A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

be feminine. I mean this is the female part of females! So I looked at my attitudes and realized that, without really knowing it, I had developed certain assumptions about femininitythat feminine means symmetrical and pink and pretty and delicate. I realized that even though I thought I was conscious, I still held unconscious attitudes about femininity." I really appreciated his comment and his willingness to share it publicly.

I had other, very different responses. At one point, I was invited to the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, which was presenting a fine arts festival. I couldn't resist the idea of a fine arts festival in Aberystwyth. I had also been invited to Cannes to show

I Change I Am the Same,

a stunning little forty-five second movie that's still out there making money for me, which is really satisfying. Both invitations were for the same dates. Being invited to Cannes was quite a

coup

for an independent filmmaker, but I decided to go to Wales instead. I discovered that the University of Wales in Aberystwyth was a hotbed of Charles Olson studies. I'm sure you know the American poet, Charles Olson, whom I had met a couple of times and really admired and loved. My boyfriend, D. V. John Dubberstein, and I were staying with a lecturer in the English department, who was much more interested in my anecdotal memories of Charles Olson than in my films.

Anyway, the first night of that festival was devoted to a showing of films by. Stan Brakhage, also a friend of mine from California, and John's cousin. I think John actually owned some of Brakhage's films because we had a copy of

The Art of Seeing

. I was very familiar with Brakhage's work, so I took it upon myself to represent him at the screenings and answer some of the questions from the audience.

Window Water Baby Moving

[1959] was shown and a few other things, and there was general outcry and outrageat

Window Water Baby Moving

! I remember one person in particular, an English professor, who objected

violently

to that movie, and said, among other very hostile things, "Would you film someone making toilet?" I remember thinking, "Does he mean putting on makeup? Is that some kind of eighteenth-century phrase he's using, or is he talking about someone going to the bathroom?" So, when I stood up, I said, "I found your comment very interesting although I wasn't sure if you were talking about someone putting on makeup or someone peeing or shitting." Of course, that created even more uproar, as I, I'm ashamed to say, intended it to. Later, I said in a

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very direct way that I was showing my films the next evening and that if anyone had been offended by Brakhage's

Window Water Baby Moving,

I would strongly recommend that they not come to my show, or at least that they wait until the second half hour.

The next day as I was walking through one of the university buildings in the early afternoon on my way to a panel discussion, I passed a room with a door ajar, through which I heard the soundtrack from

Riverbody

. I pushed the door open, and there was a little screen and a group of men watching my films by themselves, like at a private smoker. I stayed in the back. The next film on the reel was

Chakra

and the group watched what I then called the "Cunt Movie," yakking and making jokes: "What did you have for breakfast?" "That's your mother!" that sort of thing. I waited until the program was over. Then I turned on the light, and looked very carefully to see who was there. Of course, the professor who had made the comment the day before was there. I looked at them and laughed and said, "Well, I'm certainly glad that you got to see this privately, because I know how difficult it would be for you to watch it in public!" And I quoted some of their remarks. It was wonderful. Of course, that evening I told the story to the entire community. I was also very pleased when a graduate student who had been with the all-male party that afternoon got up and talked about the difference between seeing the film in a mixed audience and as part of an all-male smoker.

MacDonald:

Did you stay in England, or did you travel through Europe?

Severson:

I showed the film as part of a program of my own films and films by others that David Boatwright and I took all over Europe for a year. If you were a recognized filmmaker, you could easily schedule a European tour and show your films all over. You didn't make much money, but enough to live on while you were traveling around with the films. And there were very interested, communicative, sophisticated people in Belgium, France, particularly in Holland, Scandinavia, and Germany. Hundreds of people would show up to see and discuss the films.