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Nina Menkes<\/p><\/div>\n
Nina Menkes (NM): I was doing modern dance and choreography as a teenager, and then spent a few months one summer living with a few other dancers in an apartment in London. We were taking dance classes, and hanging out. The boyfriend of one of my roommates was in film school. He was complaining that he was supposed to make a short film, but he didn\u2019t have any ideas. So I said, \u2018Hey, I have an idea! Let\u2019s make a dance film!\u2019 I basically ended up choreographing this short little dance piece. I did the set design and directed the piece. There was something about it. I was very drawn to it. That was my first experience of filmmaking. When I returned to the US, I started working at KEMO-TV, a Spanish-language TV station in San Francisco. I had taken Spanish in school, so I started speaking Spanish really fast, and then started doing camera for them and realised I was very good at camera work. It was natural for me. So, I was working at this TV station, but I couldn\u2019t stand working 9-5. I couldn\u2019t bear it. I applied to the UCLA Film School, and I was thrilled when I got in. And the minute I got there\u2014it was like I had come home. It was an amazing experience because I had all these very weird, diverse talents, which included my dance background, and my natural talent for camerawork. I also grew up with a mother who was into Jungian analysis. She always encouraged me and my sister to write down our dreams. So, dream worlds and dance, which means movement, and sound, and photography, suddenly these different random skills that I had all clicked. I just totally loved making films. If you talk to people who knew me at film school, I haven\u2019t changed. I was completely obsessed with my work. I\u2019m still working 12 hours a day on my new feature documentary Brainwashed. I don\u2019t do it because anyone\u2019s telling me to do it, and I\u2019m certainly not being paid well to do it. It\u2019s just that I love it so much. Of course, I would love to be paid, I hope I will be paid, well, someday, for making one of my films. But the truth is that I have worked for 30 years practically without being paid at all for any of my films. Up until Brainwashed (2022), I never had a decent salary. But if it\u2019s your vocation, then of course I would rather be paid, but if I\u2019m not paid, I\u2019m still not going to stop. Somehow, I managed to keep going through grants and I guess\u2026 ingenuity (beg\/borrow\/steal-by any means necessary) and I paid my rent through teaching. I basically gave up everything and put filmmaking first, but that is the nature of a vocation.<\/p>\n
MS: Another thing that I\u2019ve heard you say before is that you felt from an early age, even though you weren\u2019t a filmmaker, a certain way about the way that women were shot. That\u2019s where Brainwashed sort of comes from, but you were working in the 80s starting to make your films. This is a decade right after exploitation cinema, this is Reagan\u2019s America, macho conservatism in front of and behind the lens. Did you feel like the filmmaking atmosphere of that time affected you in any way? Or did the way that you made films come more from an inner place?<\/p>\n
NM: It came more from an inner place. In fact, in a few ways I was lucky because my mother was against the idea of having a TV. So, we did not have a TV at home. Of course, when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, there was also no video store, and no Internet. In high school I remember we were shown Last Year at Marienbad (1961) by Alain Resnais which, by the way, I just revisited. I put a clip from it into Brainwashed. I realise, yes, it\u2019s a masterpiece, but it\u2019s an extremely sexist masterpiece. I hadn\u2019t remembered that there is wall-to-wall VO of this man obsessing on a beautiful woman who just walks around and says, in a sexy, breathy come-hither type voice \u2018Laissez-moi-Laissez-moi- Laissez-moi\u2019 She is the classic obscure object of desire. But I loved and still love what Resnais did with time and space, even as a teenager, I appreciated that. I also always loved the surrealist painters including Frida Kahlo, Max Ernst, and also Francis Bacon, and I was impacted by the existential writers like Camus and also by Herman Melville\u2019s Moby Dick. Painters, poets, and writers influenced me much more than any filmmakers because actually I hadn\u2019t really seen very many films when I started making my own work.<\/p>\n
