| 10/5/98 dublin
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conversation with natalie/things to remember:
it's nice to interview the same people several times. make sure to do introductory meetings/audio intws first--it is better for everyone and pays them more respect (even if I feel funny at first asking for twice as much of their time) I don't want to be the kind of documentary maker who goes into something with a predetermiend idea. There are ways I think to have certain interests and themes without predetermining what i'm going to find. remember to enjoy myself |
october ? room for healing, casheloogarry, inver, donegal
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this weekend i went to stay with jude and jeremiah, eliza's friends she met in tunisia--two amazing people--a painter and a healer--living on a mountain without electricity or indoor plumbing. i am scared on the way there, scared i will not be able to hack it. by the end of the first day i am thinking, i hope i have the sense to live like this some day. they let me chop wood and cook dinner. at night i sleep in the "sanctuary," reading "over nine waves" by lamplight, listening to the wind. on the last day there i go to ardara, a gorgeous long walk down to one of the most beautiful--and empty--beaches i've ever seen. |
january 15, 1999 dublin
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i've been here 3 months now. i should start keeping more regular notes--i keep reading diaries by filmmakers in magazines, which I find interesting... are they fabricated, I wonder... created postpartum? some days, the project is so big that I lay under the covers, hiding. what I like most is talking to people. I keep lining up more and more interviews, and the rest of the project is sort of continually on hold. I am shying from verite--it scares the hell out of me. and investigative style journalism. I still like the idea of dividing the project into different doc styles, but I just don't know if I can pull it off. what am I doing here? is the most faq, both from myself and from others. tonight I will go to this GCN interview and they will ask, I'm sure. what will I say? a series of portraits of different irish women... a book of names... a retelling of tales... shorts strung together... I need help, lots. a mentor for starters. a producer, an AD, a cameraperson, sound recordist, a still photographer. the stuff that drags me down are all the phone calls, all the arranging of things, details swimming around in my head. they have taken over the project in a way. maybe this has hampered any creative work/thinking? sometimes I have moments of clarity--like how I can explain the project, how the interviews are ways of getting situated, sifting. the video as a response to the material--my own creative response÷different from the website which will be an archive, a record, more inclusive. |
Monday, jan 18
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being sick is forcing me to hide from responsibility, a good excuse. I have become phlegmatic. lady (the dog)has been sleeping with me at night since natalie left.
I just got done reading this book, I am of Ireland: Women of the North Speak Out by elizabeth shannon. i found it very condescending. many of the women interviewed talk about their feelings of being misrepresented, that the north in general is always misrepresented -- but the author doesn't seem to take any note of that as she continues on her way, describing people's homes and neighborhoods as dismal ghettos, etc. there are also some scary references to lesbians--i.e. all the screws in the women's prisons are lesbians. my to do list for this week is humungous. calling the national museum has become a permanent fixture on it. I can't count the number of times i've called --after having formally requested permission to videotape in the museum in november. I leave message after message--I wonder if they are nervous about my request to videotape the sheela-na-gigs. somedays I can't figure out where my time iis going--seems I am busy all the time but the video is not getting done--in many ways I am doing all the research that I should've done long ago--allowing myself the pleasure of reading! there are so many books--i think this must occupy most of my time--that and going to classes at UCD which I don't feel are directly related to my project but which I enjoy. I have been copying quotes and details from many books into notebooks, onto the computer--for what purpose? am I crazy? am I wasting my time here? I am constructing a timeline of Constance Markievicz's life... perhaps for a later project... I was relating to Michele Dubos last night the experiences in Galway, particularly when N and I sat through a dreadful play reading by a man who was a rabid anti-abortionist. After the play, and after Margaretta D'Arcy had ripped his logic to shreds, we were all in the hotel bar, having drinks. He asked me why I was in Ireland, I said I was doing a series of portraits of Irish women, and he looked concerned. Quite seriously and genuinely, he said, "Remarkable women... Well we really haven't had any." The only thing not shocking about this comment was the fact that I've been hearing it over and over. |
january 20
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I must be feeling better--i am back to making lists, which always feels like I am doing something. I met yesterday with catherine -- this has made me feel incredibly relieved -- possibly getting some help from a visual artist -- i was very encouraged by the fact that she really liked the idea of the different styles -- i gotta figure out a way to make this work -- i feel like I have been talking myself out of it cause I'm afraid i'm not artistic enough. grainne called today from outhouse -- last time we talked she mentioned taking me to avoca, and having dinner with her and her girlfriend. that would be really nice. I am needing friends and peers. |
| jan 21
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just got off the phone with n. ever since she was here, and since she left, I have been feeling so emotional. I think that before she came I was trying not to feel depressed, trying not to think about how isolated and lonely I felt. tonight, I was at outhouse with grainne close and andrea and I was happy. listening to grainne's hilarious stories of coming out, talking with them about the women I should meet, all the possibilities... grainne is such a positive uplifting person. I felt briefly part of something, at ease, like this was a normal kind of situation, like I was amongst friends. maybe it has just taken a lot longer to realize how important that is to me. I think that it's related to my feelings about the project. like maybe sometimes my insecurity about the project really isn't about the project but about not being a part of a group of interesting, supportive, interested people. I think also that having to write the proposal and write all those letters describing the project -- the whole process of committing myself on paper to what the project was about in so many words -- was part of the problem. because i am feeling now like I shouldn't be going any faster than I am. it would be artificial to go rushing into a situation I don't know, haven't lived in and say, ok, I need you to talk about these three topics. or I need to get these three shots. it would be ideal if I could be here for a year just doing the groundwork. I really like the idea of casting the wide net and letting the video be my creative response to the material--using some of it. I think that taking this approach, relaxing a bit, letting myself off the hook a bit, not working less but worrying less, will make me feel really positive about the work i'm doing. even being able to describe it to people in this new light feels like a relief--it rolls off the tongue instead of bumbling out of my messy mouth.
