49:25.239 --> 49:28.199
I was really afraid of him, but you kind of
laughed.

49:28.320 --> 49:31.100
You laughed at him.
You defused them and you were able to,

49:31.399 --> 49:34.469
you weren't even threatened by the situation.
I was ready to jump.

49:36.719 --> 49:41.479
We were going to go to some women's dance or
something, and you weren't wearing clothes that

49:41.479 --> 49:43.280
you wanted to wear and we were in.

49:43.719 --> 49:47.639
We were going from the film festival.
You wanted to change into these other clothes,

49:47.649 --> 49:52.399
and we opened, we parked the car on some side
street over there in the Castro.

49:52.959 --> 49:56.760
You stood next to the door.
I stood on the other side, and you proceeded to

49:56.760 --> 49:59.429
take your clothes and put on these other
clothes.

49:59.520 --> 50:05.399
It was hilarious to me that people are
meaningful and valid when they have a role in

50:05.399 --> 50:06.959
society, a task to do.

50:07.750 --> 50:12.449
And we're struggling with this question of if
I'm not a wife and a mother,

50:12.610 --> 50:15.639
what is my identity?
If I'm not a businessman,

50:15.889 --> 50:20.270
what is my identity?
The sudden death after retirement, as if

50:20.270 --> 50:21.929
the individual collapsed.

50:31.729 --> 50:37.879
Um, does it seem to you at all possible that we
can learn to live with the fact that all of us

50:37.879 --> 50:44.000
as we get older will have to decide how to
maintain ourselves in our older years.

50:45.449 --> 50:47.340
Oh, oh.

50:50.330 --> 50:53.159
00.

50:54.800 --> 51:00.649
Oh, oh. Yeah.

51:02.429 --> 51:03.429
It's really valuable.
Autobiography is not a timeless process.

51:23.030 --> 51:28.360
But it is embedded in ongoing history and the
search for identity of the individual and the

51:28.360 --> 51:30.459
communities in which she lives.

51:40.040 --> 51:44.889
I just want to ask you what your favorite
lesbian memory of me is and your worst.

51:45.909 --> 51:51.459
You've always been a gal that
would catch another gal's eye.

51:53.399 --> 51:55.719
On first impression, would you say I'm butcher
femme?

52:00.629 --> 52:07.310
I thought it was extraordinary that you had so
much information in your eyes, as most

52:07.310 --> 52:08.379
lesbians do.

52:09.649 --> 52:12.149
I can't remember.
You must have been here or somewhere in the

52:12.149 --> 52:17.969
Ithaca or Binghamton area, and we were together
with a bunch of people, and you were pressing a

52:17.969 --> 52:22.600
discussion on what lesbians actually do in
terms of sex.

52:23.209 --> 52:27.699
And you know, I still ended up with someone's black bra
that day I found years later in my drawer.

52:27.699 --> 52:32.070
The most annoying thing about you as a lesbian,
is that you tried to put a move on me in a bar in

52:32.139 --> 52:35.810
Portland once.
You're an absolutely fabulous spirit in the world.

52:36.179 --> 52:39.540
You're an absolutely fabulous spirit in the world.

52:43.270 --> 52:47.979
Let's take a moment to listen again to the
statements made by our speakers and our panel.

52:49.189 --> 52:52.530
The first time I saw your films, I saw Double
Strength.

52:52.629 --> 52:56.739
It was the first gay film I had ever seen about
a relationship with another woman,

52:56.830 --> 53:00.239
and not only that, I thought the film was so
sexy because I thought I,

53:00.280 --> 53:06.560
I couldn't imagine another woman looking at
another woman and filming it in a way that that

53:06.560 --> 53:10.300
woman looked desirable on screen.
I'd only seen men do that.

53:11.530 --> 53:18.350
No. No, I

53:20.540 --> 53:20.560
OK

53:33.040 --> 53:35.600
Well, the negative is I remember telling you
that I didn't,

53:35.879 --> 53:39.590
that I didn't like your films, and you, you and
I had a kind of a fight about that.

53:39.739 --> 53:45.149
I remember there was a story going around the
community about you when you broke up with

53:45.149 --> 53:46.330
Terry Sengraf.

53:46.959 --> 53:52.360
Somebody asked you why you broke up with her,
and you said it was because she got more phone

53:52.360 --> 53:57.709
calls than you.
I thought you were treating me like I was a

53:57.709 --> 54:02.550
piece of furniture, like a chair you could sit on, and you
were treating me like an object.

