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Schmeerguntz (1966) + Motherload (1994)

Introduction Schmeerguntz (1966) is a collaboration between Gunvor Nelson (1931) and Dorothy Wiley. Motherload (1994) is a film by Betsy Weiss. Both films address issues of contemporary motherhood in America; Schmeerguntz (1996) has a criticizing, entertaining aspect to it as we follow the crude humour and exposed life of society’s expectations of women - “American Sweethearts” where everything is clean, and happy, juxtaposed to what being a pregnant housewife is really like. Where as Motherload (1994) is a 15 minute black and white documentary that is informative and criticizing of the idea of childbirth expressed through the voice-over interviews of women and their thoughts on pregnancy and child-rearing. Both films challenge what a “documentary” conventionally means through their form, style and content - especially at times where women’s rights were in the foreground of political discussion. The films fit into both the poetic and performative modes of documentary; fast cuts of seemingly unrelated images bind together to form a montage of the female mind and world. Both films are obviously emotionally edited and also express a subjective experience and one of the filmmakers own involvement.

Content + Form Both films do not a follow a strict plot, per se. Instead, they fuse images, found content, voice-over narration and music to create a subjective experience of the female body, and its position in society. In saying this, both films portray a theme of motherhood, what it means to be a mother and how motherhood is perceived by society and by women. This is achieved through the film’s content, form and modes of documentary. As explained above, both films follow the poetic and performative modes of documentary, and as Nichols discusses in his essay “How can we define documentary film?” (2010) the performative mode of documentary attempts to heighten the audience's responsiveness to their involvement in the film by placing a strong emphasis on the emotional and social impact it has on the audience. Performative and poetic documentary films reject notions of objectivity in favour of affect and evocation (Nichols, p.32.) Thus, both of these films aim to deal with the subjective and inform their audience through the mixed and somewhat avant-garde-ish edits of images and sound.

Schmeerguntz (1966) is a 15 minute black and white 16mm film which uses images mainly from American beauty queen pageants, advertisements, and from around Nelson’s and Wiley’s home. In most cases the images include Wileys pregnant body performing various tasks (struggling to put on shoes, washing dishes etc.) The film largely uses the poetic and performance modes of documentary as these images are quickly cut and paired with voice-over narration and music. In this case, the film uses emotional editing to portray a subjective experience of the filmmakers to the audience. Juxtapositioning is largely used in the film to create meaning from the seemingly unrelated images. Throughout the film images of a clean, “beautiful” world that the beauty queens inhabit (society’s expectations) are juxtaposed with images of a struggling pregnant body, and the act of cleaning dishes and toilets, etc. (reality.) The technique of juxtaposition used in this film creates meaning by highlighting what society expects of housewives, and what the reality of that position is - pregnant bodies and constant cleaning of dishes and dirty nappies. Voice-over narration is extracted from past advertisements encouraging women to be how society expects them to be, sometimes played over images of the beauty queens, and sometimes over images of the housewives. In doing so, a dark humor emerges from the film as the abundant irony is made clearer to the audience. Schmeerguntz (1966) utilizes many techniques that fall under the poetic and performative modes of documentary, and make even be considered as an avant-garde film. It is obvious that this film does not follow a “traditional” structure of documentary, instead, it focuses on emotional editing and subjective experiences on the filmmaker's own involvement to portray its subject and meaning.

