What You Take for Granted

Dublin Core

Title

What You Take for Granted

Subject

documentary, woman woman filmmaker, labor, performance, experimental documentary, interviews, scripted

Description

Gift from filmmaker. Michelle is a friend and colleague and was one of the subjects of my documentary Women of Vision, she gave me copies of her work to use as b-roll.

Creator

Michelle Citron is an award-winning digital and film artist focusing on women’s lived experiences. Her work has been
shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Walker Art Center, the Museum of
Contemporary Art/Chicago, and the American Film Institute, as well as the New Directors, Berlin, London, Edinburgh,
Viper, and SeNef film and new media festivals. Her films and interactive narratives are distributed worldwide and are
in the permanent collections of over two hundred universities and museums. She has received numerous awards and
fellowships including two National Endowment for the Arts Filmmaking Fellowships, a National Endowment for the
Humanities Media Grant, and three Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowships, for digital arts, filmmaking, and
screenwriting.
Her work includes the interactive narratives Cocktails & Appetizers, Mixed Greens, and As American As Apple
Pie (collected at queerfeast.com) and the films Daughter Rite, Parthenogenesis, What You Take For
Granted..., and Leftovers. She is the author of the awarding winning book Home Movies and Other Necessary
Fictions.

Date

1983

Contributor

Featuring: Belinda Cloud, Mossetta Harris, Fran Harth, Donna Blue Lachman, Jan Lucas, Lilly Ollinger

Abstract

Drama-documentary about six women who have 'made it' in male-dominated work areas, as truck driver, doctor, cablesplicer, sculptor, carpenter and philosophy professor. Uses fictionalised interviews based on interviews conducted by the filmmaker with over forty women doing all types of non-traditional jobs. A narrative involving the doctor and truck driver characters is intercut with interviews. (BFI)
The tentative friendship of Anna, a feisty truck driver, and Diana, an upper middle-class doctor, provides the core for an unusual, intimate and moving look at women's experiences in jobs traditionally held by men. Based on actual interviews of forty working women, the film intercuts the story of Anna and Diana with fictionalized interviews of four other non-traditionally employed women. --Women Make Movies

Table Of Contents

Music:

I'm Crazy (For Chasin' After You)
Written by Karen Pritikin
Performed by Paula Lazarus
Halt!
Written and performed by Donna Blue Lachman
I Just Can't Go Home Again
Written and performed by Karen Pritikin

Instructional Method

Other Films using interviews to build the scripts:
The Arbor (2010) – Clio Barnard
Testimony: The Maria Gorbachova Story (2023) – Svetlana Soboleva
Seven (2010, Stage & Documentary Adaptations)
The Vagina Monologues (2002, Film Adaptation) – Eve Ensler
Sisters in Law (2005) – Kim Longinotto & Florence Ayisi
India’s Daughter (2015) – Leslee Udwin
The Rape of Recy Taylor (2017) – Nancy Buirski
Let It Come Down: The Life of Angela Davis (2018) – Göran Olsson

Moving Image Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Color, 16mm

Duration

75 mins

Director

Michell Citron

URL

For research, teaching, and educational use please use CONTACT US in About section to make a request for access.

Files

Citation

Michelle Citron is an award-winning digital and film artist focusing on women’s lived experiences. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art/Chicago, and the American Film Institute, as well as the New Directors, Berlin, London, Edinburgh, Viper, and SeNef film and new media festivals. Her films and interactive narratives are distributed worldwide and are in the permanent collections of over two hundred universities and museums. She has received numerous awards and fellowships including two National Endowment for the Arts Filmmaking Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Humanities Media Grant, and three Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowships, for digital arts, filmmaking, and screenwriting. Her work includes the interactive narratives Cocktails & Appetizers, Mixed Greens, and As American As Apple Pie (collected at queerfeast.com) and the films Daughter Rite, Parthenogenesis, What You Take For Granted..., and Leftovers. She is the author of the awarding winning book Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions., “What You Take for Granted,” VHS Activism Archive , accessed March 13, 2026, https://activismvhs.omeka.net/items/show/700.

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