BABETTE MANGOLTE / 2017 / UNITED STATES 

The first of two programmes devoted to the essay films of the great filmmaker, cinematographer and photographer Babette Mangolte, this session focuses on the act of looking through the camera, questioning the notion of “subjectivity”, the role of the spectator, and the relation between vision and power.

The Camera: Je, or La Caméra: I is a self-portrait about the process of taking photographs. Shifting from the artist’s studio to the streets of New York and back into the workshop, the film’s rhetorical structure acts as a form of self-portraiture of the artist during the years 1976-1977. Exploring the technique of “subjective camera”, the film offers a reflection on ways of seeing, and the interpersonal and power dynamics involved in producing images.

The short film Je, Nous, I or Eye, Us is, in Mangolte’s own words, “a mini essay that replies to a question about subjectivity in the 1970s while I was making my film The Camera: Je, or La Caméra: I about taking photographs. The new film from 2014 uses footage shot at the time of The Camera: Je but never used in 1976 and 1977 and adds to the 16mm film a series of titles about a photographer’s subjectivity then and now.”

The Camera: Je, or La Caméra : I, Babette Mangolte, USA, 1977, 16mm (on HD video), 89 mins
Je, Nous, I or Eye, Us, Babette Mangolte, USA, 2014, HD video, 6 mins 30 secs

After the screening filmmaker Babette Mangolte will be in conversation with Laura Mulvey

In partnership with Essay Film Festival.

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