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Claudia
1987, 7:50
with Claire Trepanier
Claudia is an examination of the possibility that anything as
marginal as lesbian sex can be placed within a context of normal life,
domestic architecture and mundane perspective. Two women are on a bed,
there is no camera operator, and they have already agreed to have sex
for the camera. The ’everyday’ is represented by shots of
the neighborhood. The idea was to look at the sex itself objectively,
that sex was separate from eroticism, pornography, and romance. The representation
of lesbian sex became the stand-in for all sexual representation, and
the only sex available for drawing conclusions or understanding the thesis.
“And what of girls, lesbians, the ultimate stereotypes? Claudia opens with a distant bay, oil derricks in a chemical haze, landscape littered
with industrial debris. An “establishing shot,” establishing
nothing but itself: A hallucinatory science fiction beauty in which to
indulge. Car in the driveway, mundane but for the sublime glide along
its metal. Woman’s body on a bed. Indecipherable murmurings, some
sex. As if it’s forbidden, impossible, to see your own body, “Girl,”
searching the mirror for something you call your “self.” -Laurie Weeks
Kathy
1988, 12:00
with Susie Bright and Honey Lee Cottrell
Kathy was made as an erotic counterpart to the anti-aesthetic of Claudia. As in Claudia, there are two women on a bed having
sex, but the camera is highly subjective and selective, roaming voyeuristically
over the love scene. The lovemaking is inter-cut with scenes of pie-making,
suggesting an everyday aspect to the erotic. There is no pre-determined
narrative, unless it is the build-up to orgasm and the final conclusion
of sexual satisfaction. |
