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Fiona Fletcher interviews Jennifer Fox:
Fiona Fletcher: Jennifer, you're well known for your documentary filmmaking, but in flying, you take a whole new approach – ‘passing the camera' – what inspired you to make this choice, it's a very personal technique?
Jennifer Fox: I was thinking for a long time to make a film about the way women speak and about these very intimate conversations that we have. I had discovered against what I had thought that my life was held together by these female conversations and not by my male relationships. In my forties I came to a mini crisis, I just felt that I did not fit; I wasn't married, I didn't have kids. I literally couldn't see myself; it was like I had become the invisible woman. But I wasn't even a woman; I was just invisible.
Fiona Fletcher: Why invisible?
Jennifer Fox: I think that ultimately the only roles we define for women are still mother and wife.
JF: There really isn't a solid definition of an independent woman. And Ironically language tells you that. For example, I've always been in relationship with men, very rarely been single, and yet the world defined me as single because I was not married.
FF: As well as opening up your own life and emotions to the camera, you pass the camera around friends worldwide, what was their initial response?
JF: The ones that did it loved it. It is quite transformative you are always creating something.
FF: How self-conscious did it make you?
JF: I really worked at it, at dropping criticism of myself. Having worked with other film subjects I was very aware that what I was looking for was to be present on film, to show up in a way, I had a lot of tricks to work with myself. One of them was to shoot an enormous amount of footage, I knew I then wouldn't care because I wouldn't be using most of the footage. I inundated myself with the camera. For five years.
I wanted to make it really light, I made rules for myself, like no tripods, no radio mics, because I didn't want to fuss.
And also I taught myself not to look for the perfect frame, just to relax and be, and not to put on any make-up. I'll put on make-up if I am putting on make-up, but I am not going to try and look good for the camera. I filmed myself in the morning, when I went to bed, you have to make it a part of life. That way when you face difficult things, you forget the presence of the camera.
FF: So it was a cathartic process?
JF: Definitely, the journey of talking to women around the world, seeing our similarities, there is absolutely a common thread, there is a connection. We like to think of differences, ‘those poor women in Pakistan ', but there are commonalities, of female language, control, abuse. There is a connection between us and them. They're certainly at a far end of a spectrum. Sexual abuse, in the West we are much freer but we are not free.
FF: How would you say you experience the film industry ‘as a woman director'?
JF: It is so complicated especially in leading roles. The roots are so deep in society in how girls and boys are raised. I have done well by wanting to be like my father and taking on male skills. But we can't forget female skills. ‘Flying' could not have been made by a man because the language is female passing the camera…
JF: That is why gender issues are still so tragic. Is that we are still struggling under these glass ceilings. For women to stand up in a man's world and say bugger off, it is very hard, and if you want to have a family and juggling. I really understand why men want wives. The difficulty is that women are expected to do this. I teach a lot and one thing I focus on is helping women to find authentic language and not just to mimic men.
FF: When you are teaching, do you find a gender divide that could go towards explaining a lack of women directors?
Jennifer Fox: I think not intentionally, but I am a much more profound role model for women, they see me and think if she can do it, I can do it too. I encourage them.. ‘Don't do it like me, find the way you want to make films. Find the aesthetic language that functions out of your soul'.
Its so weird, bc if you are a man you just don't realise how few women are your peers. When I am on panels, I am the only woman. When I was younger I didn't notice, bc I didn't want to define by gender, but now I am actually really upset by it. And of course men don't notice because they are the norm. What we really have to do is the creation of this other language.
I was teaching in Romania and we were showing clips of Flying and men saw it one way and women another. One of my students came out and said we have learned their language. But they don't know ours.
FF: Do you think there is some kind of ‘female essence' to how women tell stories?
I don't actually think that women have to make films that are different than men. It really depends on your authenticity. I can mimic the male language, well maybe not. I tried to mimic my father, and it just didn't work, this aggressive way to be. I am not confrontational it is just not my way. I am more interested in relationships and building relationships. I think if one stopped to notice, one would see a different language.
You can hear more about Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman in Jennifer Fox's documentary masterclass, Jennifer Fox Confesses All.
Come and see the film: http://birds-eye-view.co.uk/2008/flying.htm