Chapter Two
Lesbian New Wave - Diversity, Community and Positive Representation
Copyright (c) 2002 Shannon Starr
'Lesbian films are actually making money, and I think that the industry has discovered that there's a whole market out there, and that they can make money.' - Dolly Hall 1
The increased visibility of lesbian cinema as a result of the success of Go Fish (Rose Troche, 1994) means that a market for independent films depicting lesbian lives has opened up. This proven market has meant that financing a lesbian feature is a much more attractive prospect for producers and distributors. New York producer Dolly Hall, who has produced several independent lesbian features, including The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (Maria Maggenti, 1995), All Over Me (Alex Sichel, 1996) and High Art (Lisa Cholodenko, 1998), has said that now that the market is opening up for lesbian films, the film industry is taking notice and has become more willing to participate in the making of such films. Lesbian films are no longer confined to lesbian and gay film festivals, but are being shown at more mainstream festivals, such as Sundance, and in the art house circuit. Most importantly, these films are receiving wider distribution - the vast majority of lesbian features made after 1994 are widely available on video both through high street stores and the internet, unlike the films made prior to this, which have either received no distribution, or have since been deleted.
Lesbian films are also garnering positive critical attention, and even winning prestigious awards. High Art won the Special Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for its writer/director Cholodenko and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awarded Ally Sheedy the prize for Best Actress. In 2000, Hilary Swank won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in Boys Don't Cry (Kimberly Peirce, 1999), as the transgendered 21-year-old, Brandon Teena. In the same year, the story of the illicit love affair between two women in Nazi German, Aimee & Jaguar (Max Farberbock, 1999), became the first film with a queer subject matter ever to open the Berlin Film Festival. 2
It must be noted, however, that only a certain type of lesbian film is receiving this positive attention. These films are feature length, possess a certain degree of '
'It was sobering to hear what filmmakers like Barbara Hammer, Su Friedrich, Jan Oxenberg, Lizzie Borden and Sheila McLaughlin were doing now: Hammer and Friedrich are still making self-financed, non-synch films, Sheila has no funding, and Lizzie Borden (Born In Flames [USA, 1983]) is married to a producer and works successfully as a director in straight Hollywood.' 3
It has become clear that in order to enjoy commercial success, lesbian filmmakers must embrace
While looking at the impact of recent popular lesbian features, it is important to look at how lesbians are being represented, and if this representation differs from that of past films. In order to consider lesbian representation in recent independent lesbian cinema, two questions should be addressed. Do these films offer lesbian audiences a more diverse range of lesbian images, including a representation of a lesbian community, normally excluded from popular films in the past? And do lesbian filmmakers feel obligated to depict their community in only a 'positive' light?
Reflecting a Diverse Community
'What do we want in a lesbian movie? We want ... it to be simple. We want it to be not a coming out story. We want it to be very much like our lives, in that, ... it's a community, versus one woman struggling with her sexuality or one woman struggling to get another woman to sleep with her, or whatever. So, we wanted a happy story that had a lot of dykes in it, that ended well.' - Guinevere Turner. 4
In Go Fish, Troche and Turner made a film they, as members of the lesbian community, wished to see. Frustrated with the mainstream's depiction of lesbians, and the limited number of lesbian films, they set about to create a film that would represent themselves and their community. Turner has said of the film, 'We thought about what we wanted to represent in a lesbian film. The diversity of the community. Back then we thought there was indeed a lesbian community, and it was that community to which we wanted to give Go Fish.' 5 One of the most notable characteristics of Go Fish is that it is set within a confirmed lesbian environment, rather than the heterosexual world of most previous films depicting lesbian lives. According to Erin Gill, who interviewed Rose Troche in 1999, it is:
'the first lesbian film to abandon the standard story of a straight woman discovering her lesbian tendencies in favour of a narrative altogether more grown-up. Go Fish is set in a world where women are out and the film sought to portray the realities of life for young, twenty-something American dykes looking for love.' 6
In order to look at the filmic representation of a 'lesbian community', it must first be ascertained that such a community actually exists. 'Lesbian community' is a term used all too frequently, the assumption being that all lesbians belong to one large group that shares a commonality, beyond the attraction to other women. This is not the case. Lesbians are a diverse as any other grouping, spanning age, race, religion, economic and social position and nationality. How can a film hope to represent a community so diverse? Henderson, in her article 'Simple Pleasures: Lesbian Community and Go Fish', suggests that a temporal and spatial definition of community is more appropriate, both in relation to Go Fish, and to the lesbian community in general. She argues that, 'Lesbian communities and lesbian cinema both would be well served, I think, by following the lead of Go Fish's recognition of solidarity as a spatial and temporal condition (people coming together at certain places and times)'. 7 In other words, rather than trying to represent all lesbians, these films can and should represent one particular community in one time and space.