Motherload (1994) is a 15 minute, black and white, 16mm film which also utilizes the poetic and performative modes of documentary film to portray its subject and meaning. The film essentially focuses on differing opinions of childbirth, motherhood and society’s expectations of women by including voice-over narration of these opinions paired with seemingly unrelated images. These voice-over opinions cycle through the 15 minute film, with less positive comments and more negative ones. For example, some positive quotes sound as such; “I saw it as a gift” whereas, negative comments sound like; “childbirth is degrading, animalistic, humiliating” and “I think it’s a selfish thing to have a kid.” In the film we never see the source of the voice-overs, but we are faced with seemingly unrelated found images of mother and child buying cotton candy, child at the beach, child at the park, and images of a woman at the circus riding elephants. In an interview conducted by Shira Segal, Weiss reveals: “I am interested in playing with connections between sound and image, at times having more literal representations of what is heard and at others more figurative, ironic or poetic interpretations, not always spelling everything out” (Segal, 2009.) Of course, Weiss’ juxtapositioning of sound and image allows meaning to be created subjectively by the audience - changing the meaning of the film by how an individual perceives it, as she reveals in the interview: “...the film was interpreted differently depending on whether the viewer did or did not want to become a mother” (Segal, 2009.) Similar to Schmeerguntz (1966,) Motherload (1994) asks the audience to find their own meaning in the connection of sound and image, as well as understanding the filmmakers’ intentions.This technique falls into both the performative and poetic modes of documentary filmmaking as the film is visually and emotionally edited to suit the subjective experience of the filmmaker. It is interesting to note that the majority of the opinions expressed through the voice-over narration are negatively portraying childbirth, motherhood, and child-rearing as something society expects women to perform. Therefore, it is obvious that both films do not fall into the traditional structure of the documentary film. Instead, they focus on important elements of the poetic and performative modes of documentary, such as; visual, tonal, emotional editing, subjective experience and includes the filmmakers own involvement to create meaning. Though the juxtapositioning of the sound and image, both films highlight their subject and their overwhelming view of it. The content heavily relies on the structure of the film to portray meaning effectively.

Context Schmeerguntz (1966) Gunvor Nelson (b. 1931, Sweden) had lived in California from 1953 to 1993, where she then returned to Sweden. From 1970 to 1992 she taught at the San Francisco Art Institute while also creating multiple avant-garde films with feminist undertones. Despite her rejection of the feminist elements found in her films, it is interesting to note that Nelson and Wiley created Schmeerguntz (1966) in the 1960’s - the beginning of second-wave feminism. The film was created when women were fighting for their equality around the world. Infact, in June 1966 the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded (Sink, 2008.) Despite the rejection of feminist statements in Schmeerguntz (1966,) it is fair to say that the film was created in a time of women’s warfare against the patriarchal oppression that women were being molded in to. Schmeerguntz (1966) challenges this oppression by the juxtapositioning of how women are expected to be by society, and how women/housewives actually are.

Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley were housewives themselves, and in an interview conducted by Brenda Richardson, 1971, Gunvor Nelson speaks of her inspiration for Schmeerguntz (1966) : “...one day I was looking at all the gunk in the sink and thought of the contrast between what we do, and what we see that we "should" be-in ads and things and that was the idea right there, from the sink” (Richardson, 1971.) Schmeerguntz (1966) was created by housewives for housewives who could understand the dark, witty humour and irony of how society expected them to be versus how they actually lived. Whether or not the film has a feminist agenda, many people connected with it causing it to win many awards. For example, it won First Prize at the 4th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1966 (Ann Arbor Film Festival. 2013.)

Motherload (1994) Betsy Weiss received her MFA from San Francisco State University and now teaches video production and media studies at Tulane University (Segal, 2009.) She created Motherload in 1994 and in an interview conducted by Shira Segal reveals that she was involved in the film subject as a filmmaker, using her family and friends as collaborators to illustrate her own opinion: “I interviewed anyone I knew who either had a kid or who had a strong opinion on the matter, in my immediate orbit. I was trying the role on (in part through my on screen surrogate) and at the same time considering how the role of motherhood might have been for previous generations. My acknowledgments include my contemporary collaborators and my mother, grandmother and great grandmother” (Segal, 2009.) In essence, Weiss was attempting to understand the complexities of having a child from a social and personal standpoint through her friends and family's experiences. The film is an exploration personal to the filmmaker, as stated in her interview: “I make films which start from and often return to a personal inquiry” (Segal, 2009.) The subject of the film still stands today, in this somewhat liberal socio political climate where women have the right to choose whether or not they wish to have a child. Motherload (1994) was well received, winning awards and screened at film festivals and museums: “I got a very good response to this film and if [sic] screened at many film festivals, winning audience awards at Humboldt and Onion City, also some museums, Pacific Film Archives and some classrooms” (Segal, 2009.)

Scene Analysis

Motherload (1994)

http://vimeo.com/66847816 5:27 - 6:05