‘Show political films politically, and queer films queerly’
Like the vibrating water glass as the T. Rex thumps along in Jurassic Park, Pride unrolls its stomping boots, ready to rampage across the country. But does it have to be only frozen daiquiris, ageing pop stars, and endorsements from arms dealers?
The Barbican (and I) say no! So, we, the artistic queers of London, donned our best denim jumpsuits, straightened our blunted fringes, and picked out our freshest flannel shirts for an evening in bed with Barbara Hammer, the pioneer of lesbian cinema.
Down we tunnel, all the way to -2, and pink lights signal the way. Queer Brewing (London’s first queer and trans-owned brewery) provides a similarly-hued IPA for the evening. Delicious though they are, the fact that the queers are coming for your hops brightens the world just a smidge.
Selina Robertson (film producer/researcher and founder of Club des Femmes) contextualises Hammer’s oeuvre and promises to “show political films politically, and queer films queerly.” Well, OK then!
Only starting to make films in her 30s emboldened by the wave of women’s liberation and her newly minted sexual identity – she wrote the book, or filmed the film, for queer women, spitting in the eye of the male gaze/gays. Fifty years later, she is rightfully celebrated. Her films are powerful, silly, sex-positive, and moving.Not the sort of crap you flip on from Netflix that’s so mind-numbingly commercial it has no soul-they are odd, offbeat, and utterly divine.
We start with 1974’s Dyketactics, a wreathe of limbs and genitals, yet soft and intimate in the way that pornography never can be. The gritty fuzz of the Super 8mm cameras lends a holy grain to her friends and loved ones, faithfully depicted. Hammer called it a “lesbian erotic commercial,” and afterwards I am ready to invest. The sheer joy of sex is riotously revelled in.
Superdyke, a year later, is well curated by Robertson to follow this. Silly and whimsical, we have a group of lesbians with hand-painted shields, taking California by storm. The modern Amazons have all the feathered hair, flares, bikes, and afros of the era. Filmed in silence (due to the technology at the time), the added music-hall piano brings a very childlike treasuring of female friendship and tribalism.
Lisa Gornick breaks up the tapes with a confident excerpt from Hammer’s autobiography. She breathes spark and wit into the already acidic prose: “Women-defined active cinema involves an active audience.” Hammer rockets between such artistic proclamations and swaggering over her next lover and experiences with “intimate strangers.” A gifted woman on the screen and page, clearly.
We then, fittingly, launch into 1979’s Women I Love. A blend of Georgia O’Keeffe-style shots of fruit and vegetables, birdsong and sex, rustling corn, and spider webs. The bodies and nature blend in a kaleidoscope of double exposures and a keen artistic vision.
Poet Joelle Taylor treats us to an excerpt from C+NTO, her award-winning poetry book – a flash of modern queerness. Four archetypal dykes are explained and animated by Taylor, giving me insight into a world that I, as a gay man, rarely peek within. Boi’s and butches, slung pint glasses and wandering fingers – frantic, frenetic, and fantastic. “Every part of a woman is a weapon, if you know how to hold her.” Dynamite prose!
Double Strength (1978) shows the ups and downs of a whirlwind relationship with Terry Sendgraff on the trapeze. Both older and wiser, they speak about the nature of lesbian love, while Sendgraff swings naked or vaults monkey-like through the trees.
Lastly, we have Vever (2019), an odd ending. Pieced together from Hammer’s abandoned fragments of local colour from her trip to Guatemala in the late 70s by Deborah Stratman. The images of weavers and fruit sellers contrast with Coca-Cola bottles and other Western influences. Interesting for sure, but Hammer herself explains within the film that it was unused because of its lack of theme or focus. Overlapping pretentious quotes do little to explain the film’s reason for creation, apart from deifying the sadly now-dead Hammer.
It is a treat to explore the experimental films of the 70s in the educated and passionate embrace of Club des Femmes, Robertson, Gornick, and Taylor. Also, to know that there are alternatives to the white picket fence or the hyper-commercialised world of modern queerness. Post-Stonewall, the queer experience was revolutionised, and Hammer and her contemporaries were a driving force in shaping our ideas of sex, sexuality, gender and humanity. Coming is a whole month of amazing queer cinema. You’d be a fool not to treat your mind, as well as your liver to a little fruity night out in the bowels of the Barbican.
Grab a ticket you glorious sissy! Click HERE!