Yvonne Rainer - Cinematic Work

Cinematic Work

I made the transition from choreography to filmmaking between 1972 and 1975. In a general sense my burgeoning feminist consciousness was an important factor. An equally urgent stimulus was the encroaching physical changes in my aging body.

Rainer sometimes included filmed sequences in her dances, and in the mid-1970s she began to turn her attention to film directing. Her early films do not follow narrative conventions, instead combining reality and fiction, sound and visuals, to address social and political issues. Rainer directed several experimental films about dance and performance, including Lives of Performers (1972), Film About a Woman Who (1974), and Kristina Talking Pictures (1976). Her later films include The Man Who Envied Women (1985), Privilege (1990), and MURDER and murder (1996). MURDER and murder, more conventional in its narrative structure, is a lesbian love story as well as a reflection on urban life and on breast cancer, and it features Rainer. Her film work has received several awards, and in 1990 she was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

Short synopses:

• Journeys From Berlin/1971 explores the ramifications of terrorism
• Kristina Talking Pictures looks at the contradictions between the private and public persona
• Lives of Performers is about a man who cannot decide between two women
• The Man Who Envied Women is a film about the breakup of a marriage
• MURDER and murder (see paragraph above)
• A Film About a Woman Who... is considered Rainer's landmark film, about a woman with sexual dissatisfaction
• Privilege a film about menopause.