Crafting a Life
I recently got an adorable Flip video camera. It's tiny, about the size of a cell phone, and will record about an hour of decent video. I thought that once I had it I'd be transformed into a video blogger, documenting my life on camera all the time. It didn't happen. Why not?To answer that question, I could compare myself to someone like Susan Mogul. For several decades, the LA-based videomaker has been chronicling her life and the people around her in a series of absolutely compelling videos. Her tapes, which include the feminist 1974 classic Take Off, with its celebrated description of the dramatic effects of a vibrator, and the 1993 video Everyday Echo Street: A Summer Diary, a self-portrait built through the details of Mogul's LA neighborhood, both show just how powerful the first-person, homegrown ethnographic form can be. But Susan's work isn't simply about shooting lots of video. It's about something else.
Take Susan's newest video, the captivating 68-minute saga titled Driving Men screening on Sunday at Filmforum. In it, the often hilarious artist looks at the men in her life, starting with her tragic first love and ending with a road trip with a new boyfriend several decades years later. The often amusing tape tackles sex, desire, loss, family and the twisted threads of identity as Mogul ponders being single and 50.
But Susan's videos aren't so much about tons of footage - Susan definitely isn't a video blogger! Instead, Susan is a woman with a video camera. At one point in Driving Men, a friend says to Susan in reference to the camera, "It increases the possibilities for your connections in your world," which is true - Susan is obsessed with connecting and interacting with other people, and her camera gives her both permission and protection.
But Susan's body of work is also about editing. It's about sifting through the past, piecing it together with the present and making sense of the territory of a life. Susan does this with insight, humor and a willingness to stand naked - literally and metaphorically - so that rather than being merely a chronicle, her work in general, and Driving Men in particular, is finally about the challenge of crafting a life.
the details:
Driving Men
Susan Mogul in attendance!
Sunday, December 14, 2008, 7:00 p.m.
Filmforum at the Egyptian Theatre
6712 Hollywood Boulevard
323-466-3456