Double-Strength: Videos and Links in Celebration of Barbara Hammer

Clip from Maya Deren's Sink by Barbara Hammer (via UndergroundFilm at Vimeo)


Clip from NITRATE KISSES by Barbara Hammer



Clip from SANCTUS and other films from the 1980s by Barbara Hammer
(You can see Sanctus @ubuweb)

HAMMER! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life Book Performance, Barbara Hammer at British Film Institute, March 2010

"I have chosen images rather than words for the act of naming myself an artist and a lesbian because the level of meanings possible for images and image conjunctions seemed richer and held more ramifications" Barbara Hammer

Film Studies For Free today presents a tribute to the remarkable American, experimental filmmaker and activist Barbara Hammer. The tribute takes the form of a listing of online videos and scholarly links to studies of Hammer's work, as well as of related queer film and politics.

Hammer is seventy-one years old, still making films and still protesting against injustice and censorship. In 2010, she published her wonderful autobiography, HAMMER! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life, which addressed her personal history and philosophies on art (see a review here).

FSFF says, "Thank you, but... keep it up, please, Barbara! Your work and activism is needed now more than ever." (This blog can be a rather greedy and merciless task-mistress at times...)

Modern Women: Barbara Hammer on her career and Feminist film

Modern Women: Barbara Hammer on Maya Deren

• Barbara Hammer Faculty page at European Graduate School 

• Barbara Hammer. Resisting Paradise. Video Lecture Documentary 2005 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4

• Barbara Hammer's Video Channel at Vimeo (16 videos so far archived) 

• Barbara Hammer's website

• Barbara Hammer interviewed in February 2010 about her research on medical science film 'No bones about it!'

• Edith Becker, Michelle Citron, Julia Lesage, B. Ruby Rich, 'Lesbians and film, p. 2', from Jump Cut, no. 24-25, March 1981

• Sarah Boslaugh, 'Getting Past the Stereotypes: Woman and Motorcycles in recent Lesbian Novels', IJMS, March 2006

•  Martin P. Botha, 'The New African Queer Aesthetics: the Portrayal of Homosexuality in International Cinema', Kinema,

• Joan Braderman, 'Feminism and Video: A View from the Village', Camera Obscura, Volume 22, Number 1, 2007

• Julia Erhart, 'Performing memory: compensation and redress in contemporary feminist first-person documentary', Screening the Past, December 1, 2001

• Claudia Gorbman, 'Barbara Hammer's recent work: Body displaced, body discovered', from Jump Cut, no. 32, April 1987

• John Hess, 'Notes on U.S. radical film, 1967-8', from Jump Cut, no. 21, Nov. 1979 

• Tricia Jenkins, '‘‘Potential Lesbians at Two O’Clock’’: The Heterosexualization of Lesbianism in the Recent Teen Film', The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 38, No. 3, 2005 

• Chuck Kleinhans, 'Teaching sexual images: some pragmatics', from Jump Cut, no. 40, March 1996 

• Laura U. Marks, 'Loving a Disappearing Image', Cinémas : revue d'études cinématographiques / Cinémas: Journal of Film Studies, vol. 8, n° 1-2, 1997

• Susan E. McKenna, 'Seeing lesbian queerly: visibility, community, and audience in 1980s Northampton, Massachusetts', PhD Thesis, University of Massachusetts, September 2009

• Fiontán Moran, 'Anatomies of Desire', Afterall, May 2010

• Gary Morris, 'Tender Fictions: Barbara Hammer's Truth Club', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 17, 1996

• Ricardo Peach, Queer Cinema as a Fifth Cinema on South Africa and Australia, PhD Thesis,University of Technology, Sydney, March 2005

• John Ramirez and Larry Horne, 'UCLA Gay and Lesbian Media Conference', from Jump Cut, no. 29, February 1984 

• Jennifer Beth Simmons, Visions of Feminist (Pom(o)nanism): Masturbating Female Postmodern Subjectivity in American Television and Film, MA Thesis, University of Florida, 2004

• Jamie L. Stuart, The Business and Pleasure of Filmic Lesbians Performing Onstage. PhD Thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2006 

• William C. Wees, 'Carrying On: Leslie Thornton, Su Friedrich, Abigail Child and American Avant-Garde Film of the Eighties', Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 2001

• Andrea Weiss, 'Women I Love. Double Strength : Lesbian Cinema and Romantic Love' , from Jump Cut, no. 24-25, March 1981

• Jacquelyn Zita, 'The films of Barbara Hammer: Counter-currencies of a lesbian iconography', from Jump Cut, no. 24-25, March 1981

BFI Researchers' Tales: Mulvey, Dyer, Kubrick, Frayling

 Image of Grace Kelly as Lisa Fremont in Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

For some time now, Film Studies For Free has been enjoying the videos that the British Film Institute has been posting at BFI Live, its online video channel exploring film and TV culture. There are lots of videos worth seeing at the site but, below, FSFF has singled out and directly linked to some which are especially deserving of the attention of film scholars.

