Blog Nov. 3

Post for Nov. 3
In our last three films (including the first half of "Camille Claudel,") we've seen artistic creation constructed in terms of gender. "Belly of an Architect" inverts (subverts?) traditional ideas of gender, "Artimisia" plays into them, and we haven't decided yet about "Camille Claudel" (although we did observe that Claudel's story is very much also Rodin's).
What can the two latest readings contribute to your thinking about how gender is linked with art in these movies?
Are women associated with nature and men with culture? (Ortner)

Are compulsive looking and touching, and eroticism identified with female art-making? (Felleman) Due by the end of the day Tuesday, Nov. 2.



In the last three films we have watched in class, they all relate gender to art in different ways. Gender unlike sex is a social construction of reality and therefore gender roles are interpreted different throughout various cultures. However in most cultures, with few exceptions of matrilineal control in societal structure (some Native American tribes for example) women are considered subordinate to males in every aspect of society. For example in Artemisia she is forbidden from the Academia, in Camille Claudel she is also not allowed to exhibit her work in the salon, for both of these women their success as an artists will largely have to do with their involvement or connection with famous male artists.

In Belly of an Architect, Kracklite is losing his sense of self as his wife is simultaneously gaining one. Before coming to Italy from their dialogues we can assert that Mrs. Kracklite would just follow Stuart wherever his job would take him, acting as an accessory. In American this is absolutely fine, even though there is a considerable difference in her age and his, in Capitalist America, young beautiful women are just another possession available for “purchase”; they are commodities turned into symbols that exalt male power and prestige.

When the couple travel to Italy for Kracklite's commission they are thrust into a culture that does not share the same ideologies as American. The disparity in the ages of the couple is one of the first instances of foreshadowing to the couples demise. The Italians criticism of their age difference is alluded to multiple times in the first few open scenes of the movie, and the viewer slowly realizes this is an emerging themes. The question is, is the problem really with the difference in their ages or is it because they envy hiss skill and innovation his “culture” (as Ortner calls culture systems of though and technology) and take away his muse, his natural inspiration and ruin his career and end his life. While Stuart dies slowly his wife is blossoming, and appears more and more physically attractive (via clothing dress and attitude) the worships health and their relationship gets.

Personally I felt that this movie as Dr. Libby said subverts and inverts gender roles unlike Artimisia and Camille Claudel.

Usually the women is left hopeless and dying; the female is the subordinate who has to sit back and watch their emotions be ignored. In Belly of an Architect his wife the major female role; and is Kracklite's muse even though he considers Bolero his inspiration, his confident, the person he divulges his most inner thoughts and secrets with.

Cracklite is the vulnerable character in this film and his insecurities and fragile emotional state lead to his demise. In the other films, especially Camille Claudel, it is the female ingénue whose emotions are her ultimate demise. Or perhaps he does not die of a broken heart (figuratively) perhaps it is his loss of pride and prestige. Because he is stripped of his honor and his manhood (visually demonstrated when he observes his wife sleeping with the enemy as he defiles his phallic sculpture). His architecture is his contribution to culture. When he was asked to leave the commission his creativity was taken from him.

****(….what’s unnerving is that when I realized this maybe because the gender roles are reversed is why I found it so annoyed with Kracklite and uncomfortable while watching the film)

Ortner asserts that there are three types of data to prove whether or not a particular culture considers women inferior:
1) elements of cultural ideology …explicitly devalue women, according them their roles their tasks their products and their social milluex less PRESTIGE than are accorded men … 2) symbolic devices such as attribution of defilement (implicitly making a statement of inferior valuation and 3) social structural arrangements that exclude women from participation in or contact with some realm in which the highest powers of the society are felt to reside.

Artemisia has all three sets of data to conclude that the society represented in the film most certainly considered women inferior. 1) She is first sent away to become a nun, an appropriate role for women of this time. 2) She is rejected from the academia only because she is female. 3) Because she was raped, she lost value in her society and worth in the eyes of her father or potential suitors. This incredibly personal experience is put on trial because her father wants to be compensated for the damages done to his property.

Fellemen’s article talks about how biopics about female artists (Artemisia and Camille Claudel) ultimately propose a view of artistic or cinematic origins are hardly empowering to women, since each constructs art as a product of a female imagination deformed by pathology….The narrative is a mythic one of cinematic origin.” (39)

The plot of Camille Claudel revolves around her relationship with sculptor Auguste Rodin. This same student master relationship is the main source of conflict in Frida, Artemisia, and Camille Claudel. Camille pathology is her “Mud Lust”, which is symbolic of cocoprofelia, love of excrement (children are knows to smear there excrement) and their love of “filthy images” or “mess” as Rodin calls it.

Camille is constantly working the clay with her hands, they clay which she runs off into the night to steal, a behavior which her parents consider deviant. This gives the audience the feeling that she is up to no good, that she does not conform to the standards of her family or her culture.
In one scene in the film Rodin places a woman in the most exploitative pose. All of her private parts are shown; he forces her to squat and crouch and touches and models her into the pose that he wants, an unbelievable vulnerable one. Camille watches this, she steps in and changes the position to at least cover the woman’s breasts but then takes the pedestal on which she sits and rotates in and Rodin joins in. In this scene she simultaneously tries to prevent the blatant objectivity, while exalting it. The pose was no less degrading, only more artistically pleasing. She is the subject. These artists share a casual disregard for women, and a high regard of themselves. Not soon after this scene in the film, their relationship begins in a similar manner as this scene. Rodin is working on his, Danaid he tells the model to leave, and Camille strips and takes her place. Rodin comes over and kisses her neck; she is now the object.

“This moment perfectly illustrates both the strangely symbiotic process through which a work of erotic power can come into being and the ease with which the female figure slips from a position to that of object. It is that slippage, as well as enduring cultural assumptions about masculine priority that contribute to the atmosphere of madness and persecution that beset Claudel later in the film and indeed in her life.” (34)