Of Gerbils and Men: Politics, Satire and Passion in Some Films of Joyce Wieland
Robin Curtis

Although Canadian artist Joyce Wieland was one of only very few women in the 1960s to venture into the field of film (and particularly structural film), her films have been the subject of surprising little substantive critical attention in recent years. The following text argues that the reasons for such neglect reside in the films themselves, which self-consciously broach the line designated by Peter Wollen in his seminal »The Two Avant-Gardes« insisting on the wisdom of the space between the two options. However, using an utterly different strategy from that employed by Wollen's paragon, Godard, Joyce Wieland identifies precisely that space as being the line of demarcation between the ridiculous and the sublime, between the (oftentimes) ungainliness of corporeal experience and political intent. It is in the exploration of these two passions (viscerality and political engagement) that the seemingly incommensurable is bonded. [more]

Structural Film The Here and Now Passion Film Historiography & The Two Avant-Gardes »1933» »Reason over Passion / La Raison avant la Passion« Visceral Experience and Representation »Solidarity« »Pierre Vallières« »The Far Shore» and beyond