LA BLANCHISSEUSE is an experimental video examining the tendency that still exists for women to take a greater responsibility than men for domestic work and nurturing. While the issue is one that has been often explored in feminist discourse, this video opens a new, post-feminist line of enquiry.
The images—of a woman ironing first a woman’s top, then a man’s shirt and finally children’s clothing—pay homage in their composition to paintings of laundresses (often titled “La Blanchisseuse”) by such artists as Edgar Degas, Honoré Daumier, Edouard Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edward Stott and others.
Many of the paintings of laundresses by these artists create an ambiguously gentle impression; some even create an unambiguously gentle impression, portraying the task of laundry as sensual, feminine, and producing contentment. The video LA BLANCHISSEUSE examines the link between the images with which we have grown up and the expectations we place upon ourselves.
Texts scroll across the images intermittently, firstly describing elements of some paintings of laundresses—in terms of their appeal as paintings as well as their philosophic suggestions. Texts from the poetry of Denise Levertov (Intrusion) and Adrienne Rich (Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law) and from Virginia Woolfe (To The Lighthouse) follow—variously alluding to the strong “pull” for a woman to provide nurturing care to others and to the sense of betrayal and rejection that can be the reward for providing such care.
A music soundtrack, composed by Anthony Moore supports a sense of meditation on the inherent ambiguities. The viewer is thus afforded an opportunity to develop new and creative readings of images of women at work and to consider the emotional/aesthetic underpinnings of women’s complicity in creating the confinement of their situations.
Winner, Director’s Choice Award, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1995
11:00 minutes © 1993
black&white/sound/Beta SP; 3/4"; VHS (NTSC) video
Distribution for Exhibition: Cinenova (London); Vidéographe (Canada); hamiltro productions (USA)
 |
Please view: 33-second quicktime excerpt in which, over an image of a woman ironing—reminiscent
in composition of impressionist paintings of laundresses, text from Denise
Levertov’s poem Intrusion scrolls upwards, addressing the “pull”
of the nurturing role for women. 1.7 MB |
Musicians: Gary Adler (viola); Aaron Heick (oboe); Roger Scholl (clarinet); Fred Snitzer (cello)
Sound Engineer: Jonathan Duckett
LA BLANCHISSEUSE
was produced through Artist-in-Residency programs at
The Experimental
Television Center Ltd.
and
Harvestworks/Studio PASS.
post-feminist cinema, post-feminist discourse;
literature in film, literature in video, poetry in film, poetry in video
experimental video, video art, ‘La Blanchisseuse’ in impressionist art