Evan,
You make important points, but this situation is perhaps more
complicated than you realize. There are also reasonable differences of
opinion about the extent to which the bad behavior of an artist in life
should affect attitudes toward the art. Many think bad behavior
invalidates the art, which I personally think is an absurd, even evil,
position, and my guess is that if we knew the full stories of the lives
of the best Renaissance artists, we might be appalled by many. Murder
is worse than sexual harassment, right? But can we judge Caravaggio,
without knowing the full story of the murder he supposedly committed?
This apparent fact has never much colored my view of his paintings, nor
would I want it to. There are many different views of what art is, and
of how it relates to the artist's life. Today it is often thought the
artist's work is an extension of the life. For many artists, those who
go beyond simply creating expressions of the personal to try to
literally merge art and life, this may be true, as with Otto Muehl, for
example. I do not have any actual experience with Meuhl's art, but what
I do know of him does not seem of much interest, except in a negative
sense. But I do not think that disgusting behavior means that the whole
of a person is disgusting, and I am not even sure that I think
everything we, and I, now call harassment is disgusting. As I wrote, I
would count an instructor asking to date a student as almost automatic
harassment, but does a simple request with no consequences for the
student if declined make for a disgusting person? That is not Harvey
Weinstein territory.
Plus, my knowledge of specifics is hearsay, not fit for an Internet
post. Look at all the disastrous consequences of some Internet posts. It
is all too easy to pile on with on-line attacks, a lot easier than
trying to live good lives ourselves. I do not believe in publicly
accusing anyone of anything without really good evidence. Also, as I
noted, the cases I know of are also of people either likely inactive due
to age, or already deceased.
Now, if a responsible biographer approached me with the project of
telling the full story of a filmmaker's art and life, of course I would
tell what I know, including how reliably I know it.
I am not a young person. I have done things in my own life (though not
in the sexual area, I believe) that I might call disgusting. Few of us
are perfect. Preventing ongoing harm, that is really important, which is
why it is great that victims are speaking up. But note that the woman
who was harassed on this list did not name the name. I do not criticize
her for not doing so. I am in some ways glad that should did not do so.
These issues are not so simple. It is all too easy to name another
person as disgusting. But as I said, in my view, disgusting behavior has
come from many of the makers of great art, and not just in cinema. Read
about a few painters sometime.
Fred Camper
Chicago
On 11/25/2017 2:12 PM, Evan Greene wrote:
Fred,
As a young person just beginning to venture into the experimental film
world I find your unwillingness to name names rather troublesome. Your
writing in the past year has been an invaluable resource for me. But
knowingly letting these disgusting people and their art continue to
garner the recognition and prestige it does, I think is wrong. History
demands to be rewritten. Space made for the marginalized. If you do
kno some of the greatest experimental filmmakers who did these things
I would hope that you would share it. I think it’s important
information in regards to writing/talking about and seeing their work
in the future. Especially in experimental filmmaking where much of the
content is personal.
😎
On Nov 24, 2017, at 6:37 PM, Cecilia Dougherty
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Thank you!
On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 4:34 PM Fred Camper <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Amazing, but unfortunately not that big of a surprise. It
supports my point that no group should feel holier than thou, or
immune from all the badness. (Take, for example, priests, oh,
wait, let's not...)
I have to admit I do not understand the psychology at work here
-- what pleasure could any male get out of such behavior? I will
say with virtual certainty that nothing that you did "prompted"
him. I guess we humans are all different, and not always in good
ways.
Thanks for speaking up.
Fred Camper
Chicago
On 11/24/2017 11:17 AM, Kate Ewald wrote:
I will give an anecdote about this very listserv: I was very
severely sexually harassed as a college student posting about a
film screening in 2008. It was for a well-known experimental
filmmaker. The response to my post involved "oh, you don't know
what you're talking about and I bet you can shut up and stick a
dick in your mouth." This persisted for several posts (becoming
increasingly graphic), some just to me, some to the whole list -
I'm not sure what prompted such a reaction from this stranger.
Scott was kind enough to delete these posts from the archives
out of respect and block this person from Frameworks, but as a
young person first entering the experimental film community (it
was my first post on Frameworks), I was shaken. Some people
policed it and stood up for me then, but Scott made it go away
very quickly. So yes, this happens in our community, and yes,
this happens on this listserv. I wish it weren't the case.
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--
“As from when does somewhere become truly yours?” -- Georges Perec
Cecilia Dougherty
http://www.ceciliadougherty.com
http://inbetweentheories.com
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