One way in which Troche and Turner sought to represent their lesbian community is by locating the film in specific spaces that lesbians would recognise from their own world - a lesbian coffee shop, a bookstore, a women's studies class room. By setting the Go Fish in these environments, Troche has made a film that is easily identifiable to lesbian audiences, allowing them to engage with the characters' lives, problems and longings more completely.
The community that exists within Go Fish is one that is supportive and nurturing, but not perfect. The women have their faults and failings, and none of them are idealised. Max is shown to be judgmental and shallow initially in her dealings with Ely, while Ely is extremely timid. However, they are surrounded by a supportive group of friends who gently push them where they need to go.
'at once diverse and harmonious, self-actualizing and tentative, witty and vulnerable, sexual and sexually judgmental. ... Unlike the usual familial objections in lesbian romance films (including Desert Hearts [Donna Deitch, 1985]), the girls of the Go Fish community grease the wheels, happy to see Max and Ely lucky in love.' 9
Despite the faults the characters might possess, self-hatred due to their sexuality is happily not one of them. Unlike previous films with lesbian subjects, these women do not have a problem with being gay. The conflict in the main narrative is not the result of sexuality, but a fear or uncertainty regarding love itself.
The characterisation of the film is also diverse. The characters range from the young and trendy Max, to an older teacher, Kia and her girlfriend Evy, who is Latino, a divorcée and a femme. Completing the group is Ely, a slightly butch, extremely shy woman, and her happily promiscuous room-mate Daria. Daria provides a foil for the more conventional relationship that develops between Max and Ely, and is the film's cinematic proof that not all lesbians mate for life. 'As a happily, openly, unapologetically, and (the dialogue implies) safely promiscuous character, she extends the film's image of sexual possibility among women.' 10 Another element that adds to the characterisation is that, unlike mainstream representations of lesbians, the women of Go Fish are not overtly glamorous, but are normal everyday women. According to Chris Jones, 'the women portrayed have a refreshingly realistic, non-glamorised range of bodies and faces.' 11
The presence of a lesbian community is not only visible on screen, but within the production itself. In order to make Go Fish, Troche and Turner relied a great deal on their own community, in terms of fund raising, actors and crew members. According to B. Ruby Rich, 'everybody had been working for free because they shared the dream of bringing a lesbian cinema into existence' 12, while Chris Jones describes the 'long list of helpers and contributors following the main credits [that] attests to strong community support.' 13 This long list is typical of lesbian independent films. Very often without the community's support, these films could not be made.
Everything Relative (Sharon Pollack, 1996) attempted to follow Go Fish's lead in producing a diverse and positive image of the lesbian community. Sharon Pollack, the film's director, writer and producer has said that, 'I wanted to do a group, and ensemble piece because there are so few stories about lesbians out there. ... So it wasn't enough for me to tell just one story. I wanted to tell several, or at least start several.' 14
Everything Relative is set during a weekend get-together of seven college friends who, as a group, have been apart for eight years. They reassemble for a bris for Daniel, two of the women's new-born son. The characters are a broad range of women - Katie, a Jewish femme psychiatrist and her lawyer girlfriend Vic. Maria, a Latino divorcée who has just lost her children, and her ex-alcoholic, ex-girlfriend Josie. Luce, a stunt woman who is still mourning her long dead lover, and Gina, an emotionally unavailable ex-prostitute who is now a successful singer. Finally there is Sarah, the only straight member of the group, a married woman who works for planned parenthood, but can't get pregnant herself.
The film is interesting in that it attempts to explore a lesbian 'community', and the women discuss the support and love they found within this community, which they haven't found elsewhere. The inclusion of Sarah is also a refreshing reversal of the convention of past films to insert one lesbian among a group of tolerant straight women. However, in trying to look at the lives of all of these women over one weekend, and in a 'positive' light, the film becomes too idealistic and simplistic. Other films have attempted a similar structure, such as The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, 1983), to which Everything Relative has been compared. However, the latter film needed to have been better written in order to work successfully in this way. Emanuel Levy, a critic for Variety, stated that, 'for this kind of material to work, it needs sharper humor, wittier repartee and faster pacing.' 15 In other words, what let the film down was not its attempt to explore these women's lives over a short period of time, but a poor script.