MS: I can relate to that too. I know that you\u2019ve spoken about how Tinka [Menkes], your sister, helped motivate a lot of the subjective framework that you were building, which I find interesting. What I feel like people often think is the subversion of the male gaze is just to do the opposite, just to girl-bossify, in a way, the visuals. But the remarkable thing about, your collaborations with Tinka, is that it\u2019s not like you\u2019re shying away from seedy backdrops. It\u2019s not like you\u2019re shying away from pushing your subject to the limit, yet the way that you photograph her and the way that your sister has such an inner vulnerable honesty that just elevates those films that you did with her is remarkable. How does shooting something like Queen of Diamonds or Magdalena Viraga (1986) come about? Those films feel so free form, but by the end, are political statements, radical in their femininity, and in the fact that femininity isn\u2019t this neat little thing. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how you began to build that cinematic language.<\/p>\n
NM: I always find it, in a way, a boring answer to say it was intuitive, but it wasintuitive. My sister helped me a lot in this sense. The first film we made together, A SOFT WARRIOR, on Super 8, was my first project at the UCLA Film School. My sister had been very ill, and I wanted to make a film about her illness. I remember I was talking to some random friend at the time and explaining that I wanted the film to be kind of neorealist about my sister in the hospital, but at the same time surreal. I had these strange, crazy life size figurines that I created that are hanging from the ceiling in my apartment [and] I wanted to include them. \u2018I don\u2019t know, should I do this or that?\u2019 My friend said \u2018Well, why don\u2019t you just do both together?\u2019 I was like, \u2018Oh my God. That\u2019s it. Do it together.\u2019 I never forgot that conversation. And it sort of became my style. My sister also had powerful intuitions. For example, in this film, I remember saying to one of the characters, \u2018Hmm why don\u2019t you go into this closet, and you lie up there on the shelf,\u2019 and then I stopped myself and said, \u2018but no\u2014that is not in our script.\u2019 And my sister corrected me, she said \u2018If you love the shot, just shoot it.\u2019 I understood she was dead-on right. So those two things became a mantra\u2014something like \u2018Everything that arises must converge.\u2019 If different elements are arising simultaneously in my consciousness, while shooting\u2014it\u2019s probably connected, you know. If I\u2019m on set and I suddenly want to zoom in, I just zoom in. I just listen to that. I feel blessed that I have, maybe I would call it a bullshit detector that\u2019s very, very finely tuned, but it works the best when I\u2019m looking through the lens. If I would make a film and I would be the director but someone else would operate the camera, well, actually I have no idea how to do that. That sounds to me like an impossible task. When I\u2019m looking through the lens, I enter this space where I really know if something is true. An example of that is when I was shooting The Great Sadness of Zohara with Tinka, I had an idea for the end of the film. In the movie, she starts her journey in Jerusalem, and she goes on a long quest through North Africa, and then we get back to Jerusalem. And the end was supposed to be triumphant. Tinka\u2019s character is home, dun-da-da-dun, the heroine\u2019s quest! She\u2019s done it! So, we went out. I had the camera, Tinka\u2019s in her costume, and I just kept trying to get the shot, this triumphant shot, maybe Tinka\u2019s head against Dome of the Rock. But no\u2014I don\u2019t like it. Okay, let\u2019s try something over here\u2014no, don\u2019t like it. In the end, I just couldn\u2019t get a shot. We walked around for three hours. I couldn\u2019t find a single shot. I didn\u2019t know what was wrong, but I knew something was wrong. So, I said, okay forget it, we\u2019re not shooting today.<\/p>\n
We went back to my aunt\u2019s apartment, and the next morning I woke up and realised that the end is not triumphant\u2014it\u2019s tragic. In the end, she\u2019s re-accommodated to her secondary status, which is what generally does happen to a woman\u2019s quest. So, we went out and we shot the whole end in an hour. That\u2019s how I feel what\u2019s true\u2014only through the lens. I mean, I hope, it\u2019s also outside the lens but it\u2019s very strong when I\u2019m looking through the lens. So, I need to shoot to access that knowing. To my credit, I do listen when I hear the inner voice.<\/p>\n
MS: Do you view yourself as a spectator in that exact moment, or do you view yourself as the creator of the image, or do you view yourself as an observer?<\/p>\n