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jan 28 |
today I went to interview dr margaret maccurtain. it was pouring rain, the camera woman rang to say she wasn't going to make it, things started off bad. I called for a taxi, hauled the camera, tripod, still camera, 2 light boxes, sound bag to the street. the taxi didn't come. it started to rain harder. the lights i'd built were getting splashed by passing cars. i called the taxi company back--busy twice, then it just rang and rang. finally I got through and the expediter said my man was there looking for me--i said I was there looking for him. finally we made contact. I got in, with the camera in my lap as I was planning to shoot the arrival ar dr maccurtain's house. he asked what the boxes were for, I said they were lights, I was doing a videotaped interview with a woman in blackrock.
"You're jokin," he says. |
February 1, 1999 kildare
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Feile Bride Diary Eucharist at the well The man at the center of the circle leaves his words aside for the birdsong and the watersong. We listen to the day, to the sounds of our hearts, there are hundreds of us, wishing. The man who is leading the wishing says speak a word or a phrase if you want and a woman speaks, and then another, and then two, and soon there is a river of women's words calling out like the birds like the water there are wishes in the air: peace, they are saying, healing, they are wishing, justice, they are calling, hope, my heart is singing out on the morning of the first day of Spring. Saint Brigid's Day, Kildare. A woman leads us in a simple dance: I join hands with a circle of women I have never met. The music starts and we start to move and I am led through space by strong hands. I close my eyes and trust their hands and our feet as we go round, listening to the music which has brought us together, trusting the world, hoping again. This word hope keeps coming to me like a light which has been burning in me but just barely. I can feel it growing this weekend, picking up wind and width, I am ready to start stoking. Later in the day we stand by the fire temple, again this word hope nagging at me, hope, my old flame, no it should not be surprising when the woman feeding the fire says Gorse is what we burn because this is the cure for hopelessness. |
feb 6
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today is a hiding day. raining on the skylight makes me lie in bed, doze btw the books I am reading. I have been looking for a new place to live for several days: a most degrading task.
sometime I must write more about kildare. meeting kate coyle -- she knows margaretta from galway -- her birthday is one day after mine -- sister mary giving me the cross of rushes. the word hope which was ringing in my head during mass, during every ritual. the gorse the women burned the next day in the fire temple -- gorse which is a cure for hopelessness. folklore tradition: on the eve of saint brigid, these words are spoken: referenced in book by marija Gimbutas (sp?) on goddess images there are so many things to do and i'm not doing any of them. I feel rusty, like my springs are creaking, need oil... |
| feb 13, 1999 | I got in a fight with a car insurance company on the phone. I called to get a quote, they asked me the usual questions including profession. They promptly put me on hold. music music wait wait. when he came back he said, "I'm afraid we won't be able to offer you coverage." "Oh. Why?" "We don't cover filmmakers." "Oh. Why not?" "We just don't." "Oh. Why?" "We cannot offer you coverage." "Is it that because you only represent certain professions, or is it that my particular profession is a problem?" "Yes." "My profession is a problem." "Yes." "Oh. Well I'll pick something else then. How about post graduate student? I'm also a post graduate student." "But you've already told me you're a filmmaker." "But I'm also a post graduate student." "Yes but you've already told me you're a filmmaker." "Well probably lots of people tell you things that they're not. My friend recommended your company to me -- she's a filmmaker, but she probably told you she was a post-graduate student." "We can't offer you coverage." "Well I would like to know what kind of profession is acceptable. Do I have to be a fireman or something?" all this in the hallway at UCD, at the payphone with a line of people staring at me, stupid american!
