Schmeerguntz

Schmeerguntz is a 1965 American avant-garde film by Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley. It is a collage film that contrasts messy depictions of domestic life with the pristine images of women found in media and advertising. The film was an inspiration for the Miss America protest that happened in 1968.

Schmeerguntz
Directed by
Distributed byCanyon Cinema
Release date
  • December 31, 1965 (1965-12-31)
Running time
15 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Production

Photography

Nelson and Wiley decided to make a film before they had a subject in mind. Nelson had the idea while looking at the sink in her house and thinking about the contrast between how she actually spent her time and how images in media suggested people spend their time. Neither had worked with a camera before, so Nelson's husband Robert spent half an hour showing them how to operate one.[1]

They shot footage of dirty or grimy objects around the house. As they were filming, they came to observe a contrast between the unpleasantness of their subjects and the appeal of seeing them documented visually.[2] Wiley was pregnant while they were shooting, and Schmeerguntz shows her vomiting from morning sickness, struggling to fit into a garter belt, and wiping feces from her infant's behind.[3]

Post-production

Nelson and Wiley had their footage developed and began editing Schmeerguntz. Since this was their first time working on a film, they did not provide any instructions to the lab for timing the film or other work.[4] Their editing style consisted of rapid montage that combines their original footage with images from TV, movies, newsreels, and photo animations.[3]

The soundtrack is similarly busy, incorporating music, dialogue, and voice-over narration. Nelson and Wiley cut between the different sources without any sound mixing.[4][5]

The film's title comes from her a nonsensical Germanic-sounding language Nelson's father used. In it, schmeerguntz referred to a sandwich.[6]

Reception and legacy

Schmeerguntz premiered on New Year's Eve 1965 in Sausalito, California.[1] It screened at the 1966 Ann Arbor Film Festival, where it won first prize.[7] The San Francisco International Film Festival also screened it and gave it an award.[8] The 1977 Telluride Film Festival included it in a program called "The Erotic Woman".[7]

The film was largely ignored by contemporary film critics. The only review from the time of its release was by Ernest Callenbach, who wrote in Film Quarterly that "Schmeerguntz is one long raucous belch in the face of the American Home…brash enough, brazen enough, and funny enough to purge the soul of every harried American married woman."[7][9]

Carol Hanisch and members of New York Radical Women saw the film and had the idea to target a beauty pageant. Their idea was realized as the Miss America protest of 1968.[10]

References
  1. Richardson, Brenda (1971). "Women, Wives, Film-Makers: An Interview with Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley". Film Quarterly. 25 (1): 35. doi:10.2307/1211465. JSTOR 1211465.
  2. MacDonald, Scott (1998). A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. University of California Press. p. 186. ISBN 978-0-520-20943-5.
  3. Gill, June M. (1977). "The Films of Gunvor Nelson". Film Quarterly. 30 (3): 29. doi:10.2307/1211771. JSTOR 1211771.
  4. Lipzin, Janis Crystal (2010). "Why Didn't I Work in Granite?". In Anker, Steve; Geritz, Kathy; Seid, Steve (eds.). Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000. University of California Press. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-520-24911-0.
  5. Holmlund, Chris (2007). "Signature, Translation and Resonance in Gunvor Nelson's Films". Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. Wayne State University Press. 48 (2): 155. doi:10.1353/frm.2007.0013. S2CID 191530680.
  6. Ahlgren, Calvin (October 16, 1983). "Onscreen Strength from Offscreen Fragility". San Francisco Chronicle. p. 31.
  7. Rabinowitz, Paula (2000). "Medium Uncool: Women Shoot Back; Feminism, Film and 1968—A Curious Documentary". Science & Society. 65 (1): 92–96.
  8. Knickerbocker, Paine (September 7, 1970). "S.F. Art Museum's New Curator". San Francisco Chronicle. p. 42.
  9. Callenbach, Ernest (1966). "Schmeerguntz". Film Quarterly. 19 (4): 67. doi:10.2307/1210411. JSTOR 1210411.
  10. Giardina, Carol (2010). Freedom for Women: Forging the Women's Liberation Movement, 1953–1970. University Press of Florida. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-8130-3456-0.
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