In 1975, it was the Year of the Woman. Antenne 2 asked seven female filmmakers the question : “How does it feel to be a woman?”. They had to answer with a seven-minute movie. Agnès Varda chose to answer with the cine-leaflet “Réponses de femmes”. It is a possible answer concerning women’s bodies and the feminine condition. In this short movie, women, from female children to old women, chat about sex, desire, advertising and children (to have some or not) : “our object-body, our taboo-body, our body with or without children, our sex, etc...”. How can we experience our body? How can we experience our sex? On a white set, women, dressed or naked, try to answer the question “What is a woman?”. One answers: “To be a woman is to be born in a female body”. Nothing more, no idea of feminine essence, or predisposition to motherhood, ideas against which the feminist movement was struggling. A pregnant and naked woman, dancing and laughing loud, made a lot of viewers react : Antenne 2 got a lot of written reproaches.
This cine-leaflet was aired on Antenne 2 the 23rd of June 1975. It was also nominated to Cesars 76, category documentary short-movie.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5gt1m_agnes-varda-reponse-de-femmes_shortfilms
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5gt1m_agnes-varda-reponse-de-femmes_shortfilms
Why was 1975 the Year of the Woman? Who decided that? What did that mean exactly? Amazing looking back on it, now that an entire country would make that kind of decision...
RépondreSupprimerA couple of corrections: a woman?" a seven-minute movie, chose, bodies and the feminine condition, experience our body, our sex (rather than live), one answers: (no space before a colon), a lot of viewers, reproaches