Jennifer Fox: The Heeb Interview
Filmmaker Jennifer Fox has produced films like A Scanner Darkly, Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, and wrote, directed and produced the critically acclaimed ten-hour documentary series, An American Love Story. In her new film, Flying: Confessions Of A Free Woman, Fox dives into the fraught subject of female identity, traveling to more than 17 countries to probe everything from the implicit assumptions about women that so many cultures share, to her own ambivalence about the traditional roles of wife and mother. She also trains her lens on two of her romantic relationships, each presenting its own bundle of contradictions. Tonight at Film Forum in Manhattan, Heeb is sponsoring a special screening of Flying. Go to the Film Forum website for more info.
Heeb contributor Tobi Elkin spoke with Jennifer Fox about her new film.
What inspired this project? What were you wrestling with?
I began filming in 2002 and finished four years later, but I’ve been thinking about these issues since the ’80s. Through my 20s, I was somebody who just totally rejected the idea of being a “girl”—I didn’t appreciate the positive side of female life. As I entered my 30s, the best conversations I was having were with women, endless talks about love and life and politics. We never really solved anything, but we really held each other together. I began to think about making a film about the way women speak. I was in my own mid-life crisis and I wanted to pick up the camera to find a reflection of myself. I had a very loose premise: I would film myself, my girlfriends and friends from all over the world.
Can you talk a bit about the technique you used to make this documentary?
The key was passing the camera [between me and the women who appear in the film]. It fostered an intimacy and leveled the playing field, so the women became more comfortable. It’s also very much like the way girls speak. The camera just became a tool of investigation. I used a Sony PDX10, a very small camera. Everything was on automatic so anyone could shoot with it.
How did it work?
When we got together, the camera was just there. The pass-along technique was a very organic way to make the film. When I got together with my friends, it wasn’t like, ‘Tell me about your boyfriend.’ That’s much more of an interview approach and I do come from that. As a journalist, I never talked about myself. This is the first time I put myself in front of the camera, and I had to be as much onscreen as my friends in order for me to make it work.
You’re fairly vulnerable in the film—there is an unexpected pregnancy and lots of issues with lovers. How hard was it for you to reveal yourself?
It wasn’t hard… it was only hard when I had to sell it to people, when I had to make it into a story and show footage. I suffered from self-consciousness a lot. I wasn’t acting in the film. I was on a real journey to figure out who I was as a woman, and I was desperate. [At 42,] my life and the values that I had incorporated about female life had come into conflict: I had never married or had kids, and didn’t want either of these things. I had a succession of love affairs. And it wasn’t as if I had a secret fantasy that eventually life would catch up. I was never going to have that [conventional] life.
What’s the intrinsic message of this film?
Let’s be real. We have more than 5,000 years of history of women being owned and controlled. Now we are at a precipice: The external conditions have changed, but the internal haven’t caught up. For me, it was this huge crisis that made me feel that the only thing I could do was begin a sincere investigation.
What role does your Jewish identity play in the film?
The journey in the film is very much steeped in the pursuit of truth in its most complex form. It’s a long film, because trying to understand these things is complicated. I think the film is actually quite Jewish while is no specific Jewish stamp on it.
Where are you now?
I found my place as a woman on the planet. I’m much more comfortable in my life and my own skin now, and I feel part of a larger tribe of women. I was amazed at how fast we [women] can become close. I saw women form relationships within hours, based on intimate conversations with strangers.
What’s next for you?
Flying will open across the country this fall and winter. It’ll be on a college campus tour and in May 2008, it will premiere on the Sundance Channel. But now, I’m starting to edit a film about a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who I’ve been following for 15 years, and I’m working on a fictional film based on women’s issues in development.
Heeb contributor Tobi Elkin spoke with Jennifer Fox about her new film.
What inspired this project? What were you wrestling with?
I began filming in 2002 and finished four years later, but I’ve been thinking about these issues since the ’80s. Through my 20s, I was somebody who just totally rejected the idea of being a “girl”—I didn’t appreciate the positive side of female life. As I entered my 30s, the best conversations I was having were with women, endless talks about love and life and politics. We never really solved anything, but we really held each other together. I began to think about making a film about the way women speak. I was in my own mid-life crisis and I wanted to pick up the camera to find a reflection of myself. I had a very loose premise: I would film myself, my girlfriends and friends from all over the world.
Can you talk a bit about the technique you used to make this documentary?
The key was passing the camera [between me and the women who appear in the film]. It fostered an intimacy and leveled the playing field, so the women became more comfortable. It’s also very much like the way girls speak. The camera just became a tool of investigation. I used a Sony PDX10, a very small camera. Everything was on automatic so anyone could shoot with it.
How did it work?
When we got together, the camera was just there. The pass-along technique was a very organic way to make the film. When I got together with my friends, it wasn’t like, ‘Tell me about your boyfriend.’ That’s much more of an interview approach and I do come from that. As a journalist, I never talked about myself. This is the first time I put myself in front of the camera, and I had to be as much onscreen as my friends in order for me to make it work.
You’re fairly vulnerable in the film—there is an unexpected pregnancy and lots of issues with lovers. How hard was it for you to reveal yourself?
It wasn’t hard… it was only hard when I had to sell it to people, when I had to make it into a story and show footage. I suffered from self-consciousness a lot. I wasn’t acting in the film. I was on a real journey to figure out who I was as a woman, and I was desperate. [At 42,] my life and the values that I had incorporated about female life had come into conflict: I had never married or had kids, and didn’t want either of these things. I had a succession of love affairs. And it wasn’t as if I had a secret fantasy that eventually life would catch up. I was never going to have that [conventional] life.
What’s the intrinsic message of this film?
Let’s be real. We have more than 5,000 years of history of women being owned and controlled. Now we are at a precipice: The external conditions have changed, but the internal haven’t caught up. For me, it was this huge crisis that made me feel that the only thing I could do was begin a sincere investigation.
What role does your Jewish identity play in the film?
The journey in the film is very much steeped in the pursuit of truth in its most complex form. It’s a long film, because trying to understand these things is complicated. I think the film is actually quite Jewish while is no specific Jewish stamp on it.
Where are you now?
I found my place as a woman on the planet. I’m much more comfortable in my life and my own skin now, and I feel part of a larger tribe of women. I was amazed at how fast we [women] can become close. I saw women form relationships within hours, based on intimate conversations with strangers.
What’s next for you?
Flying will open across the country this fall and winter. It’ll be on a college campus tour and in May 2008, it will premiere on the Sundance Channel. But now, I’m starting to edit a film about a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who I’ve been following for 15 years, and I’m working on a fictional film based on women’s issues in development.
comments
submit a comment07.06.07 at 11:07 am
I saw “FLYING: Confessions of a Free Woman” this week at the Film Forum and really loved it!
I notice that HEEB is only hosting Part 1, so let me say this….Part 1 was great – especially the 3rd hour with Paramita in India, but Part 2 blew me away!!! Fox travels to Cambodia to speak with young prostitutes and to Pakistan to meet a rural village of women. Fox’s own story evolves in such a way it really made me think about my own life and place in the world. She goes from a naive and somewhat foolish emotional wreak to a self-aware cognizant woman.
I highly recommend this honest and raw film and cannot wait to hear what are the HEEB fans think of it!!