The late Joyce Wieland (1931-1998) remains a seminal figure in contemporary Canadian, as well as international art history. She was a pioneer in form and content, defining new ways of seeing and talking about the political, the environmental, the art-world, feminism and Canadian identity, at a determining point in time. In Intervening the Frame I have curated ten short films in two programs that exemplify Wieland's intellectual concerns, while giving focus to her aesthetic gaze.

While Wieland’s films range vastly in theme and technique they all reveal the eye of a painter. Her films are pictorial, highly conscious of themselves and of the materiality and possibilities of the medium. Wieland’s timing is characteristic of someone who would look at the details and allow space for slow revelation. Her composition, although raw and intuitive, reveals a deep sensitivity to light and line. What is exceptional about Wieland is how she maintains this drawing sensibility while focusing on the political and the female experience. She includes the personal in her films, and reveals her presence and absence as both woman and filmmaker physically and conceptually.

In these programmes, I focus on three characteristics that expose her pictorial style and political sensibility: the timing of the still life in film, her use of portraiture, and irony.

Sailboat, 1933 and Cat Food are short films that allow us to observe the image in great detail: becoming a still life on film. The rhythm of the framing gives the viewer plenty of time to focus on the pictorial, the lines, colours and general composition, rather than on the chronology of the action. The works become formalist. This is also exemplified by her use of text in Sailboat and 1933, where it loses its linguistic meaning to become an image.

The sense of intimacy of the still life is preserved in these films and highlighted in Water Sark. Water Sark takes place at Wieland’s own kitchen table and bathroom. She uses quotidian objects such as a glass of water, a rose, a lamp, a plate, and actions like washing her hair, to reveal herself, bringing the viewer into her space and close to her body. From a still life an abstraction is derived. Wieland achieves this while creating visual effects on camera and revealing her filming process. Wieland deconstructs the scene and problematizes our relationship to it as observers. In a very Brechtian fashion, Wieland makes visible the process of filming and also discloses her own fragmented image. Water Sark becomes a self-portrait, composed of visual and conceptual layering.

Portraiture is a key feature in Wieland’s films. Wieland portrays people, animals and society through her sight specific lens. A&B in Ontario presents a portrait where Joyce Wieland and Hollis Frampton have a visual conversation with each other through their cameras. Both of them are filmmakers, characters and viewers at the same time. The treatment of the rhythm, framing, action, editing and sound, creates a layered composition where roles are made active and exchanged, leaving space to the audience to identify their own relationship to the film. In addition, the filming process is, as with Water Sark, of special importance: we can hear the sound of the camera rolling but also the sound of the camera reloading. In Handtinting the lack of dialogue directs us to observe the women’s facial expressions revealing their boredom and enjoyment in their specific relationship to the situation. In Rat Life and Diet in North America and Cat Food, Wieland portrays the animals as main characters through her use of the close up, at the same time emphasizing environmental issues.

The filmmaker opens windows for observation, through which she portrays society. In Solidarity, a documentary about a protest against low wages at the Dare food plant in Kitchener, Wieland concentrates on the feet of the protesters. By focusing on the shoes of the people as they march, Wieland gives us direct insight into their class and circumstance and creates a very straightforward political statement without being didactic.

Patriotism and Patriotism Part II are ironic portraits of American culture created through careful composition in an intimate setting. In both short films, Wieland plays with iconic objects in American culture, such as the flag, the Statue of Liberty and the hot dog, subverting their meaning and influence. While these symbols are used playfully and ironically, they ultimately reflect on power relationships and domination. This is also the case with Rat and Life in North America, where the story reveals Wieland’s concerns about the economic control and political influence of the United States over Canada. It is important to note that while these films are political they maintain a sense of personal exposure, exemplified by the final text in Patriotism Part II, where the filmmaker discloses her feelings toward the actor.

Joyce Wieland creates compositional beauty using intimacy and drawing as a point of departure. In her films, she plays with the medium itself, with the ephemeral nature of the image, while giving space for the viewer to participate in an active fashion. Her personal way of seeing and portraying endowed her with the freedom to communicate her statements in a complex yet clear way. Her particular form and style become a political statement, in the way that she emphasizes how she relates to film and gives shape to her aesthetic and political sensibility, insisting on and demonstrating her equal status as a woman in the art-world of the time.

Guillermina Buzio