Laura Mulvey on the Blonde

8 Mar 2010: The world-renowned film theorist presents her thoughts on the Hitchcock Blonde.

Researchers' Tales: Richard Dyer

8 Mar 2010: The writer and academic discusses his instrumental role in the creation of the BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, one of the world's most prestigious celebrations of queer cinema.

Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made? (Part 1)

13 Jan 2010: An illustrated lecture on Stanley Kubrick’s most ambitious yet unrealised project.

Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made? (Part 2)

11 Jan 2010: An onstage discussion of the finer points of Stanley Kubrick’s failed production.

Researchers' Tales: Sir Christopher Frayling on Spaghetti Westerns

14 Dec 2009: Eminent academic and writer Sir Christopher Frayling discusses the Spaghetti Western genre as part of the BFI National Library’s Researcher’s Tales strand.

Researchers' Tales: Sir Christopher Frayling on Film Research

14 Dec 2009: Eminent educationalist and writer Sir Christopher Frayling discusses the practice of researching film.

Queer Film and Theory Links In Memory of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Image from Boys Don't Cry (Kimberly Peirce, 1999)

Film Studies For Free was very sad to hear of the death at 58 of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, one of the founders of the discourse of 'queer theory', and an inspirational teacher and critic.

Like many other film researchers, some of FSFF's author's own writing on queer films was deeply influenced by Sedgwick's brilliant exploration of the epistemology of the closet.

In memory of Sedgwick, FSFF has assembled a webliography, below, of links to pieces of high quality, freely accessible, scholarly writing (or recordings/videos) on the web on the topic of queer/glbt films and/or queer film theory, a number of which, unsurprisingly, employ her critical insights. Further links added since original post: last updated June 2, 2009.

• John S. Bak, 'Suddenly Last Supper: Religious Acts and Race Relations - Tennessee Williams's 'Desire',Journal of Religion and Theatre, Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2005


• John Bannister, 'Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Williams, and Susan Sontag: Campaigners of Camp and the Carry On films', Forum, Issue 4, Spring 2007
  

• Harry M. Benshoff, 'Notes on Gay History/Queer Theory/Gay Film'


• Chris Berry, 'East Palace, West Palace: Staging Gay Life in China', from Jump Cut, no. 42, December 1998, pp. 84-89


• Chris Berry, 'My Queer Korea: Identity, Space, and the 1998 Seoul Queer Film & Video festival', Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Issue 2, May 1999
  

• Orla Juliette Borreye, 'The Significance Of The Queer And The Dog In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros (2000): A Masculinity At War', Wide Screen Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009

• NEW R. Bruce Brasell, 'The Making of "Monsters": The Queer as Producer', from Jump Cut, no. 40, March 1996, pp. 47-54
  

• Patrick S. Brennan, 'Cutting through Narcissism: Queer Visibility in Scorpio Rising', Genders 36, 2002


• Michael Bronski, 'From The Celluloid Closet to Brokeback Mountain: The Changing Nature of Queer Film Criticism', Cineaste, 2008


• Stella Bruzzi, 'The Talented Mr Ripley', EnterText 1.2, Spring 2001


• Norman Bryson, 'Todd Haynes's Poison and Queer Cinema', Invisible Culture - An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture Issue 1, Winter 1999


• Kathy Burdette, 'Queer Film Theory - Bibliography'


• Alain Chouinard, 'Queering the Québécois and Canadian Child in Jean-Claude Lauzon’sLéolo', Synoptique13, February 2009


• Lesley Chow, 'The Double Standard: The Twins of Two-Faced Woman and Sylvia Scarlett,' Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 59, February 2008
  

• Douglas Crimp, 'Getting the Warhol we Deserve: Cultural Studies and Queer Culture', Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Studies, 1999
  

• Rick Curnette, 'Child's Play: The Pixelvision Videos of Sadie Benning', The Film Journal, Issue 4


• Belidson Dias & Susan Sinkinson, 'Film spectatorship between queer theory and feminism: Transcultural readings', Paper for InSEA on Bridge - 7 European Regional Congress 1st - 6th July 2004 Istanbul - Cappadocia
  


