Film about A Women Who…

Film about A Women Who…

Feminist, Woman Filmmaker, Experimental Documentary, Sexuality, Performance

Acquired as research for Women of Vision from the distributors. I also used this film for classes in women's and feminist films. Yvonne was my teacher at the Whitney Program in the 1980s. She can be seen in the 4+ hours of research footage I shot for this project in NYC in 1990, along with 40 other media feminists, now online as part of the larger re-visit to this project published by Feminist Media Histories in 2019.

"Rainer's landmark film is a meditation on ambivalence that plays with cliche and the conventions of soap opera while telling the story of a woman whose sexual dissatisfaction masks an enormous anger." (IMDB)

1974

VHS

Experimental documentary

Picking up where Lives of Performers left off, Rainer’s second, landmark feature tells the story of a woman whose sexual dissatisfaction masks an enormous anger, with Rainer needling at questions raised by contemporary feminism about the relationship between the representation of romantic clichés and sexual repression. Borrowing techniques from soap opera, the formally fractured yet exuberant Film About a Woman Who… combines voiceover, intertitles, simulated “still” images, and dinner-table discussions to provocative, often contradictory effect. Long silences and Babette Mangolte’s fluid black-and-white images only heighten the darting, doubt-ridden, highly dislocating drama. Synopsis courtesy of The Metrograph. Zeitgeist Films

105 mins

Yvonne Rainer

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