Although there are some nice moments where the women discuss their lives, the majority of the film is taken up with these scenes of exposition, which quickly become repetitive. The ending, with its all too easy resolution of the group's problems - the convenient romantic pairing of Luce and Gina, the rekindling of Josie and Maria's relationship and the discovery that Sarah is pregnant - come across as contrived.
However, the importance of Everything Relative cannot be ignored. Despite the weakness of its script, it does provide a significant depiction of lesbian lives, including a wide range of women among its characters. Like Go Fish, many kinds of lesbians are represented - butch and femme, white, Latino and Jewish (although no black characters are included), mothers, those in committed relationships, as well as single and sexually active women. And significantly, they are shown to be part of a supportive lesbian community. Therefore, despite its failings, Everything Relative has made an important contribution to recent independent lesbian cinema.
Like Go Fish, All Over Me was selected to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival, and went on to win the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the Berlin Film Festival. It was picked up for distribution by Fine Line Features as a completed film, and received both theatrical and video release. The film centres on best friends, Claude and Ellen, set amid the 'riot girl' scene in
While the film focuses on the girls' friendship, the story is at its heart about a teenage girl's sexual awakening, and in fact the trailer for the film concentrated on this aspect, posing the question, 'What if you fell for your best friend and she loved someone else... Would you find someone new? Or would you follow your heart?' 17 The intensity of the relationship between Claude and Ellen is handled delicately - beginning with them acting out what Ellen had just experience with her boyfriend, and culminating in Claude declaring her love for her best friend. While Ellen is comfortable with physical intimacy, she is unable to cope with the emotion that Claude expresses, and rejects her.
The two lesbian characters represented in All Over Me initially seem to be as dissimilar as possible. Claude is shy and uncertain, described by director Alex Sichel as a girl 'uncomfortable in her own skin'. 18 She is a girl just coming to terms with her own sexuality. At the other end of the scale is Lucy, a confident musician who is open and comfortable with her identity as a lesbian. This is made clear by a comment she makes to Claude shortly after they meet. When Claude remarks upon a portrait of Lucy that is hanging in her bedroom, Lucy explains that her father painted it and that it makes her 'look like such a nerdy straight girl.' 19 It is through exposure to Lucy's self-assured nature that Claude gradually comes out of her shell, and according to the film's official website, 'she starts to understand exactly who she is and how important it is to be that person without apology.' 20
What makes this coming out story so different from those films of the past is Claude's ability to accept her sexuality without any initial rejection or self hatred as a result of it. She suffers confusion as a result of her unrequited feelings for Ellen, and guilt over Luke's death and her decision to report Mark to the police, but she never rejects or denies her lesbian sexuality. This is contrasted by Ellen, who is presumably heterosexual, but engages in intimacy with Claude, and becomes increasingly consumed with self-hatred, which is displayed through her self harm and drug abuse.
Music plays a large part in the film, and it is through music that Claude wishes to express herself throughout. According to Dolly Hall, the producer of All Over Me, 'Claude is looking to music to help her express some of her feelings, and I think that's why she wants to be in a band and write songs and be in that world, which seems to be a little more accepting of people who don't quite fit in.' 21 The film has a kind of symmetry, beginning with Claude and Ellen practising guitar in Claude's bedroom, and ending with Claude and Lucy, again playing their guitars in the same room. These two scenes chart Claude's emotional growth that has occurred during the narrative of the film. She began with the belief that she could only start a band with her best friend, but through the course of the story she learns that she is not dependent upon Ellen, and is therefore able to form a new, more positive relationship with Lucy.
The image of a lesbian community is also represented in the film, although not as overtly as in Go Fish or Everything Relative. When discussing with Luke the band she wished to start with Ellen, he suggests that she go to a bar where other girl bands play. He tells her, 'you might find someone else looking to start a band.' 22 The place he suggests is a lesbian bar, which indicates that he knows her sexuality, almost before she does, and is perhaps trying to help her find someone to begin a relationship, rather than a band, with. At the time, Claude replies, 'I can't do it without Ellen' 23, but after Ellen rejects her for the first time, Claude ventures into the club, and finds a lesbian community ready to embrace her, in the form of musician Lucy. The community which Claude finds is one that has been rarely seen on screen. The club is full of a diverse group of lesbians, brought together by their love of music and the 'riot girl' scene, and comfortable and unashamed of their sexuality.