54:03.310 --> 54:09.830
I think the times that are hardest for me are
when you're very wrapped up in trying to get

54:09.830 --> 54:13.750
the world to give you what you want.
It's like having a perspective on things that's

54:13.750 --> 54:15.699
more about how they can be useful.

54:16.189 --> 54:18.540
And kind of how they are in themselves.

54:18.919 --> 54:23.679
If I have a choice to make, I'll prepare now so
that when my older years approach,

54:23.760 --> 54:29.320
I need not be anything but purposeful and
meaningful in my community.

54:29.439 --> 54:31.510
I was working on Word is Out.

54:32.000 --> 54:37.445
You were one of the few.
Filmmakers whose name was mentioned as being.

54:37.445 --> 54:41.915
Out there in the world.
I mean, at this point in the mid-'70s,

54:42.094 --> 54:44.364
you know, we were all kind of working in a
vacuum.

54:44.844 --> 54:51.524
There was not the kind of network that exists
now of filmmakers and festivals and

54:51.524 --> 54:57.489
films.
So your name was legendary among the Mariposa

54:57.489 --> 55:04.300
film group.
I

55:04.300 --> 55:11.129
did not know then, as I know now, that people
are prone to build a statue

55:11.129 --> 55:15.250
of the kind of person that it pleases them to
be.

55:16.500 --> 55:18.719
Zora Neale Hurston.

55:41.209 --> 55:43.250
There is no Shakespeare.

55:51.389 --> 55:53.459
There is no Beethoven.

55:56.399 --> 56:01.100
Certainly, and emphatically, there is no God.

56:04.840 --> 56:07.139
We are the words.

56:07.520 --> 56:09.469
We are the music.

56:10.239 --> 56:13.070
We are the thing itself.

56:13.600 --> 56:15.250
Virginia Woolf.

56:19.360 --> 56:20.679
Test two, Flory.

56:21.159 --> 56:25.270
I'm, I'm wearing the mic, and it's very low lux
in here,

56:25.399 --> 56:26.830
probably about four.

56:27.679 --> 56:29.979
And I wonder if you're talking to me while I'm
wearing it,

56:29.989 --> 56:33.469
what it sounds like, you know, I think that
next time I fall in love,

56:33.550 --> 56:34.760
if I ever do.

56:35.919 --> 56:42.479
It'll be with—I can't think of anything.

56:46.129 --> 56:50.280
You're quite the sight with all these wires
draped from your lovely body.

56:50.370 --> 56:53.159
It's sort of like decorations on a Christmas
tree.

56:53.530 --> 56:54.530
Thank you.
I'm gonna pass you.

56:54.649 --> 56:56.000
Can I turn you on?

56:56.330 --> 56:57.969
Where is the mic?
That's it.

56:58.010 --> 57:00.209
It's a lavalier mic.
This little baby, yeah,

57:00.280 --> 57:01.729
it's made to hide in your clothes.

57:02.010 --> 57:04.469
Did it come with it?
No, it's something I bought.

57:04.939 --> 57:07.540
New York, because you're a CIA agent.

57:08.090 --> 57:12.320
Well, I've always had a fantasy of being able
to talk to people and record them without them

57:12.320 --> 57:14.560
knowing it.
That's not very nice.

57:14.770 --> 57:16.090
No, that's why I always tell them.

57:17.840 --> 57:20.270
Oh sweetheart, you have a headache?
Yes, I do.

57:20.520 --> 57:23.379
I, that's what I'm just trying to get things
organized.

57:23.439 --> 57:26.110
I know that's enough.
We've done this little test.

57:26.280 --> 57:30.260
So why am I still holding this if it's not
even plugged in?

57:30.860 --> 57:32.629
Thank you very much.

57:33.719 --> 57:37.020
Over and out without a lux.

57:51.679 --> 57:58.330
I, oh, oh.

58:16.729 --> 58:17.729
Uh.

58:46.530 --> 58:53.239
One night in a hotel in Charlotte where I
was judging a film

58:53.239 --> 58:56.030
festival, I dream of Marjorie Keller.

58:56.830 --> 59:01.540
I look into her eyes and see black and white
childhood photos.

59:02.100 --> 59:03.409
Then we take a walk.

01:00:04.939 --> 01:00:04.959
I.