[1980] and
. So when
struck me as thoroughly pleasurable, I thought that since, as Jenny says at the beginning of the film, the subject
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of menopause has come to
unpleasure, you felt free to bring back other obvious kinds of cinematic pleasure as a defiance of the conventional attitude about menopause (and its implications for women), and as a way of modeling a new attitude about menopause (and about film).
That may be a way of reading the progression of my films, but it was certainly not uppermost in my mind.
What
been on my mind is an ongoing relationship to narrative, be it about pleasure or nonpleasure. If narrative is a way of
the audience, I've gone further and further toward narrative conventions, such as
this is the first of my films that has a semblance of a plot; it's the first film to use so many professional actors. This is the first film that does not have some overly long passage that people just can't stay withthe theoretical lecture in
or the anecdotal, voice-over material in
. I have always thought of my films as containing dry moments, but compensating for those with offsetting momentswith animals or stories or irony, humor.
This is also the first film where you use extensive interviewing, isn't it?
Well, there's the housing hearing in
but I didn't interview those people. It's talking heads, people giving testimony.
Women talking about their menopausal experiences is, actually, fascinating. Ironically, since it has been a taboo subject in movies, it has become as interesting as other taboo subjects that have to do with the body. The audienceat least the audience I saw the film withseemed excited to hear these revelations.
These are all young people?
About half of them were college people; half were older people from the community.
I often get the question from men, Who's your audience? At one point I was saying, 'It's young women and men, because young women don't
to know about menopause, and men have no reason to, have nothing at stake.'
Unless a man is deeply involved with someone struggling with menopause.
Near the end, the Yvonne Washington character says,
I try to monitor when my hot flashes occur. I'm watching a video cassette of 'Sweet Sweetback's Baadaass Song.' 'Why does an embodiment of black protest have to be a stud?' flashes through my mind, and along comes a hot flash. I'm on the subway thinking about a friend. ''Forget that family crap,' I think.
. . . Ready to leave, I put on my coat in an overheated room.
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Instantly I am so hot, I must tear it off . . . Reading about the Supreme Court's latest setback to civil rights. One of the justices is quoted as saying: 'The fact that low-paying, unskilled jobs are overwhelmingly held by blacks is no proof of racism.'
. . . Thinking about what I could have said, should have said:
. . . [quoted from Rainer's screenplay]