Claude's progress towards joining this community is gradual. She cannot bring herself to become involved with Lucy because she is in love with Ellen, and cannot pursue another relationship until she has let go of her ties to her best friend. She accomplishes this first symbolically, by removing all traces of clutter and reminders of Ellen from her room and then physically, when she informs the police of Mark's involvement in Luke's death. It is then that she can engage in a more positive relationship with Lucy and, in a sense, join the lesbian community.
The film end with the girls in Claude's room, a place where we have seen her with Ellen so many times before. Claude's mother enters and comments, 'This is an improvement' 24 She is talking about Claude's clutter-free room, but the audience is made to feel that she could just as easily be talking about Lucy. The positive change in Claude is made particularly apparent in this scene through Claude's happy demeanour. For the first time in the film, Claude smiles and laughs with ease, making it clear that Lucy makes her happy in a way that Ellen never could.
All Over Me works, I would argue, because it locates itself very specifically in a time of life that most people can identify with. The friendship between Claude and Ellen is one that both lesbian and mainstream audiences can understand and relate to, which serves to widen the film's appeal, while at the same time depicting a lesbian coming-of-age/ coming-out story that is neither contrived nor diluted. While being easily identifiable to a mainstream audience, All Over Me is also grounded in a lesbian specific and woman identified world of the 'riot girl' culture - a culture that embraces both punk and feminism, and is a place of acceptance for those perceived to not fit in elsewhere. This balance between appealing to both lesbian and mainstream audiences is one that Go Fish previously found. In the same way, All Over Me appealed to that market, and received positive attention from both critics and the industry as a result.
Not all lesbian films break with past narratives in the way that Go Fish has. The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love is one film that revisits the narratives of films like Desert Hearts, Claire of the Moon (Nicole Conn, 1992) and Personal Best (Robert Towne, 1982), to look at the story of a straight girl who falls in love with a lesbian. Randy, a 17-year-old butch lesbian, meets and falls in love with Evie, a middle-class straight femme, who grows to share those feelings. Randy lives with her lesbian aunt Rebecca and Rebecca's girlfriend, describing her home as, 'Just your normal, typical, regular lesbo household.' 25 As a result of her sexuality and lifestyle, she is the outcast of her school, while Evie is a member of the in-crowd until she forms a relationship with Randy.
The lesbian community is represented in Randy's family - Rebecca, her girlfriend, and
Like past films, the girls face objections from their families. When Evie's mom finds out about the relationship, she is shocked and tells Evie that she needs 'a little therapy.' Likewise, Rebecca is not supportive, both due to the fact that Evie comes from a rich family, and because the relationship is having a negative effect on Randy's studies.
The film has several funny and touching moments - such as when two older women are discovered together at a motel, and ask 'did our husbands send you?' However, it has received criticism, being labelled as 'lesbian heterosexual' by filmmaker Barbara Hammer, who has commented that, 'No one is being daring enough to break the codes. The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love ... is just a nice, sweet seamless story that develops along the heterosexual tracks and only the characters' names and biological sex are changed.' 26 While it is an enjoyable film, and certainly has its place in independent lesbian cinema, it breaks no new ground in the depiction of lesbians, and certainly has not matched up to work such as Go Fish in terms of representation. Karen Hollinger, in her paper on lesbian popular film, argues that,
'It remains indisputable that many heterosexually inspired and/or heterosexually conceived mainstream representations of lesbians follow the path of Desert Hearts and blur the distinction between heterosexuality and lesbianism. As a result, they fail to affirm the difference of lesbian subjectivity, representing lesbianism not as a distinct kind of sexuality for women but as really the same as heterosexuality.' 27
While it is important to produce a wide range of representations of lesbians in film, heterosexual narratives do not help lesbian cinema in carving out its own distinct style. However, at the same time it is important to produce narratives with wide appeal, thus presenting images of the lesbian community to a wider audience. Lesbian filmmakers who have attempted to create a distinct lesbian cinema, completely removed from mainstream conventions, such as Barbara Hammer and Su Friedrich, have found lesbian audiences to be less than enthusiastic about their avant-garde style. I would argue that in order to appeal to a wide lesbian audience, irrespective of whether the work has cross over appeal to a heterosexual audience, lesbian filmmakers need to strike a balance between creating lesbian specific films, and utilising the mainstream conventions that the majority expect to see. Hollinger has argued in favour of the use of a mainstream style in more lesbian films in order to explore more fully lesbian experience.