NM: I do two functions, you know, I\u2019m the director and I\u2019m the director of photography. I\u2019m generally also the writer. So, the writer constructs this world or some kind of narrative story. Then we\u2019re going to go out, and we\u2019re going to film this story. I have a fear of being overly controlling because I want to allow things to happen, so I would never do a storyboard in advance. For example, the Queen of Diamonds script was, like, 17 pages long because each scene is just one line. For example, \u2018Tinka encounters the woman in her apartment with the wedding dress.\u2019 Then when we go to film it, I know what the scene is supposed to be about emotionally. I have an idea about that, but the actual framing is a process for me of finding the truth about the scene, and then creating it. That\u2019s the DoP side. And the director at the same time creates a container where this magical world will come to life. Then Tinka brings it to life with her own interpretation while the camera captures the moment as if it\u2019s a documentary.<\/p>\n
MS: Do you see yourself in the characters you put on screen or is your positionality different?<\/p>\n
NM: I do see myself, in a way. That\u2019s a good question. I would say, the answer to that is \u2018yes and no.\u2019<\/p>\n
I\u2019m now making this doc feature film Brainwashed. It\u2019s very, very, very different than my other films, because it has a clear message and it\u2019s made for an audience. That\u2019s been an interesting process. My other films came from my inner world and are in service of something. I don\u2019t even know what they are in service of. I just know that I was compelled to make those films and the drive and the compelling nature of my need to make those films was so overwhelming that it overcame impossible barriers. Like, how can you make a film in Las Vegas and get everything for free? Me, I worked for free and most of the crew worked for free, and had a casino given to me for two weeks, a 35-millimeter camera package given to me\u2014basically we had everything given to us. But there was no extra. I always got exactly what I needed. That\u2019s all, not even one extra penny. And, of course, no salary. The drive to do my work was so unbelievably powerful that it overrode any and all considerations that a normal person would have. But the figure in the film, is it me? No, it\u2019s definitely not me and it\u2019s not Tinka either. I don\u2019t know who that figure is. I would say that would be a mystery question.<\/p>\n
MS: Would you say you created \u2018her,\u2019 whoever that undefined \u2018her\u2019 is?<\/p>\n
NM: I don\u2019t know. I think that the figure was created somewhere in-between me and Tinka. I\u2019m not sure. She is quite independent. She arose, and I documented her.<\/p>\n
MS: It\u2019s not like you made any of your films expecting them to be commercial successes, but you made these films anyway. Did you ever expect them to be seen or to get seen?<\/p>\n
NM: Yeah, I did because I knew from the very beginning\u2026 I did have a sense that my films were important.<\/p>\n
MS: They are.<\/p>\n
NM: Also, I get enough feedback from the world telling me that I wasn\u2019t deluded on that point, For example, A Soft Warrior (1981) was selected for Filmex, which was the big film festival in Los Angeles in the 80s. Then my second film, The Great Sadness of Zohara, won a prize at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Magdalena Viraga won a Los Angeles Film Critics\u2019 award, and so on. So, yes, I was getting, in fact, a powerful critical response. I was invited here and there. But that response from the world did not translate the way it would have translated for a male filmmaker because of very severe sexist discrimination. If you have a man who makes a first feature film and wins the Los Angeles Film Critics award, that man will get phone calls from Hollywood. \u2018What\u2019s your next project? Let me find some money for you.\u2019 I was subject to extreme sex discrimination because that is\u2014or was\u2014the nature of the film industry. Until very, very recently, the employment discrimination in the film industry was worse than in any other industry in the United States, even worse than in coal mining. Thanks, in great part, to the work of Maria Giese\u2014who\u2019s also a co-producer on Brainwashed\u2014the federal government started investigating the illegal sex discrimination in the film industry. So, there\u2019s been a change in the last couple years, but for the entire length of my filmmaking career, I was subject to a suffocating glass ceiling that was very, very low. You know, awards, rave reviews, festival invitations\u2014but nothing made a dent.<\/p>\n
