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San Francisco Cinematheque Program I Filmmaker Gunvor Nelson in person Thursday, November 12,1992 Schmeerguntz (1965), co-maker: Dorothy Wiley; 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 minutes Kirsa Nicholina (1970); 16mm, color, sound, 16 minutes My Name is Oona (1969); 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 minutes Take Off (1972); 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 minutes Moons Pool (1973); 16mm, color, sound, 15 minutes Time Being (1991); 16mm, b&w, silent, 8 minutes A central theme in Nelson's work is her meditation on the nature of female beauty. She contrasts the contemporary American definition of female attractiveness with the more universal principle of feminine beauty perceived in nature. She sees these two definitions as irreconcilable because the cultural model is based on the direct repression of instinctual and natural female behavior and appearance. Her films suggest that the technological society is as dedicated to the eradication of the organic in modern woman as it is to the eradication of the natural environment. Thus woman today is trained to purchase protection against all of her natural functions: deodorants to disguise her body's odor, pills to short-circuit her body, and cosmetics to discolor her face. Yet somewhere beneath it all, a natural woman remains; Nelson helps us to rediscover her and to redefine her beauty on a human scale. Yet, in dealing with childhood, birth, sexuality and self-hood, her films have universal appeal. Like Doris Lessing, Nelson believes that what is most deeply personal often connects mysteriously with what is most widely shared in human experience. "I want, " says Nelson, "to go into myself as much as possible and hopefully it will be universal." Nelson's evolution as a filmmaker from Schmeerguntz through Moons Pool might thus be described as the gradual discovery of the Self. From the plastic anti-beauty of the American Way of Life in Schmeerguntz she traveled complex paths through Fog Pumas to the confrontation of natural beauty in My Name is Oona and Kirsa Nicholina. In these films, the film-maker approaches self-acceptance indirectly through the figures of Oona and Kirsa's mother. Take-Off is the final explosion of exploitative myths which depersonalize and alienate the body. It is an explosion which clears the path for Moons Pool', the ultimate recognition of this body, this Self in its naturalness; Moons Pool radiates a sense of wonder at the natural self which is without narcissism or self-indulgence. Nelson is a truly visionary artist whose masterful control of her medium and whose sheer power of imagination should assure her a place in the ranks of the best American experimental film-makers. —June M. Gill, Film Quarterly, Spring 1977 Schmeerguntz (1965), co-maker: Dorothy Wiley; 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 minutes Home-made in the best sense of the word, Schmeerguntz is one long raucous belch in the face of the American Home... 86