Finding Hammer
by R. Z. Halleson
GoodReads.com is a fun website for those of us who love to read and share our opinions about the books we love or don't love or even like. I get occasional email updates about what Rosemary, Amanda, YiShun, Christine, and all my other friends and family are reading (How different their tastes are from mine!).
The website has a feature where authors and publishers offer free review copies of new books and we can sign up for the ones that interest us. Since sometimes hundreds of readers might sign up for any given book, the probability of receiving one seemed slight to me, so I tried signing up for a book that didn't have many signups and that wasn't going to be offered for more than a couple of days. To my surprise, a copy of Barbara Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life appeared in my mailbox about two weeks later. I had won the lottery if, indeed, that is how I was chosen.
This autobiography of experimental film-maker Barbara Hammer was published by The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, www.feminstpress.org. The book contains short essays by Hammer written at various stages of her life up to the present, and is filled with well-chosen photos depicting what she was doing and thinking about along the way.
The first part of the book seemed a bit too self-indulgent for my taste; it showed a woman who was all about herself and her desires and her interests. But since it was an AUTObiography after all, I persevered. The Feminist Press was trusting me to give this book a fair reading.
Before I continue, we need to recognize that the Feminist Press had no idea who would be receiving this book nor through what eyes Barbara Hammer's story would be read.
Hammer and I are about the same age--currently in our seventies. I am a hetersexual woman; she is a lesbian woman although she seemed to have had quite a romp as a younger woman married to a man.
In the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) world, I am guessing that Hammer would very likely test as an ENFP while I am an INTJ. She seems to have an extroverted personality although she also works comfortably alone. I am an introvert who can be around crowds for limited periods of time before needing to withdraw. Hammer lets her emotions influence her decision-making, and this, coupled with the perceptive part of her personality gives her an amazing ability to explore herself and her relationships without restraint, to rise above the ordinary and to see her world with different eyes, so to speak. I tend to be more analytical, more organized, and prefer stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. What we both share is an off-the-charts Intuitive function, and this is where the two of us connect.
I had never heard of Barbara Hammer until I received this book, so I looked her up on the Internet (Where else???) and found that she is well-known both in film-making and in lesbian circles. Her autobiography will certainly resonate in both communities as she is quite detailed in her description of the processes of her particular take on the art of film creation and teaching as well as on how she worked through her relationships with women to discover a deeper sense of self.
As Hammer moves into describing her later years, her struggles, joys, and recognition as a true artist in her own right, I became much more intrigued. She matured, found a life partner, and seemed to become more reflective. The backdrop of lesbianism plays an extremely important role in how she manifests her art, and her emotional/intuitive self expresses this in abstract themes and forms that will not be understood easily by those who are more sensing than intuitive. (See Please Understand Me by David Keirsey for further information about the MBTI.)
The lesbian women (and gay men) among my friends and family live conventional lives, some raise children, some don't; they hold jobs, own homes, attend church, and do all the good things that help to build a stable society for us all. It was not Hammer's lesbianism that interested me as much as how her personality spun her into an avant garde exploration of self through experimental film-making in a time when equipment did not lend itself to efficient production. In this respect she is a heroine for pursuing her art and trying many forms of self-expression through this medium.
As the book ends, Hammer's personality gives Halleson's personality a nice gift. She makes a list:
The Creative process
IN THE BEGINNING
IN THE MIDDLE
TOWARDS THE END
ENDING
COMMUNICATING
Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life is an important book that may well become a classic. The Feminst Press can be proud.