THE IRRESPONSIBLE FEMININE? |
Women’s Early Films from the West |
Usha Zacharias |
Is there such a thing as “women’s cinema”? Not really, if one |
goes by responses from at least three of the directors |
featured in this section. “I’m not interested in seeing a film |
just made by a woman, |
” said Agnes Varda, “not unless she’s |
looking for new images.”[1] Vera Chytilova, asked if she |
was a feminist film-maker, retorted, much like Lina |
Wertmuller, that she was a believer in individualism, “You |
ask pointless and primitive questions.”[2] |
To define women’s cinema would be to go against the act |
of film-making itself as a creative, unpredictable, |
spontaneous event, made magical by its mystery at the |
point of emergence. |
The film-makers featured in this section have no necessary |
responsibility to the contemporary political awareness |
about “women” who make films, about the “feminine” as |
the indefinable aspect of sexual difference that might |
generate a new aesthetic, or about feminism as a |