'Lesbian filmmakers need ... to be given the opportunity to express through the medium of the popular as well as the avant-garde film a variety of lesbian experiences and to move beyond the now standard coming-out and romance narratives to create stories of lesbian history, culture, communities, households, and daily life, as well as to present nonexploitative portrayals of lesbian sexuality.' 28
This is what films like Go Fish have done in recent years. They have found the balance between creating a lesbian specific world on screen, and using some woman-orientated techniques - in the case of Go Fish, its avant-garde moments - while at the same time embracing more mainstream filmmaking techniques in order to appeal to a wider audience. Where a film like The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love falls down, I would argue, is in its inability to find that balance, following mainstream conventions, but being unable to express its lesbian specificity at the same time. However, what the film lacked in critical success, it more than made up for in the box office. Two Girls was picked up for distribution by Fine Line Features, and became the company's biggest grossing film of 1995, reconfirming the market for lesbian feature films that Go Fish had established the previous year.
Like Go Fish, High Art was picked up for distribution during the first weekend of the Sundance Film Festival, where it also won the Waldo Salt award for best screenplay. It then went on be shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight. Set amongst the decadent world of photography and drugs, High Art is similar to films such as Claire of the Moon and The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, in that it portrays a initially straight woman who falls in love with a lesbian, but its execution of the subject matter makes it a much more powerful film than its predecessors. Syd, an assistant editor at photography magazine Frame, meets retired photographer Lucy Berliner by chance. As she tries to get Lucy to begin working professionally again, Syd falls in love with her, and they begin a relationship, despite both women being involved with other people. However, Lucy's addiction to both her long-time girlfriend Greta and heroin proves too strong, and Lucy dies of a drug overdose.
The women depicted in Cholodenko's film are complex and much darker than in those films previously described in this chapter. Lucy was once a successful photographer, but has not worked professionally for ten years, having quit because of 'a mental health decision.' 29 She is now a regular heroin user in a co-dependent relationship with Greta, a German actress. Greta tells Syd upon their first encounter, 'I live for Lucy. I mean, I live here, with Lucy' 30, revealing her own addiction. Matters are not helped by Lucy who, according to her mother is 'passive'. It is due to this passivity that Lucy (despite her continuous claims to Greta that she cannot continue with their destructive relationship and drug use) is unable to change her life until she meets Syd.
Syd is in a heterosexual relationship at the beginning of the film. Her boyfriend, James, disapproves of both her ambition and her job, particularly the fact that she allows herself to still be treated like an intern, despite having been made assistant editor. In Lucy she finds validation that she has not received elsewhere, and this gives her the strength to stand up to James, telling him, 'No matter what I do, you keep telling me I'm wrong.' 31 It is Syd, not Lucy, who grows most during the film. In allowing herself to fall in love with Lucy unquestioningly, she finds success in her career and emotional fulfilment.
At its heart, High Art is a love triangle story, and to tell it Cholodenko has chosen beautifully lit, long takes, and artistically framed close ups - each frame looking hauntingly like a Lucy Berliner photograph. The love story between Lucy and Syd is allowed to progress, unforced, within this simple structure, which is to the director's credit, according to Leslie Felperin in her review of the film.
'Given the hip, quasi-intellectual demi-monde the film is set in, other film-makers might have been tempted to trick out the movie with retro new wave-style jump cuts or Warholian graininess. But Lisa Cholodenko... and cinematographer Tami Reiker confine themselves to coolly composed long takes and slow tracks richly lit.' 32
The cinematographic composition would be described by Syd as 'so skilful that it seems really spontaneous, almost like a snap shot' 33 of these women's lives.
The community, as reflected in High Art, is a contrast to the communities represented in films like Go Fish and Everything Relative. Lucy and Greta's community consists of fellow drug users, and includes heterosexuals and men in the mix. It is a community who, like Lucy's photographs, live in what Syd describes as a 'subverted realism'. 34 This is seen most clearly in the snap shots which cover Lucy's apartment - depicting her decadent friends in soft focus. They are out of focus in life as they are in Lucy's art, living only for their next hit of heroin.
