Description
Book SynopsisPart journalistic chronicle, part memoir, and a cultural historical odyssey, this title features the-way-it-was collection of essays that captures the birth and growth of feminist film. It introduces each essay with an autobiographical prologue that describes the intellectual, political, and personal moments from which the work arose.
Trade Review“Ruby Rich reinvents both herself and her approach to film criticism, in a fascinating book that alternates autobiography and theory. She is wise and funny at the same time, never dogmatic, always allowing her discovery process to remain in clear view.”—Roger Ebert
“This collection of writings by B. Ruby Rich is sure to become a classic. She has proven herself to be a courageous guide into uncharted aesthetic and political territory and, in describing so eloquently what she finds there, she does what critics aspire to but rarely achieve: she both educates and entertains.”—Sally Potter, director of the films
Orlando and
The Tango“This is a remarkable book. Rich has written a memoir that encourages the reader not only to see the original essays in a new context but also and especially to understand the development of an intellectual and political moment with all of its complications and personal investments.”—Judith Mayne, author of
Cinema and SpectatorshipTable of ContentsPreface: Jews without Books Introduction Prologue. I found it at the movies Film in the sixties Prologue. Hippie Chick in the Art World Carolee Schneemann's Fuses Prologue. Angst and Joy on the Women's Film Festival Circuit Leni Riefenstahl: The Deceptive Myth Prologue. Life, Death and Tragic Homecoming 4. Voodoo Verite: Maya Deren's Divine Horsemen Prologue. An Iguana, Some Wolves, and the Dawn of Theory In the Name of Feminist Film Criticism Prologue. O Brave New World One Way or Another: Sara Gomez and the Cuban Experience Prologue. A Woman's Declaration of Secession from the Avant-Garde Sex and Cinema Prologue. Love's Labour Lost Misconception: Labouring under No Illusions Prologue. Cows and Hero Worship The Films of Yvonne Rainer Prologue. Knokke-Heist and the Fury that was Edinburgh Designing Desire: Chantal Akerman Prologue. Euphoria Reclaims History From Repressive Tolerance to Erotic Liberation: Maedchen in Uniform Prologue. Softball, the Goddess and Lesbian Film Culture The Right of Re-Vision: Michelle Citron's Daughter Rite Prologue. The Allure of Alchemy Femicide Investigation: Thriller Prologue. Sour Grapes She Says, He Says: The Power of the Narrator in Modernist Film Politics Prologue. Sex, Gender, and the Consumer Culture Antiporn: Soft Issue, Hard World (Not a Love Story) Prologue. Unguided Tours The Feminist Avant-Garde Prologue. Attacking the Sisters, or the Limits of Disagreement Cinefeminism and its Discontents Prologue. Libel Threats and Exile Tactics Truth, Faith and the Individual: Thought on U.S. Documentary Film Practice Prologue. Disempowerment and the Politics of Rage Lady Killers: A Question of Silence Prologue. Film Stars as Outstanding Human Beings Julie Christie Goes to Washington Prologue. Banning the Victim 21. Good Girls, Bad Girls: Joyce Chopra's Smooth Talk Prologue. The Berks and the Sex Wars Feminisims and Sexulality on the Eighties Epilogue: Charting the Eighties
