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Replay - a reverie by Margaret Haselgrove |
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A film by Margaret Haselgrove 16mm, 6 minutes, 1998 |
This piece was written by the filmmaker in 2001, and this is the first time it is published. (ed. Bill Mousoulis) |
The
photograph in my hand elicits an intense feeling of longing. Is it a man in the
photograph, or a woman? I hold its gaze, captivated by its petrified
uncertainty. In return it holds me unsure, oscillating. The power of
photography. I watch. I think.
An
audiotape arrives in the post. I long to see her, but I only hear her. She is
in a mist-shrouded, winter park on the other side of the world. The spindle
turns….“There is a man walking towards me……..” Trepidation. Voice impels action.
A
seven-year journey begins, an exploration on film of uncanny feelings.
Only
the delicious sensuality of light projected through frames of celluloid in the
dark can give tangibility to my abstract ideas, somewhere between dreams and
reality. Scopophilic desire propelled by
ambivalent sexual fantasies of shifting transmutable sexual identities, reports
a theorist. Shifting mutable sexual identity in real life, say I.
Fetishize
the image until you can almost count the grains. Texture you want to touch.
Fixate on ritualised repetition. Investigate. An abstract, cold performance of
a performance. Thumb your nose at culmination, or that horrible word,
‘closure’. Fragment. Fragment.
Reference
points? Maya Deren? The mesmerizing beauty of Marlene Dietrich constructed by
Joseph Von Sternberg? Not really.
But
film is on its last legs. In memoriam. Grief, panic. Something important and
unique is slipping away. “Use video.” It’s not the same. Can’t, won’t.
They
don’t understand the film but they know my reputation. “A serious professional,
plenty of experience, high standards. Risky project.” A small grant. The
smallest film I’ve ever made. Not the career path they had in mind.
Replay confuses their expectations of entertainment, confuses their expectations of
me, encourages speculation, hard to pin down. “She’s gone mad”. “We need
product to feed the masses”. “Have nothing to do with her”.
Keep
thinking, keep working, molding, changing. Don’t stop. Trust your hunch. That’s
independence.
Have
to find serious money somewhere. “This film could be bad taste”, says a funding
assessor. Funding denied. “Incoherent”, says another. Funding denied.
“Alienatingly obtuse”, says another. Funding denied.
A fellow filmmaker says, “Never invest your own money in a film”.
I nod agreement. I should give up. I plough on.
The cinematographer becomes my eyes, revels in my independence,
freed to breathe soul into pictures. Professional dancers give physical
strength to the film’s aesthetic heart; the compelling sight of the androgynous
body. A Sydney actor is in town. Her agent says she has agreed to do the voice
for a small fee. “Who knows, these little films sometimes hit the headlines”,
says he. No comment, think I.
Replay is in post-production, mastered as one continuous optical effect
frame-by-frame. Click, click, click. Every frame has meaning, every effect a
purpose. Trust the lab technician. He listens, understands, is knowledgeable.
He admires audacious independence. He’ll get it right in the end.
It comes together, infused with the highest possible
production values for the money. Haunting, black and
white images driven by Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music.
My
life’s savings are on the screen. It’s not a viable object for returns in the
marketplace. But I have created poetry. No regrets. I
am an independent artist.
Independent or not, an artist needs to be acknowledged. Faith and
tenacity are not enough. This is not only about stretching my way of seeing the
world, but challenging other people’s too. They won’t come to me, so I must
find them.
Distribute the film yourself. No multinational
companies to tip my hat to for this project. Not even television executives to
contend with, no matter how culturally independent they are. This film was made
to be experienced in the cinema and that is where it belongs. That’s independence.
Replay sinks
without trace in Australia. No Australian audiences for this ‘little’ film. No
“distinctly Australian stories” here. Despair.
The
fax machine is pumping. Joy. At last. Replay takes flight. Paris, Montreal, San Francisco, Bologna, and back to Toronto. My
independent spirit flies with it as I sit in my office and watch the clouds
float past the window. Now it tours the United States. London, on the same
session as Isaac Julien. I wish I could be there. “No, you can’t go with your
film to a festival.” Funding denied.
That’s
independence.
Margaret Haselgrove is an Adelaide-based writer/director and producer since the 1980s. Independent films include the partly-dramatized feature documentary Patterns (1986), and self-funded experimental film Replay (1998). Also several political and community docos & dramas while resident filmmaker at Co Media (community media production house) in the late ‘80s to early ‘90s. Currently (2021) developing an arthouse feature. |
Published August 9, 2021. © Margaret Haselgrove 2001 / 2021..
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