Unlike Lucy's friends, Syd refuses to have drugs be her only link with Lucy. Although she engages in heroin twice at parties, when she goes away for the weekend with Lucy she tells her that she does not want to take heroin, saying, 'I don't want that to be our only connection.' 35 It is on this weekend that Lucy is able to stop taking heroin, and make the conscious decision to change her life, resulting in her ability to admit to her mother the harsh realities of her life, that she has 'a love issue and a drug problem'.36 She goes away for a week to get the drugs out of her system, and to enable her to leave Greta once and for all.
However, the characters of High Art are not allowed a happy ending. Upon returning home, Greta talks Lucy into spending one last night with her and, clearly unable to control her addiction, Lucy takes what is to be her last hit of heroin, and dies. This ending would seem to be strongly reminiscent of the narratives of past films, where lesbian characters had to die, or at least be punished because of their sexuality. However Syd is given the last word, and the film ends with her looking at the photographs Lucy had taken of her, and which are now published in Frame. Despite her sadness at Lucy's death, the change that has occurred in Syd is unmistakable - she has grown as a result of her time with Lucy, demonstrated by ability to finally see herself through her pictures. By choosing to end on this, a more positive, yet still sombre note, Cholodenko makes it clear that Lucy's death was not meaningless, nor was it some kind of punishment, as it would have been in previous films.
What is clear from these films is that, unlike past narratives where lesbians were solitary figures either ostracised by people around them, or tolerated by a group of heterosexual friends, the lesbians of recent films are shown as past of a larger community, in whatever shape or form that might come. What is important to note, however, is that these on-screen communities are not simply united through sexuality but, as in real life, by other interests and factors as well. These factors have included friendship (Go Fish), family (The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love), politics (Everything Relative), music (All Over Me), and even drugs (High Art). Moreover, the women depicted in these films are a diverse group, covering a wide range of races, religions, cultures, and are not merely stereotypes. What has occurred in just a few short years is a sweeping change in the way lesbians are reflected on the screen, leading to characters rarely, if ever, seen in pre-1990 cinema.
1) Speaking in the documentary Zero Budget (Emma Hindley, 1996)
2) Review of Aimee & Jaguar, PopcornQ, http://www.planetout.com/pno/popcornq/db/getfilm.html?22568
3) Penny Florence, 'We are here but are we queer?: Lesbian Filmmaking versus Queer Cinema Conference,
4) Speaking in the documentary Zero Budget
5) Guinevere Turner, and Rose Troche, Go Fish: The Full Original Screenplay (Woodstock & New York: Overlook Press, 1995) p. 13.
6) Erin Gill, 'Life Through Rose-Tinted Glasses', Diva, (April, 1999), p. 27.
7) L. Henderson, 'Simple Pleasures: Lesbian Community and Go Fish', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 25. no. 1. (1999), p. 62.
8) Ibid. p. 38.
9) Ibid. p. 47.
10) Ibid. p. 49.
11) Chris Jones, 'Lesbian and gay film', in Jill Holmes (ed.), An Introduction to Film Studies (2nd Edition) (
12) B. Ruby Rich, 'Goings and Comings', Sight and Sound, vol.4. no. 7. (1994), p. 14.
13) Chris Jones, 'Lesbian and gay film', in Jill Holmes (ed.), An Introduction to Film Studies (2nd Edition) (
14) Sharon Pollack, speaking in Zero Budget
15) Emanuel Levy, 'Everything Relative', Variety Online, http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=review&reviewid=VE1117910741&categoryid=31&query=%2A&cs=1
16) Alex Sichel, speaking in Zero Budget (Emma Hindley, 1996)
17) From the All Over Me trailer, WEB ADDRESS
18) Alex Sichel, in Zero Budget
19) Lucy, All Over Me
20) All Over Me official website, http://www.flf.com/alloverme/prodnote.htm
21) Ibid.
22) Luke, All Over Me
23) Claude, All Over Me
24) Anne, All Over Me
25) Randy, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love
26) Kate Haug, 'An Interview with Barbara Hammer', Wide Angle, vol. 20. no. 1. (1998), p. 71
27) Karen Hollinger, 'Theorizing Mainstream Femme Spectatorship: The Case of the Popular Lesbian Film', Cinema Journal, vol. 37. no.2. (1998), p. 13.
28) Ibid. p. 11.
29) Lucy, High Art
30) Greta, High Art
31) Syd, High Art
32) Leslie Felperin, 'High Art', Sight and Sound, vol. 9. no. 4. (1998), p. 45.
33) Syd, High Art
34) Syd, High Art
35) Syd, High Art
36) Lucy, High Art
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