A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

the reaction against itand make the intersection into something that exploits the useful parts of both approaches.

Friedrich:

I am a child of both worlds. When I was studying art history, I really responded to conceptual art, minimal artthose approaches which were very much about form and not about personal drama. But then, of course, I grew up through the women's movement and from the start really responded to the personal drama involved there. Not just that: I love fiction, I love to read about other people's lives, to learn about the choices people make and the ways in which they survive, or overcome, their personal histories. So I feel very much caught between the two approaches and I learn from both.

As an artist, it's important to me to keep both issues alive: to remember that my responsibility is to speak honestly about how it feels to be alive, and that my pleasure is to use my medium to its greatest advantage. I wouldn't be happy if I only let film tell a story in a conventional form, but I would feel that the heart of the work was missing if I only worked with the film as a material, if I only investigated its formal properties. The film scene is in a constant state of flux, and I think this effort to convey meaningful subject matter through unconventional form occupies a lot of filmmakers today. Hopefully, the lines between narrative, experimental, and documentary will continue to be broken down.

MacDonald:

Now that you've made a film about your father, as well as the film about your mother, it's probably inevitable that the two films will be paired a lot. When you made

The Ties That Bind,

did you already assume that, sooner or later, you'd come back to your history with your father?

Friedrich:

I know some people always have three or four projects in mind, but I never know what I'm going to do next until I'm completely finished with my current project. Certainly when I was interviewing my mother for

The Ties That Bind

and she got onto the subject of them getting divorced, it really struck a nerve and I thought it might be something to explore later.

One time a friend said it seemed like all of my films have been about my fathernot really

about him,

exactly, but about reacting to his influ-

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ence, or trying to get away from his influence, which is, in a larger sense, reacting to patriarchy. That was a pretty good observation, and I suspected there was going to come a time when I would have to deal with the question of patriarchy more directly, to look at how it happened closest to home, not

out there

somewhere.

MacDonald:

This film is clearly going to have a larger audience than some of the other films, just because it's in synch with the pervasive, contemporary issue of child abuse. What's interesting about

Sink or Swim

is its focus not on the most extreme types of child abuse, but on the situations men create because they feel that in order to

be

men, they have to act in a certain way. On one hand, you uncover the brutality that's gendered into the family situation. On the other hand, as much as there are things your father did that you really dislike, even hate, the film suggests an ambivalence about him and about his influence on you.

Friedrich:

Yes. I agree with what you said about gender, that abuse is more likely because of the inhuman situations that are intrinsic to a society that divides roles along gender lines. But

Sink or Swim

is also like

Mommie Dearest

: it's about the damage either parent can do when they're trying to shape their child in their own image. Most parents, either instinctively or consciously, try to instill their values in their child. They have a lot of ambitions themselves and, consequently, a lot of ambitions for their children. They force their children into activities or try to instill certain ideas in them that are not good, not natural for the child. I can see from watching the children of friends and relatives that part of who we are is formed by our parents and part of us is there from Day One. If you have a kid who's not naturally ambitious or aggressive and you try to make him that, you're just going to bend him out of shape. On the other hand, if you have ambitious children and don't encourage them, you can be very destructive.

To answer the second half of your questionabout my ambivalence about my father: people have said to me, "It can't be all that bad, because look where you are," or "You're not a destroyed person; you're capable, you've made films, you've lived a relatively good life." I recognize that, and that's the source of my ambivalence. Certainly, I've learned to do things from him that have stood me in good stead over the years, just as I have from my mother.

Moreover, since the film is about how I've been affected by

my