• Richard Dyer, 'Homosexuality in Film Noir', from Jump Cut, No. 16, 1977, pp. 18-21


• Tanfer Emin-Tunc and Nichole Prescott, 'Glen or Glenda: Psychiatry, Sexuality, and the Silver Screen', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 41, August 2003
  

• NEW Bryan Ray Fruth, 'Media Reception, Sexuality Identity, and Public Space', e-PhD Thesis, The University of Texas at Austin, 2007
  


• Jane Gaines, 'Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Queering Feminist Film Theory', from Jump Cut, no. 41, May 1997, pp. 45-48


• Stefan Jack Garel, 'Queer Bodies and Settlements', (e-PhD Thesis: University of Exeter, 2008)


• 'Gays, Lesbian, and Transgendered People in Motion Pictures: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library'


• David Gerstner, 'Queer Modernism: The Cinematic Aesthetics of Vincente Minnelli', Modernity, Vol. 2, 2000


• Michael Goddard, 'Beauty Lies in the Eye (So Why Can't I Touch It?)', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 2, No. 25, 1998


• Andrew Grossman, 'Twelve Tone Cinema: A Scattershot Notebook on Sexual Atonality', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 43, February 2004


• Julie Grossman, “The Trouble with Carol: The Costs of Feeling [On Todd Haynes' Safe]', Other Voices 2.3 January 2005


• Adam Hartzell, 'Queer Pal For The Straight Gal - Wanee & Junah and Queer Friendship', The Film Journal, Issue 7


• Todd Haynes interviewed by Richard Dyer [audio recording from the Tate Modern], 'Double Indemnity: Todd Haynes/Edward Hopper' (4 June 2004)


• Todd Haynes's film: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987)


• Zoë Heyn-Jones, 'Eye and Brain, Torn Asunder: Reading Ideology in Sally Potter’s Orlando', Synoptique, 11, March 12, 2008
  

• NEW In Media Res GLBT media-themed week, April 21-25, 2008


• Fiona Jenkins, 'Grief's Testimony: On Almodóvar’s All About My Mother', Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture, Vol. 4, Number 2, August 2007


• Jamie June, 'Is it Queer Enough?: An Analysis of the Criteria and Selection Process for Programming Films within Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Film Festivals in the United States' (e-Thesis)


• Dmetri Kakmi, 'Queer Cinema: A Reality Check', Senses of Cinema, 2000


• Peter Kemp, 'Bi-Polar Gender-Blender: Sylvia Scarlett,' Senses of Cinema 22, Sept-Oct 2002


• Ewan Kirkland, 'Romantic Comedy and the Construction of Heterosexuality', Scope Issue 9, 2007


• Kevin B. Lee, 'Madchen in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, 1931)'


• Dennis Lo, 'The Politics and Aesthetics of “Asian American” Sexuality in Ang Lee’s Cross-Cultural Family Dramas: A Case Study on The Wedding Banquet and The Ice Storm', Stanford Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 1, 2008


• Patricia MacCormack, 'Barbara Steele's Ephemeral Skin: Feminism, Fetishism, and Film', Senses of Cinema, September 2002


• Patricia MacCormack, Pleasure, Perversion and Death: Three Lines of Flight for the Viewing Body, Transmat Online Book


• James MacDowell, 'What Value is There in Gus Van Sant's Psycho?', Offscreen Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 7, 2005


• Stephen Maddison, 'Pedro Almodóvar and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: the Heterosocial Spectator and Misogyny', Chapter 4 of Fags, hags, and queer sisters : gender dissent and heterosocial bonds in gay culture (New York : St. Martin's, 2000)


• Joseph McBride, 'George Cukor: The Valor of Discretion', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 32, April 2001
  

• Deborah Mellamphy, 'The Paradox Of Transvestism In Tim Burton’s Ed Wood', Wide Screen Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009
  


• Frann Michel, 'The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love', Cineaste, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1995


• D.A. Miller, 'Anal Rope'
  

• D. A. Miller, 'La Ronde', Film Quarterly, Spring 2009
  

• Daniel Mudie Cunningham, 'Driving into the 'Dustless Highway' of Queer Cinema', Film Journal, 2002


• Rebecca Panosky, 'Dorothy Arzner and Gender Representation.” In: “International Female Film Directors: Their Contributions to the Film Industry and Women's Roles in Society.” Chapter 4 of e-Thesis


