Stephanie. c 2020
Making I Want to be Joan and Going on the road.
I want to be Joan,( 1977) came out of Otautahi, Christchurch in 1977. It was launched at a grand premiere in the James Hay Theatre at the Christchurch Town Hall. The first half of the evening was a concert piano performance in classical music on a Steinway. The audience was a FULL HOUSE, 400 seat venue then. We settled in for the show. The film themes were women discussing motherhood, marriage and identity.
“Joan” broached women who were finding “ voice”. I took the film on tour to homes, halls and institutions for a number of months over a year and a half in New Zealand.
A four day event, the United Women’s convention of ‘77, generated my film subjects.
I was asked by the committee chair, to ‘ do some filming’, and given carte blanche for my style of approach. I took three months preparing my lead up. I created a study group for women for an evening each week in our University back office, to discuss literature pertaining to women, for my scheme was to send these women in as clandestine journalists into the upcoming four day convention. I gave these readers the assignment of inviting to the film set women who had never spoken in public about themselves as gender. Out of some hundred attendees, I considered that the pulse in the blood would surely be there for several to step to the plate for me. Readings, generally, were in Anthropology, for example, Levi-Strauss, who was of influence with semiotic theory, and in sociology. Other books, ( Friedan, Millet, Greer, Stuart Mill, Wollstonecraft, Woolf, Austin, let alone, Dewey, Huxley, de Beauvoir, Nin, Shulamith Firestone, et al ) With these thoughts and along with knowledge of a rising tide of published women non- fiction writers, poets and activists voicing how institutions of systemic power always required challenge and change in a society, from time to time, I selected ‘ Talking. heads’ as a shooting device for the edit style. Women were definitely not heard much in society then. Their faces would be a full drama alone. Of particular refreshment was how the speakers on the film each looked at the positive in their current lives and were developing abilities with articulation and analysis. It resulted that talking headshots about societal critique were spoken sometimes in drollness and sometimes with simple logic. Josepha Judd is a template example here, as non-guilt ridden when young.
For my setup for the complex of a multiple interview event, I created a structure, a painted wall structure, with two chairs in front. It was a quiet carpeted place at the Education Department at the University. The first step was offering each invitee to the set a one- on -one audio session with two practiced interviewers. Lee Hatherly was one, Lesley Boyle the other. I set the goal that I was to secure footage over the last two days of the four day event. I listened to the transactions as audio only, from the step one day of action to hunch upon my speculative theme. Then, after each audio recording I gave these potential interviewees twelve hours to decide overnight whether they would brave a film camera the next day. I had a brand new CP camera. It was an American news camera. It gave me ten -minute rolls ( the first available 400 ‘ length of film rolls in this category ) for uninterrupted sound. I knew of Margaret Moth. I asked her if she would film for me. She declined. Moth went off to the USA quite soon after to film the night shifts - the events of murders that the detectives arrived at, and other such other coverage on her first shooting stints, so as to hone her speed with skills. She was soon working with the CNN journalist, Christiane Maria Heideh Amanpour CB, who covered the Bosnian war. I asked a fellow student, camera operator Jocelyn Alison to film. The project arose quickly and with empathy. Whilst filming through day three I chose the title. I realized quickly, making this film, that my purpose was to be tender. I borrowed an Education Department University tutorial room on campus near the Convention. I had an interview backdrop set built and painted for interviews. Department of Education loan. University of Canterbury.
I was asked by the committee chair, to ‘ do some filming’, and given carte blanche for my style of approach. I took three months preparing my lead up. I created a study group for women for an evening each week in our University back office, to discuss literature pertaining to women, for my scheme was to send these women in as clandestine journalists into the upcoming four day convention. I gave these readers the assignment of inviting to the film set women who had never spoken in public about themselves as gender. Out of some hundred attendees, I considered that the pulse in the blood would surely be there for several to step to the plate for me. Readings, generally, were in Anthropology, for example, Levi-Strauss, who was of influence with semiotic theory, and in sociology. Other books, ( Friedan, Millet, Greer, Stuart Mill, Wollstonecraft, Woolf, Austin, let alone, Dewey, Huxley, de Beauvoir, Nin, Shulamith Firestone, et al ) With these thoughts and along with knowledge of a rising tide of published women non- fiction writers, poets and activists voicing how institutions of systemic power always required challenge and change in a society, from time to time, I selected ‘ Talking. heads’ as a shooting device for the edit style. Women were definitely not heard much in society then. Their faces would be a full drama alone. Of particular refreshment was how the speakers on the film each looked at the positive in their current lives and were developing abilities with articulation and analysis. It resulted that talking headshots about societal critique were spoken sometimes in drollness and sometimes with simple logic. Josepha Judd is a template example here, as non-guilt ridden when young.