MS: What did spectatorship of other people watching your films, especially women, mean to you? Did you ever have any expectations for that exchange?<\/p>\n
NM: I was showing something on the screen that was very naked in a way, even though it\u2019s not really about me. Nevertheless, there\u2019s something raw that I\u2019m exposing. There\u2019s something\u2014I don\u2019t even know what I\u2019m exposing, I\u2019m exposing something that\u2019s like my inner life, I guess you can call it that, and a certain way of seeing. \u2018I go against it\u2019 was my mantra from early on, and in this sense, I probably lump myself more with poets and painters than I do with most filmmakers. I never, ever, ever think about the audience. I have to make something that\u2019s true, it has to be true to itself, and I cannot think about the audience, and I refuse to think about [them]. On that note, it\u2019s very interesting that all the films that I made with my sister\u2014we never ever, ever showed those films to anyone until they were presented. So, the only person, for example, who saw The Bloody Child (1996) before it premiered at Sundance was the colour timer at the film lab FOTOKEM\u2014Ray Morphino. We presented at Sundance sight unseen to the world. So, all my films\u2014until Brainwashed\u2014I never wanted comments or feedback. In fact, I was afraid to get comments because I knew people would screw me up. Imagine if I had shown Queen of Diamonds for comments: \u2018Oh, the dealing scene is too long\u2019 [laughs] So how can I possibly show my work for comments? At the same time, I wanted my films to be very widely seen because I felt they were (are) important and need to be seen.<\/p>\n
MS: I want to end by asking about Queen of Diamonds. One of my favourite scenes is the tree in the desert being set on fire. I know that there was no way that you could reset that shot. Can you talk about how it was achieved?<\/p>\n
NM: My assistant, Kelley Miller and I were driving around the Salton Sea area, looking for a palm tree that\u2019s sort of isolated because we knew we couldn\u2019t set a palm tree on fire if it\u2019s in a grove because that would be dangerous. It has to be an isolated palm tree. We found a palm tree that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n
Then we went to the local fire department station. We said, \u2018Hi, we\u2019re filmmakers and we\u2019re wondering: we have a scene in a film. We want to burn a palm tree and we saw this palm tree over here; you know, can you help us?\u2019 They said, \u2018Oh that palm tree? Yes, that palm tree is scheduled for demolition in two weeks because they\u2019re going to be building an apartment house right there. So, if you want to burn the palm tree, that\u2019s okay, you can do that. You can burn that palm tree because that palm tree is going to be cut down anyway.\u2019 I was relieved because I didn\u2019t want to kill the palm tree. I said, \u2018Okay well, can you help us? I mean, we just have this team of five people. We don\u2019t know how to burn a palm tree. We would like to have the fire department there helping us.\u2019 They said, \u2018Oh absolutely, we can do that for you, no problem.\u2019 So, then\u2026 well\u2026 here comes the hard question, and we\u2019re crossing our fingers: \u2018And how much would that cost?\u2019 You know because we have so little money for this film. He said, \u2018What you need is a permit to make a fire in an open area, and that\u2019ll be $5, but as far as us coming out and burning it for you, we can do that no problem.\u2019 So that was our $5 shot.<\/p>\n
MS: Finally, can you talk about how Brainwashed came about? I am inspired by the premise of how it\u2019s looking at how sexist Hollywood cinematography is and how early cinema and the rules for shot construction were sexist to begin with. I try to get my students to see this, and they struggle, so I am very much looking forward to the film pushing the conversation forward.<\/p>\n
NM: Brainwashed is being made in a way that\u2019s 100 zillion times different than any of my other films, so it\u2019s been very interesting for me. I started teaching when I was a really young and still a student at UCLA Film School. I had a part-time teaching job, and I started teaching as a way to survive, and then I kept teaching as a way to survive. Pretty early on, I started noticing what you noticed, which is like, you know, your students don\u2019t understand what you mean. Over time, I got better because I used to say, like, I saw Raging Bull\u2014I hate it. I didn\u2019t know how to say, \u2018why do I hate it?\u2019 or, \u2018what do I hate about it?