Barbara Hammer

February 1997

Hammer it home

Pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer brings her work to the Museum of Fine Arts
by Susan Ryan-Vollmar

True confession: I don't get Barbara Hammer's work. But a lot of people do. Her films, some 77 short videos and longer features, are picked apart and studied in film schools for her treatment of multilayered images and merging of archival footage with new work to surreal effect. But when she first started out in the late '60s, she received attention simply for telling stories about women that weren't being told. Stories about menstruation, desire, sex, and lesbianism. As a result, Hammer's work taken as a whole can be seen as a chronicle, albeit a nonlinear one, of the lesbian-feminist movement of the '60s and '70s.
In Tender Fictions, Hammer's 1995 autobiographical film, she continues her groundbreaking work by turning the camera on herself. Sort of.
Making use of family photos, journal entries, and home movies, Hammer sets out to tell her story before, as she puts it in the film, someone does it for her. There are parts that simply don't make sense: Hammer robbing an American Express Bank in Morocco with a Swiss Army knife (sorry, I just don't get this -- is it a postmodern take on Suzanne Westenhoeffer's joke about every dyke owning a Swiss Army knife?). There are the parts that don't make sense but are visually interesting: a kitten pawing an erect (well, semi-erect) penis while a voiceover intones that the "feminist subject is both inside and outside of heterosexual ideology." And there are the parts that are just plain funny: Hammer calling her friends on the phone to elicit their most -- and least -- likable "lesbian memories" of her. One friend tells her that she's still annoyed about something that had occurred years earlier -- "You tried to make a move on me in that bar in Portland." Another tells Hammer that she's still in awe of the fact that Hammer had broken up with a lover because the lover had "received more phone calls" than she did.
The net result (really) is a portrait of a lovably impish, scarily smart, fiftysomething, spiky-haired, Shirley Temple wanna-be. Sure, the 58-minute documentary isn't easy to watch (take notes if you're trying to keep track of the story), but if you're in the right mood it's a nice break from the pabulum that usually fills our screens. Tender Fictions will be shown February 20 at the Museum of Fine Arts. Two of her shorter films, Optic Nerve and Sanctus will screen at the Museum School February 18. And for those, like myself, who take things too literally, Hammer, fortunately, will be on hand to answer questions after the February 18 screening.
One in Ten recently spoke with Hammer:

Q: You've been very successful with your experimental videos and films. Do you ever see yourself making a more traditional film?
A: I've written a dramatic feature, and it's traditional in terms of form. It's called Nothing Could Be Worse Than Two Dykes in Menopause. It has a $350,000 budget, the script is ready, one star has committed to it already. . . . I can enjoy a Hollywood film like anyone, but when I stumble over homeless people on my way to the theater and think about all the money that it took to make the film, I mean -- c'mon folks -- which century are we living in? I think there are better ways to spend that money.
Q: What do you think of independent lesbian films like Go Fish, Incredible Adventures of Two Girls in Love, and Everything Relative?
A: It's really hard to talk about them as a group because I had a different response to each. The most exciting thing is that lesbian cinema has come of age. In the late '60s there were just [a few of] us making films. Now there are hundreds. If it's a good story, people are more interested now in seeing it. . . . Generally, Go Fish broke the ice, it was grassroots. It had some really cute scenes in it like the nail-cutting scene. . . . [Go Fish director] Rose Troche told me that she was trying to spoof 1970 lesbian films -- you know, like my work -- but I think she ended up incorporating many of those images. It had a collective feel to it.
Q: What about Two Girls in Love and Everything Relative?
A: I thought [Two Girls] was just incredibly well-made. It was economical both in how it told its story and how it was made. I don't like films that spend millions of dollars to tell a story. I think there are better ways to spend money. As for Everything Relative, it just died.
Q: What do you want viewers of Tender Fictions to get from the film?
A: I hope that they come away thinking and asking questions of truth and fiction in our lives -- that they come away thinking about autobiography as a social construct, a literary construct, a film construct. And that they come away thinking about the way that memory works. It can move forward, it can move backward -- you can jump around. So I hope the audience is thinking about their own autobiography and would think about the snapshots that were shown, the stories that were told, and the multiple truths that make up our lives.
Q: Any advice for a young queer filmmaker just starting out?
A: Go to a school that teaches queer theory, and search out mentors that you'd like to study with. Take a nontraditional approach. . . . You have to be passionate. Don't go into filmmaking unless you're passionate. You have to be willing to pursue a career that may not bring many rewards. You have to do it for love -- the same reason you do a relationship, the same reason you do life.

Respond to this article.