Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement

Part journalistic chronicle, part memoir and part cultural history, these essays aim to capture the birth and growth of feminist film. In the hope that a new generation of feminist film culture might be revitalized by reclaiming its own history, Rich introduces each essay with an autobiographical prologue that describes the intellectual, political and personal moments from which the work arose. Topics covered include the antiporn movement, the films of Yvonne Rainer, a Julie Christie visit to Washington and the evocative film "Maedchen in Uniform". The result is a volume that traces the development of women's involvement in cinema, as well as the author's own involvement.

Table of Contents:
Preface: 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

About the Author :
B. Ruby Rich is Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has written for scores of publications, from Signs, GLQ, Film Quarterly, and Cinema Journal to The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Nation, and The Guardian (UK). She has served as juror and curator for the Sundance and Toronto International Film Festivals and for major festivals in Germany, Mexico, Australia, and Cuba. The recipient of awards from Yale University, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and Frameline, Rich is the author of New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut, also published by Duke University Press.

Review :
"Rich has written pieces for many journals and some of the articles reprinted here have been critically influential. [She offers] a wealth of analysis, from close textual detail to a general review of women filmmakers' triumphs in erstwhile male arenas of filmmaking. Although Rich documents how the spaces where women speak sometimes become embattled and embittered, we still have a vision of hope and change. That hand could be a helping one." --DIVA, April 1999 "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 movement with all of its complications and personal inventions." --Judith Mayne, author of Cinema and Spectatorship "This ... is sure to become a classic. [Rich] has proven herself to be a courageous guide into unchartered 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