\u2019 you know, I just find it deeply sexist. Over time, with teaching, I learned to be more articulate, and I started bringing in examples. Look at this shot and look how this shot is constructed. Over time, I developed this little talk that I would give to my students to show how shot design is gendered. After the #MeToo movement hit in October 2017, I was like, \u2018You know, this talk that I\u2019ve been giving to my students about shot design is connected to the epidemic of sexual abuse, is connected to employment discrimination against women. This is all one. This is really all one big fat problem.\u2019 I wrote an essay for Filmmaker Magazine where I state this thesis. The article went viral, which completely blew my mind. It seemed that people were ready to hear about this issue. To make a long story short, I was invited to give the talk at Sundance Black House, and it was a wild hit. Everyone absolutely loved it; they went crazy for it. Shortly thereafter, a woman approached me and said, \u2018Have you ever thought of making this into a feature film?\u2019 I said no, but that\u2019s a good idea because I\u2019m sick of giving this talk. I was, like, running around giving the talk and it\u2019s tiring and not realistic to keep doing it. The talk had maybe 15 film clips, the film has 175 film clips, and it represents a new lens onto the history of cinema. I\u2019m saying \u2026 let\u2019s look at how women have been shot through the history of cinema by all of these A-list guys. It\u2019s old news to say, let\u2019s look at advertising, look how they have this girl lying on the car in her bikini to sell it. It\u2019s old news to say music videos are sexist and objectifying, but most people don\u2019t realise that you know Godard and Scorsese and Spike Lee and Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, and even Sofia Coppola, do the same thing \u2026 Alain Resnais is a great filmmaker, but he\u2019s a sexist filmmaker. How all these people treat women photographically is the same, how boring, you know, there\u2019s no imagination. A friend of mine just came over, and he was looking at the movie. He said, \u2018It\u2019s like you\u2019re a prosecutor, and you\u2019re winning your case. You\u2019re laying out the evidence. You\u2019re starting at the beginning and you\u2019re laying out the evidence and, at the end, you know, the jury votes in your favour.\u2019 Since Brainwashed debuted at Sundance in spring 2022, it has been accepted into numerous film festivals, including the Berlinale, CPH: DOX, and IDFA. The film has sparked conversations about the role of women in the film industry and pushed Menkes\u2019 work into the spotlight that had proven elusive despite all the accolades she has had since her feature film debut. A year later, in the summer of 2022, I followed up with Menkes to reflect on her experience of releasing Brainwashed.<\/p>\n
MS: One of my favourite quotes from when we spoke last time is that one of your friends watched the in-progress cut of Brainwashed and said it\u2019s like you\u2019re a prosecutor and you\u2019re winning your case. Now the film is done and you\u2019re figuring out a formal release strategy. How has your perspective or your feelings changed\u2014if at all\u2014from the time you were making Brainwashed to now that a lot of people have seen it?<\/p>\n
NM: For one thing, I was afraid. With the editor, Cecily Rhett, who I worked with really closely, we thought, \u2018You know, maybe we\u2019re going to be stonewalled by the big festivals.\u2019 Maybe Sundance, for example, won\u2019t take it because they might feel like it\u2019s sort of\u2014it\u2019s not really attacking these elitist films, but it\u2019s pointing out that these A-list directors, who everyone reveres all participate in this system of gendered shot design. So, we thought that they might put the kibosh on it. But we were invited to Sundance, to the Berlinale, to CPH: DOX, to Karlovy Vary, and all these other festivals around the world. That was kind of mind-blowing to us. We were like, \u2018Okay, people are ready to hear this now. The time has come, and people are ready to hear it.\u2019<\/p>\n
MS: Has Brainwashed received the most festival recognition out of all of the films in your repertoire?<\/p>\n
NM: I would say yes. I mean, I did make it on purpose. The whole idea was to make a film that was more accessible and a bit more mainstream than my other films. That was done very consciously and on purpose. Indeed, that concept seems to have come true. We have been invited to dozens and dozens of major film festivals, and we\u2019re getting the theatrical release with Kino Lorber. My previous films didn\u2019t get that kind of play.<\/p>\n
MS: How do you feel about the success of Brainwashed compared to your previous films?<\/p>\n
