Breaking the Frame

A densely-textured experimental film, BREAKING THE FRAME weaves the art of ground-breaking feminist Carolee Schneemann into footage of her journals and paintings in order to capture the multi-dimensionality of her work. Schneemann, a central figure in 20th century avant-garde movements, is not only a painter, poet, installation artist, and filmmaker, but also a pioneer of performance art who expanded the very definition of art to include discourses on the body and gender. Filmmaker Nitoslawska and artist Schneemann have both been censured for focusing on woman-generated porn as they have undertaken an exploration of the viewer's relationship to nature and sexuality. Canadian TV network Telequebec financed “Bad Girl,” Nitoslawska's unblinking look at the porn industry, only to ban it from being broadcast. And Schneemann's “Meat Joy,” “Fuses,” and “Interior Scroll,” with their uninhibited sex and emphasis on new ways of seeing the female body, proved too much for many audiences in the 60s and 70s. Carolee Schneemann's progressive visions continue to explode our frame of reference about women's art. – B.B.