For my setup for the complex of a multiple interview event, I created a structure, a painted wall structure, with two chairs in front. It was a quiet carpeted place at the Education Department at the University. The first step was offering each invitee to the set a one- on -one audio session with two practiced interviewers. Lee Hatherly was one, Lesley Boyle the other. I set the goal that I was to secure footage over the last two days of the four day event. I listened to the transactions as audio only, from the step one day of action to hunch upon my speculative theme. Then, after each audio recording I gave these potential interviewees twelve hours to decide overnight whether they would brave a film camera the next day. I had a brand new CP camera. It was an American news camera. It gave me ten -minute rolls ( the first available 400 ‘ length of film rolls in this category ) for uninterrupted sound. I knew of Margaret Moth. I asked her if she would film for me. She declined. Moth went off to the USA quite soon after to film the night shifts - the events of murders that the detectives arrived at, and other such other coverage on her first shooting stints, so as to hone her speed with skills. She was soon working with the CNN journalist, Christiane Maria Heideh Amanpour CB, who covered the Bosnian war. I asked a fellow student, camera operator Jocelyn Alison to film. The project arose quickly and with empathy. Whilst filming through day three I chose the title. I realized quickly, making this film, that my purpose was to be tender. I borrowed an Education Department University tutorial room on campus near the Convention. I had an interview backdrop set built and painted for interviews. Department of Education loan. University of Canterbury.
Josepha Judd. Barbara Paine. Rene.
I Want to be Joan (1977)
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IN JOY
Me and Maggie the day after the whole shoot, icluding the children masking so as to visit an old people's home the following weekend. Auckland. 1980.
I prepared an essay taking the ideas to a little more context when the film screened several years later. It was curated digitally by CIRCUIT.org.nz The essay there is: Periodization of Site Specific Practice.https://www.circuit.org.nz/artist/stephanie-beth
1980. Maggie Eyre. Facilitator. Listening to participant. At the lodge in the Waitakeres.
Independent media.
During post production on these interviews, I created some different contextual clips for the production so as to vary the cut. I used a more commonly known Bolex camera to make an opening pan and used a very top of the field animation rostrum for slide showing. It was a Neilson and Hordell from England that my University teacher, Maurice Askew, bought and had in his house. He loved animation. His forte had been to animate inventively for the commencement of CORONATION STREET in England, years before, before such vertical cameras even came on the market. Diane Cadwallader, a music producer, had an American Rock friend arrive in town. This was Nancy Kiel. Cadwallader and Kiel whipped up the original music for the film opening, then for the overlays on the Art breaks between interviews. e.g Sorry the Day I was Married ( a dirge ) I placed over slides of Robin White “relatives at Makatu’, c 1972, that she had made as a screen print of family settlers. Other contributing artists were: Jacqueline Fahey and Lynn Zylstra. Poet, Rachel McAlpine recited a piece from her repertoire. I cut the film on an Italian tape cutter strung between two reels. I was able to use the technique of the odd fade to black on that. I did that cutting at Alternative Cinema. Geoff Stevens and Leon Nrbey set that place up.
. in 1978/9. I carried the film can and borrowed projectors. The film screened around the country as a ‘one off’ for approximately 100 screenings.( one print was that all I could afford) It became very scratched by the various projector gates, vertically. Public saw a salvage of all of this when taken on by the New Zealand Film Archive on VHS. In the 1990’a I filmed the old print on a wall and made a digital for the archive. I delivered a segment of text to BROADSHEET.1978 - 79. I asked for a two page spread of a painted triptych by Lynn Zylstra for the spread. I visited Jaqueline Fahey and Fraser McDonald at their home at Carrington Hospital in 1977, to have a conversation and seek access to two paintings of hers for the film. The face of Joan Lyes, became an image for the cover of the catalogue of Alter/Image at Civic gallery, Wellington, later, in 1993. Ater/ Image was an exhibition of artists in paint, print, sculpture and film.