NM: Well, I\u2019m really happy and I hope that it leads to me being able to make another movie that\u2019s more like my real own style movie, you might say. I have two scripts that I\u2019m eager to make. I think that it\u2019s not just that my film has come out now, and people are ready to hear it. I mean, these are things I\u2019ve been saying for thousands of years. Not only me, I mean, a lot of film theory type people have been saying it, but no one was really ready to listen until now. I was interviewed by this woman from Poland the other day, and she was like, \u2018Okay I\u2019ve read Laura Mulvey, but your film is for a lot of people who never read Laura Mulvey, you know, who\u2019ve never read these theorists. They can watch the film and understand some of these really important concepts. They\u2019re never going to be in a film theory class.\u2019 I think what we wanted to do, we wanted to bring some of these ideas to a much wider audience.<\/p>\n
MS: What have you learned with the release of Brainwashed? We talked before that this wasn\u2019t a movie you set out to specifically make. First, it was a talk you\u2019ve given for many years. Now it\u2019s a movie that is accessible. What have you learned now that it\u2019s out there? Has anything shifted for you?<\/p>\n
NM: Just to clarify, as of right this second, the film has not been released yet. So, I feel like the film\u2019s story is just beginning. I mean, there\u2019s been a lot of excitement about the film everywhere that we\u2019ve shown at, that I\u2019ve been either invited to go or do a Zoom call or something like that. People come to me, and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God, I didn\u2019t realise, you know, I will never watch a film the same way again.\u2019 I\u2019ve heard that like 100 times. I\u2019ve heard that from people who are not in the field of film, but also from people who are in the field of film. Tabitha Jackson, the director of Sundance, actually wrote me a private note and said, \u2018I\u2019ll never watch a film the same way again.\u2019 Tabitha Jackson is obviously a very film-literate person, and so that was very exciting. But at the same time, the film is just beginning its journey. We don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen when it actually comes out. Are people going to attack it? Are people ready to really embrace it? Is it going to go viral the same way that my Filmmaker Magazine article did? The film is based on my lecture, and based on my Filmmaker Magazine article. That Filmmaker Magazine article which we thought maximum 50 people would read ended up being the most popular article of the year at Filmmaker Magazine. So maybe the film will have a kind of word-of-mouth thing where women tell each other, you know, \u2018Hey, you really have to see this film.\u2019 We\u2019ll see, right? We don\u2019t know yet.<\/p>\n
MS: I watched Brainwashed when it premiered at Sundance. In a great way, it was kind of exactly what I expected, but one thing that surprised me when I watched it is I started crying when Rosanna Arquette began talking about how badly she wanted to work. You know, that\u2019s Rosanna Arquette, someone who I grew up with. I love her films. I also really loved the people that you include in the documentary. You included everyone from Cheryl Dunye to Julie Dash to Charlene Yi. Their naked honesty felt like the strongest piece of evidence in the film. Everything you say is brilliant, no matter what, but you have all of these women affirming exactly what you\u2019re saying, through their real-life experiences, in the process of making the film. What has been the most meaningful or exciting part of putting this film together?<\/p>\n
NM: What was exciting is\u2014and I worked really closely with the editor on this because, you know, it\u2019s not the kind of film I\u2019ve made before\u2014but it was like, how do we make a film that\u2019s\u2014how shall I say it, this is the wrong word\u2014not really fun to watch because it\u2019s painful to watch. But it moves along. It takes you along almost like a thriller or something. You want to see what\u2019s coming next. How do we take this painful subject matter and yet make it into a film that people are going to want to watch, and that can be accessible to a large audience and have that kind of flow. I mean, I think that really, I have to credit the editor with figuring out the way to do that. So, even though there\u2019s painful moments, and you\u2019re not the first person I heard who really broke down. One of my friends said when it was in the rape section, she just really lost it, you know, she had to turn off the film and come back to it later. I\u2019m glad that there was a way to have it be accessible, but without really compromising the message being kind of harsh in a way.<\/p>\n
