Film is the language of this era, and women are the sometimes-overlooked voice, a professor told Ohio University students yesterday.
Robin Blaetz, an OU alumna and professor at Mount Holyoke College, spoke last night in the Honors Tutorial College Common Room about several key women in the history of film and the fear that they may have been forgotten.
Robin Blaetz first told her audience why she became interested in film.
She graduated from OU in 1978 with a degree in English and moved to Paris to work as an au pair.
"It didn't click until I got to Paris that film was the voice of our time," Blaetz said.
It was in Paris, Blaetz said, that she first saw films shown at 10 in the morning.
Film must be preserved at all costs, Blaetz said.
“We've lost all kinds of art, but we do not want to lose it unfairly,” she said.
Blaetz discussed her book, Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks, and introduced her audience to the work of Marie Menken, Glimpse of a Garden, which was filmed in 1957 on 16-mm film.
"It had no big theme," she said.
She also explained that the film didn't look like art, which is why it was ignored.
Blaetz also spoke about Marjorie Keller's work, Herein, which was filmed in 1992. The film was made up of fragmented footage of the building Keller lived in.
Blaetz said Keller used this footage to discuss her life and to search for self.
"It wasn't found, but it was the search that mattered," Blaetz said."Keller found meaning looking long and hard."
Blaetz ended her speech full circle by bringing the audience's attention back to a picture of a Cornell box she had shown at the beginning of the speech.
"Nobody can explain a Cornell box," she said.
She paralleled the artwork of Joseph Cornell with female filmmakers such as Keller.
"This a new era which holds a great deal of confidence," said Blaetz, referencing women's work in contemporary film.
The event was open to the public, and students in attendence said they appreciated Blaetz’s presentation.
"I'm very interested in film and seeing a proponent women in any field," said Megan Marzec, a freshman studying studio art management. "Film is so expansive. In film, you can see passion in life."
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