• Susan Pelle and Catherine Fox, 'Queering Desire / Querying Consumption: Rereading Visual Images of ‘Lesbian’ Desire in Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art', Third Space, Vol. 6 Issue 1, Summer 2006


• Matthew Ogonoski, 'Queering the Heterosexual Male in Canadian Cinema: An Analysis of Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo', Synoptique, 13, February 2009


• Ryan Powell, 'Putting on the Red Dress: Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows,' Forum, Issue 4, Spring 2007


• Kate Rennebohm, 'Queering Childhood: An Examination of Claude Jutra’s Dreamspeaker', Synoptique 13, February 2009


• Elena del Rio, 'Performing the Narrative of Seduction: Claire Denis's Beau Travail', Kinoeye, Vol. 3, Issue 7, Spring 2003


• Julian Savage, 'The Conscious Collusion of the Stare: The Viewer Implicated in Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul,' Senses of Cinema, 16, Sept-Oct 2001


• Heide Schlüpmann and Karola Gramman, 'Mädchen in Uniform', trans. Leonie Naughton, Screening the Past, 12 January 1998
  

• NEW Ian Scott Todd, 'Outside/In: Abjection, Space, and Landscape in Brokeback Mountain', Scope13, February 2009
  


• Neera Scott, 'Sublime Anarchy in Gus Van Sant's Elephant', Senses of Cinema, 2005


• Steven Jay Schneider, 'A Tale of Two Psychos', Senses of Cinema, 2000


• Yael Sherman, 'Tracing the Carnival Spirit in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Feminist Reworkings of the Grotesque', Third Space, Vol. 3, Issue 2, March 2004


• Anneke Smelik, 'Gay and Lesbian Criticism'


• Anneke Smelik, 'Art Cinema and Murderous Lesbians'


• Anneke Smelik, 'The Carousel of Genders'

• NEW Carter Michael Soles, Falling Out of the Closet: Kevin Smith, Queerness, and Independent Film, e-Thesis University of Oregon, 2008
  

• Irini Stamatopoulos, 'Ang Lee's Cowboys', Offscreen Journal, Volume 11, Issue 2 (February 28, 2007)


• K. E. Sullivan, 'Ed Gein and the Figure of the Transgendered Serial Killer', from Jump Cut, no. 43, July 2000, pp. 38-47


• Denise Tse Shang Tang, 'A Dialogue on Intimacy with Chan Kwok Chan in Yau Ching's Ho Yuk: Let's Love Hong Kong', Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context Issue 14, November 2006


• Donato Totaro, 'Psycho Redux', Offscreen Journal, 2004


• Evangelos Tziallas, 'Looking Beneath the Skin: Reconfiguring Trauma and Sexuality', Stream: A Graduate Journal of Communication, Spring 2008 1(1)


• Justin Vicari, 'Reading/Watching Fassbinder', Film Journal, Vol. 1, No. 13, Winter 2006


• Amy Villarejo, 'Interview with Tish Pearlman for Out of Bounds/Cornell University' [about Queer film and queer film theory] RealPlayer file, 29 mins 30 seconds


• Nicholas de Villiers, 'Glancing, Cruising, Staring: Queer Ways of Looking', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 57, August 2007


• Nicholas de Villiers, '”The vanguard - and the most articulate audience”: Queer Camp, Jack Smith and John Waters', Forum, Issue 4, Spring 2007
  

• Adam P Wadenius, 'The Monstrous Masculine: Abjection And Todd Solondz's Happiness', Wide Screen Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009
  


• Tamsin Whitehead, 'Rejecting the Margins of Difference: Strategies of Resistance in the Documentary Films of Pratibha Parmar', Third Space, Vol. 7, Issue 2, Winter 2008


• Damon Young and Gilbert Caluya, '”A Vessel of Imagery”: An Interview with Gregg Araki',Senses of Cinema, 2005

P.S. Another set of must-reads from the Reverse Shot website - just click on the film-title links below for some great reading on queer cinema and television:

Reverse Shot - Proposition 24: Defining a New Queer Cinema

by MK and JR

Broken Sky by Michael Koresky

The Wire by Chris Wisniewski

Lan Yu by Andrew Chan

I Love You, Man and the Apatow Comedy Factory by Michael Joshua Rowin

Hairspray by Leo Goldsmith

Be Like Others by Joanne Nucho

Casino Royale and the new James Bond by Andrew Tracy

Brokeback Mountain, Milk, and the Queer Prestige Film by Matt Connolly

The House of Mirth by Jeff Reichert

Far from Heaven by Chris Wisniewski

Milk by Michael Koresky