MS: How has the response been from your collaborators, so not only your editors and your producers, but also all of the other women that participated and helped you with this film and made it what it is?<\/p>\n
NM: It seems like everyone\u2019s really excited. Charlene Yi posted on our Instagram that she watched it twice at Sundance, and she\u2019s going to tell everybody to watch. The people who\u2019ve seen it from the participants are, like, Joey Soloway, Amy Ziering, Charlene Yi, Maria Geise, Sandra De Castro Buffington, some of our team members [who] are in the film. They are all big supporters, and they feel like it\u2019s a game changer.<\/p>\n
MS: Now that the film is about to be released, what do you hope people see in this film once it\u2019s released?<\/p>\n
NM: I think that it has the potential to, as many people have said, change the way that we look at movies moving forward. We are now at a time period in history where people are sort of ready to think about these issues; and they\u2019ve thought about these issues\u2014the issues of representation are a huge topic of discussion now. What I\u2019m adding to the discussion is this very specific thing at the formal shot design level. As we have examples in the movie, a protagonist, who is the main character, and she might even be like a bitchy rude main character, and yet she\u2019s shot in a way that objectifies her and sexualises her. And that is a subtle way, I mean, it\u2019s really not so subtle once you see it, you can\u2019t unsee it. But for too many people, it\u2019s not that noticeable. When they\u2019re watching a movie, they\u2019re kind of like, \u2018I don\u2019t know there\u2019s something about that movie that rubbed me the wrong way,\u2019 but they might not be able to say it. I think now they\u2019re going to be able to say it. They\u2019re going to be like, \u2018Wow, that female character was really shot in a very specific way that undermined her whole position in the film.\u2019 If the film really shifts consciousness around that issue, I think that will be kind of big.<\/p>\n
MS: Do you think that there\u2019s anything that you would change about the film now? Either something you wanted to add, or something that had to be left behind.<\/p>\n
NM: No, not really. You know, it\u2019s funny. When I showed the film in Israel, people really loved it, but they were like, \u2018It\u2019s a little too long.\u2019 They all told me it\u2019s too long. Then I had a dream that I had cut 10 minutes out. I watched the film with 10 minutes cut out, and it was terrible. I was like, \u2018No you\u2019re wrong, it has to all be there.\u2019 It\u2019s already kind of long, it\u2019s 107 minutes, which is considered long for a documentary. I mean, we could have easily had 15 more minutes because there were so many more film clips and more little side streets that we wanted to go down. You always have to make a choice. There were certain things that were kind of more, shall we say, complicated. There was this whole idea, I had a section at one point, about the whole idea of lack, you know, and castration. I found film clips that supported that. But then the editor was like, \u2018People are going to have a hard time understanding that when we\u2019re going for a more general audience.\u2019 There was a certain decision to keep, you know, this film is not made for only PhD students in film theory. That\u2019s not who it\u2019s for. It would be a different film.<\/p>\n
MS: This film is going to be coming out in a year that feels particularly difficult with things like the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial, but also Roe vs Wade being overturned. It has been one of the more difficult years for women, and we have this movie coming out. Yes, your film is about shot design, but your film triangulates the official language of cinema, sexual assault and abuse, and employment discrimination. It all connects. How do you feel about your film coming out in this time? Does it make you feel any sort of way either way?<\/p>\n
