by way of Jill Godmillow.

by way of Jill Godmillow, 1998

KATE HAUG

Finally the 1960 have hit art cinema. These of recent origin films are not nostalgic nods to Stan Brakhage or documentary glimpses of long-hairs seizing university campuses. Instead, the 1960 resurface in couple remakes: Elisabeth Subrin's Shulie (1997) and Jill Godmilow's What Farocki Taught (1998) The '90 remakes take respectively Shulie (1967 according to Jerry Blumenthal, Sheppard Ferguson, James Leahy and Alan Rettig) and Harun Farocki's Inextinguishable Fire (1969) and re-shoot them show for scene. The script, camera marksmans costumes, backdrops, graphs, props are all copies. The contemporary versions direct the eye sound and act - as plenteous as they can - like the originals. Given the late '80 art world inclinations of appropriation and the ever-growing experience of simulacrum, it is not in such a manner shocking that an innovative filmmaker would take upon celluloid cloning. Yet this radical genre of filmmaking excels pat discussions of originality. by means of circulating replica films of the '60 these filmmakers harness the remake's amorphous quality of time to deftly address contemporary politics.

If the comparison of the sum of two units films ended by solely addressing the celluloid clone as a modern form of filmmaking, the important differences between the films would be dissipated Pulling the original films into conversation with their stock provokes a range of questions: in what manner does each filmmaker employ the remake? What are the conceptual perimeters of the first films? to what degree does the second film utilize the free course and intention of the first?

Shulie (1967) is a cinema verite portrait of Shulamith Firestone during her final B.F.A. year at the Chicago Art Institute. The original Shulie come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behinds Firestone in her daily life: waiting for the train, working at the employment office, making art. Inextinguishable Fire, Farocki's first film, is a Brechtian anti-war film that elides any traditional documentary strategies. It hangs on monotone delivery by uncharismatic German actors to relay the ruthless and fatal effects of napalm. The differences between the originals makes a comparison of the remakes more complex: remaking a cinema verite portrait directly calculators the notion of documentary authenticity and replicating a staged film against the Vietnam War implies a conceptual continuity between the original film and the remake.

Shulie (1997) consciously plays with the myth of the original; we are not watching the "real" Firestone as we would have in the 1967 version. Subrin masters replication. According to pres materials, Subrin's film is an exact model of the original with several critical exceptions: a six-minute introductory section (the original film is 30 mins., Subrin's is 36 mins.), a quotation by way of Firestone at the beginning and a closing sentence Shulie (1997) is adapted from the 1967 film, moreover this is not revealed until the completion of the film. For the observant viewer, Firestone's words at the beginning of the film, "No matter for what reason many levels of consciousness individual reaches, the problem always goe deeper - from the Dialectic of Sex 1970" and her voiceover (during a visual display of 1990 hippies) about the "Now" generation hint at historical anachronisms. After the Firestone quotation, a true copy explains the financing scenario behind the 1967 film. A patron gave a arrange of Chicago film students cash to make short documentaries onward the "Now" generation - Firestone was individual of their subjects. After these verse s the title "Shulie" rolls down the disguise and the 1997 film dumfounds as the original 1967 version. Subrin's Shulie does not visibly "add" anything to the original. As it is none mention in her film, Subrin's relationship to Shulie (1967) remains ambiguous. The audience's relationship to the 1967 film is calm more enigmatic. Why did Subrin replicate a film that was not ever released?

As the documentary form has been seriously questioned above the last decade (Trinh T Minhha's Surname Viet, Given Name Nam [1989] to name one) Shulie's (1997) critique of cinema verite practice is not as significant as its submission to the original document. The power of Subrin's film is created at the tension between the era from which Firestone speaks and that of the contemporary audience. As a voice from the past, Firestone is relevant to present-day feminists.

Subrin circulates the story of an important feminist. In 1970 at age 25 Firestone wrote The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (New York: William Morrow and Co 1970) When Shulie (1967) was made Firestone was about to take her nascent revolutionary imaginations and produce this important document of political theory. Seeing Firestone before this impulsive power before feminism hit its popular stride, traces the political ascension of feminism. While feminism and the conception of women's rights have undergone many changes since the inferior Wave of the '60s and '70 it still remains a volatile and frequently misunderstood political platform. Given feminism's seditious political path, it seems clear that Firestone's autobiography rather than the 1967 film was Subrin's muse. from producing a replica of 1967 instead of a biographical piece in succession Firestone, Subrin's recreates an historical twinkling The audience, like Firestone, does not know what's coming nearest The temporal gap between 1967 and 1997 grants the audience a chance to re-think the time to come of feminism. By not completing or adding to Firestone's biography, Subrin intentionally leaves the history of feminism incomplete - instead of following Firestone as she matures, Shulie (1967 and 1997) stops before feminism takes off