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| april 18
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I haven't felt like writing in a while
the night out at the dublin film fest, going to a party afterwards -- Christina introduces me to the producer, and I say I'm working on a documentary and he says, Oh my friend here, some guy, is working on a documentary. Some guy tells me he's really close to finishing "post." He's working on a piece called Angel's Ladies, about a brothel in Las Vegas. He tells me about the relationship they've developed with the participants. They're not being exploited, he assures me. "Basically," he says, "There's five hookers in the place." |
april 21
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possible intro: typical TV doc with location shots, Irish scenes, v.o narration -- then "Cut!" And have conversation about documentary -- or me/director, directing the v.o. narrator, or editor, or camerawoman... maybe woman reading lines of scripted narration -- different women, different ways of reading text... woman reading script using different accents -- and in Irish. "Could you sound more Irish?" or text on screen like in Man of Aran -- "man versus the sea..." could be done as audio or could keep coming back to diff women reading the same lines÷like a screen test--women could get progessively more and more "Irish looking." In the end, she is standing in front of a church (or in a school girl uniform) or in a field of sheep, walking towards the camera like on the TV news.
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| april ??
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Talking with eliza about my depression-- she reminds me that I am not this project. |
| may 13, 1999 | mary coughlan "I am still in love"
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may 9
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i realized while walking yesterday that this trip, this year, I've had very few experiences of how I usually travel--on my own, on foot or bike, not knowing where i'll end up, filled with long silences where things start to make sense in my life. some of times I've felt that this year: taking the bus to enniskerry, going to donegal to stay with jude and jeremiah, riding a bike on inismor. I must find ways of having more of these before i leave. |
may ?? |
(sometime during the women's dail -- may 19-26)
conversation with margaretta in which she says she is nervous. I am shocked. She is shocked that I've never noticed. I feel better (that she is nervous) that I am nervous. |
may 10 |
i sent the latest copy of the proposal to my advisor back home and she says what are you out to prove? that you can imitate all the documentary styles in the world? what about the STORY? isn't that what's important. i'm scared of this word I still struggle with the story -- I am resisting the temptation/education to storify. I need to separate the act of story telling from the act of story making. is there a difference? I hope so. I am disgusted by the use of words like story-plot-conflict-character in documentary. I am interested in people's stories, not in making stories out of people. and again, I will have failed I suppose as a documentary maker. where is the story the plot? who are the characters? I still struggle with the question what is it about? it's about nothing, i'd like to say. a series of portraits. I don't want people to say it's about any one thing. how can I say this well? i'd like the video to be about this, if anything: the struggle against the form, the lack of action, the making of documents. |
| may 26 | my last cigarette
the voice of karan casey--friends of garvaghy road benefit this has been a month of amazing voices singing into my heart |
june 10
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mary tells me about the slieve na mban--mountain of women--where the lines btw this world and the other worlds is thinnest--everything is upside down--women have power. she also tells me about "slí na mBan" meaning the way of women. |
| June 25 | I have reached to ultimate conflict: style versus content. I am stuck. can I really pull this off? I have huge doubts. I have all this footage shot in the one style which I like--me following, interacting. but what about the plan? the thing I have been saying i've been doing/ different documentary styles. commenting on the documentary process. I am stuck. katherine o'donnell writes me a peptalk email--stick with the plan, make it work, do the different documentary styles, I believe her since then it's been back and forth, back and forth, plan a, plan b, plan a, plan b... the only time I seem to be able to think is running, miles on end, looking at mountains and water and wildflowers the mist sttarts to clear from my foggy head. |
july 8
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I am there again with stacey, michelle, mom, it is nearly dark (10:30?). we go straight to the sheela, we are tacky. I see two men inside the church. I wonder what they are doing. not understanding, we gawk at the sheela above the window, snap photos. disturb the silence. we are turning away, the men are still there, waiting. something tells me to turn back. and I see a hand reaching out from inside the church, a small stone in his hand, he crosses it over the sheela and her body. |
| aug 7 | walking home tonight from the pub i meet a woman named Anne who is falling out of her shoes. patten leath slingbacks, low pumps. she shows me the reason: a bandage on the bottom of the ball of her foot. she has to change it every hour. she's been waiting for 2 years for the operation. "What operation?" I say. and she says, "How old are you, 18, 19, 17?" I tell her I'm 30 and she tells me her twin girls are 28, going on 40 the way they look, but sure, she'd never say that to them. "But what I could do," Anne says, "With a fine young lad like yourself." We have stopped, yet again, to get her shoes on. I tell her I am not a lad and she says, "Well, I don't mind."