Two rock composers created percussion pieces for the end of the film. Dianne Cadwallader, organized all of the “Joan” audio. Nancy Kiel sang the songs. They composed’ Where are you together’. Nga Taonga: Sound & Vision stores these films A comment emerged delightfully from a staff member at Nga Taonga: Sound & Vision; ‘ Favorite collection item’ Siobhan Garrett, in 1993, cites three times of viewing and then seeing ways to make use of I Want to be Joan. She viewed this when a student of film studies in Victoria University in 1993; then again in 2012 when she got a job at Nga Taonga Sound and Vision, and then Jane Zusters had a show, Where did you go to to my Lovely at Pataka, and borrowed the film to be in her installation, in 2016. Garrett put on an archive show called ‘Women & Weddings’ for the Auckland exhibition space of the Film Archive” in 2021. She wrote:’ my inspiration for this exhibition came from the large number of quite lovely home movies (known as Personal Records) of weddings in the collection; my observations at the time of the upsurge in popularity of marriage in young people; and the intense media and public interest in the impending nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The exhibition consisted of a large single screen display of a compilation of weddings spanning from the 1900s to the 2000s.’ She put on I Want to be Joan as a complimentary viewing. In part, she wrote about my method: ’ After completing filming, Beth travelled around the country for one year presenting screenings of the documentary to various communities. After each screening, audience discussion sessions were held and the men in attendance were asked not to speak to allow the women present to be the dominant voice. What a radical idea that must have been, and what a radical idea it remains! One of the strong themes that comes through in these interviews is the women’s collective desire to have choices, options and control outside of the traditional roles of wives and mothers. How beautifully they articulate their desires and how prepared they seem to fight for them. It genuinely grieves me knowing that in the 43 years that have passed since this film was made, the battles that contemporary women face around control and choice in many respects remain unresolved. Except that instead of having little choice in career options or achievement outside of the home, modern women have little choice or opportunity for full time child-rearing and home-making roles. Neo-liberal politics and the cost of living do not permit it. I feel quite certain that this is not what the women in Joan argued so eloquently for.’ notes. Domestic violence was in the societal underbelly here and there. The worry was silence that violence induces. It can be carried out behind closed doors. All these women were beyond hiding from the secrecy of any damage in their own life conditions. A way to deal with trauma is to seek support. Barbara Paine ( a woman in I Want to be Joan ) had gotten past the turmoil of silence. Barbara spoke quite differently to Josepha Judd reflecting her version of self-awareness. Some audience responses have continued to wonder at Barbara’s wholly positive attitude about her future, as she had experienced being beaten. Yet, Barbara created change in her life once there were witnesses to her having been abused. ( the next door neighbours )Her improved status in life gave her a delightful self-belief.-------------------------------------------------As a consequence of making I Want to be Joan I began research for a second film with which to make a response to themes for women in IN JOY(1980).. The objective for me, was to work with what had stopped me in my tracks in the distribution experience with I Want to be Joan. I had noted stressed levels of emotion in some of the discussion groups that I ran after the film screened in the various community spaces that I went to around the country. Some women, after that tour, were reluctant to return home after the film event. Domestic violence was the reason. I went off to a Women’s Refuge for three months as a support volunteer in order to think up ideas for this next project. It was important to not follow such a verbal film with the next. It came to me to do something at a physical level, to show how frozen states of the body require warming. At the entertainment section of the ‘77 United women convention I had spotted Maggie Eyre doing a mime show. I went to her and said that I would like us to do something together. I asked her to be a theatre facilitator who I would film working. I moved to Auckland for the six months required for development. Maggie and I had planning meetings. Our objective was to create a non -verbal film study that might capture an audience's empathy. We invited women to enter their names, explaining to them the film we planned would be a schedule for four days whereby all participants would be guaranteed a 40% to 60% split on filmed time and private process time. They were to stay together. Without commitment to the timeframe, Eyre’s evolution of play and mime purpose might not be felt if there was disengagement. In 1980 Maggie Eyre and I agreed to make a filmed workshop of her facilitator role in Auckland. I moved up to Auckland to a flat for three months. We both attended a three day clown workshop run by Brandon. This was part of my research. The whole documentary was shot with a ratio of 60% off camera and 40% on camera. This was key for respect of individual spaces as exploration and cogitation. Jan Preston gave me music. She recorded with Coup D'Etat, what was still then Neil Hannon, Jan Preston and Harry Lyons hanging out in Auckland. I got a room to rent to live in Grafton, just by the bridge opposite the hospital. Jane Zusters, artist/ photographer, lived in the flat below. I met her. I hired Jane.
Maggie Eyre threw excellent tea parties in Grafton.
David went off to America to hang with a friend and see his Canadian family for three months. One of his outings there was a Libby reunion. Another was to call into the Ferlinghetti bookshop and spot Ferlinghetti working. Another was to hear Toti Fields from New York spoof upon Carmen Miranda. Maggie, now in a role as the facilitator, and I, wrote the film outline and settled to work. There is a PDF material on this film. Enquiries here
When not making films I then enjoyed thinking about the ART GALLERY as INSTITUTION