NM: I think the film became more important actually after the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. It became more important because what you have in Roe vs. Wade is the idea that women are not full-on human subjects. Full-on human subjects make their own decisions, control their own bodies, but objects like, you know, somebody\u2019s wife, doesn\u2019t get to make her own decisions. There are countries in the Middle East where a woman cannot travel on her own passport without having a signature of her husband, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re looking at here. It\u2019s the pushing of women into the object position being now confirmed by the United States Supreme Court. That makes this film more urgent, in my opinion, as you have to look at how people have been trained to see women as less than fully human subjects. There\u2019s been stuff on the Internet, like people reminding us that until 1975 \u2026 a woman could not get a credit card without her husband\u2019s permission. The United States is supposed to be kind of progressive, but we know that\u2019s not true. We have an outrageous situation where the European Union just voted to make sure abortion was safe and legal and available for the entire European Union. Here we are in the United States, pushing women more than 50 years back, where we are back to where we can\u2019t get a credit card, you can\u2019t get an abortion. Can you even have a bank account? I don\u2019t know. I feel like Brainwashed is really more important now than ever because the issue is subject and object. I will say Roe v Wade is subject v object. I am not an object, I\u2019m a full-on human subject. I think, I move, I do things for myself. I make decisions for myself. This is a radical thought? Come on! I mean, it\u2019s absurd. But here we are. 100 years ago, women were not allowed to vote. 50 years ago, women couldn\u2019t get a credit card. 50 years ago, women couldn\u2019t get an abortion, and now again, women can\u2019t get abortions because it\u2019s someone else controlling our bodies. The reversal of Roe v Wade makes Brainwashed more urgent. Let\u2019s figure out why everyone thinks that women are not full-on human subjects who can make their own fucking decisions. It\u2019s just unbelievable!<\/p>\n
MS: When we originally spoke, you were hoping that if things went well with Brainwashed, there would be renewed interest in your earlier work. So now that the film is about to be released and you\u2019ve earned all these accolades, have you felt like that has happened?<\/p>\n
NM: Yes, I do I think that I\u2019m there. I\u2019m lucky to have Arbelos film distribution handling my earlier titles. I think that it\u2019s not just that there\u2019s renewed interest in my earlier titles because of Brainwashed. There\u2019s also renewed interest in my earlier titles just because, you know, recently starting really with the work that Maria Geise did about women directors, the ACLU going to the federal government, the federal government threatening the Hollywood studios with violations of Title IX \u2026 We\u2019re talking about there\u2019s been a whole awareness that, \u2018oh whoops, women directors, whoops.\u2019 So then people are suddenly like, \u2018Oh well, this woman who had no money and was working totally outside the system made seven feature films.\u2019 There are not too many women who can say that they made seven feature films at all. So that has certainly been a good development in the last few years. I think that Brainwashed might give people a little bit of an excuse to say, \u2018well wait, let\u2019s go back and see her other films.\u2019 Obviously, Brainwashed\u2014it\u2019s very different in terms of style, in terms of approach, but a lot of the core issues that are dealt with in my earlier films in a completely different way are the same issues. It\u2019s the same issues, it\u2019s just a different approach to those issues.<\/p>\n
MS: How would you tell people to watch Brainwashed? What do you hope people do after they watch your film?<\/p>\n
NM: Tell other people to watch it! [laughs] I think you have to be sort of ready on some level to possibly look at some of your favourite films and be like, \u2018Oh whoops, I didn\u2019t remember that the scene in Blade Runner is a prototype for rape culture. I didn\u2019t remember that Sofia Coppola started her film with a close-up on Scarlett Johansson\u2019s butt.\u2019 I think some people get kind of upset. It depends on what perspective you\u2019re coming in with. Maybe it\u2019s just to say like, take a moment to reflect on how mainstream culture, including A-list movies, have positioned women as being in the object position over decades and how that brings us at the end of the day, to the reversal of Roe v Wade. These things go very deep. It\u2019s very threatening to have women turn into full-on human subjects. We\u2019re 51%. What\u2019s going to happen if all women really claim that? What\u2019s going to happen to male supremacy? Trump is ultimately popular because he\u2019s a white supremacist and a male supremacist. There are people who will throw democracy down the toilet in order to hold on to male supremacy. Male supremacy is so important to them.<\/p>\n
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