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august 15?
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the day we go to vico road, me, kay, teresa, to go jumping into the sea. on the way there we see fires in the distance and wonder without speaking. later, drying out on the rocks, we see another fire, is it on bray head? teresa insists against fire: clouds, she insists, not smoke. we do not agree, kay and me. even later, we come home, and the smell is everywhere, even inside our house. it's a nice smell, the smell of fire without crime, the feeling that there is something going on under the surface of things, a celebration... it is La Lughnasa. |
| sept 1 | an incredible night/3 hour interview with lorna and finola about the process of fighting a sexual assault case--things feel right suddenly, the focus on change, be it personal, political, public or private. |
sept 7
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barbara shot two intws last week--what a relief. now it makes me want to redo all the other intws. and makes me realize how crazy it's been to have been trying to do all this on my own. now all I need is a sound person and a producer! |
| sept 20 | I went to this women's studies/PhD support group meeting--we talked about feminist research methods, like the ethics of interviews... the big question came up: Who the hell are you?
i.e. what right do you have to be doing this work? collaborative interviews, hit and run research, othered/othering... all these terms are interesting to me, have been at the heart of my work for the past year or more. but now I can't deal with them. I feel like I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, or else I will fall flat on my face. does this make me a horrible, unethical un-feminist? |
sept 23 |
I keep asking for help and people keep saying yes. it's amazing. leah is going to shoot the interviews in the north. máirín is going to do some phone calling/producing work. last night we drank a bottle of wine and she convinced me I should try again to get an intw with bernadette mcaliskey. she's doing a great job already. she is right--I will really regret it later if i don't try. she is such a big part of why I wanted to come to Ireland in the first place. on a less positive front, I am broke. yesterday catherine and I shot all around dublin--i owe her money for all the time she's spent--we went to the cash machine and i got the "insufficient funds" message. so... do I pack it in and go home with what i've got? or do I cash advance the rest of my stay here? when should I say enough is enough? it seems a shame to pull out now when I -- and so many people -- have invested so much. I have stopped writing in my journal. I have stopped reading anything but trashy mysteries. what does this mean?
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| sept 28 | my camera is broken. I am tempted to take it as a sign and get on the next plane home.
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sept 29
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I got a call from the natl photographic archive saying they've located several photos of rosie hackett. so I went down today. the photos were great--women workers with their banners--but none of the women are idenitified. rosie may remain anonymous after all. |
oct 2
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I just got home from cashel, where I met ella o'dwyer for coffee. what an incredible woman, she is so optimistic. she said she has questions for me: how have I achieved personal freedom? her curiosity about how women get personal freedom... has started me thinking. |
| oct 9
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I'm driving home from derry, there are birds flying above me, one flying lower, getting bigger, i think it is a big seagull until it is lower still and i can see its webbed feet, its unwieldy descent, its enormous wings. it is a goose, now at my window, its long neck next to mine, going 40 mph. we travel together like this for what seems like forever--time stands still.
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| november, leaving
Louhcrewe, Sliabh na Cailleach |
loughcrewe ritual--we drive--me, kay, teresa, mary, mel c, gillian... we climb up the hillside, put the key in the lock, enter a sacred place. we drink wine and burn our worries on pieces of paper in the middle of the circle. we light candles which illuminate the mysterious walls of this sanctuary. i have never seen a place like this. sliabh na cailleach. i will never forget it.
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may, 2000
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Backhome. stuck again. missing ireland. My wish list is long: a producer, a team of transcribers, an NTSC to PAL VCR. I don't think I will ever do a project again on my own. I need that other half, saying yes that's good, no, that's not. I don't trust myself. This has been the problem all along of course. It is like losing your stomach for a year and a half--like you are living at the top of the rollercoaster, when your feet come off the floor and you and your stomach are suspended, without gravity. I have been editing since the end of January. There is no end in sight. How will I throw anything away? I am attached to it all. Each interview gives me goosebumps. But how does it fit together? Why am I struggling with that? People keep talking about glue. I don't know how I feel about glue. I have been resisting it all along, so why am I surprised now, when the glue is not sticking? It dries, white and crusty, obvious. I must keep myself grounded--grounded in the women I've met, trusting my love of what they taught me. |
