Joyce Wieland
Biography
Joyce Wieland (1931-1998) was an experimental filmmaker and artist, whose work challenged and bridged boundaries among avant garde film factions of her time. Her works introduced a kind of manual manipulation of the filmstrip that inscribed an explicitly female craft tradition into her films, while also playing with the facticity of photographed images. Wieland's output was small, but received considerable attention in comparison to other female avant garde filmmakers of her time. As both a gallery artist and a filmmaker, Wieland was able to crossover between those realms and garner attention and support in both. In 1963 Wieland and Snow moved to New York where they lived for ten years. She attracted critical recognition of her work but eventually moved back to Toronto. Wieland later divorced Snow and kept a low profile until her death in 1998 from Alzheimer's disease. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982.
Known For & Full Filmography13 Titles
Movie - 1969, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
A camera moves back and forth at an increasing pace. Back and forth, back and forth...
Movie - 1967, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
In a Lower Manhattan industrial loft, a camera very slowly zooms into a photograph on a wall while various people occasionally enter and exit.
Movie - 2016, 2h 15m • as Herself
A serendipitous encounter with a younger artist gives legendary Canadian art icon Michael Snow the opportunity to reflect on his life and career.
Movie - 1985, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.
Movie - 1967, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Experimental short in which a camera pans quickly in a small apartment space; Disembodied voices speak of audience engagement.
Movie - 1974, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Various unrelated vignettes, often juxtaposing sound and image.
Movie - 1966, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
In this "fourteen-part drill for the camera," Frampton created a portrait gallery of his art-world friends engaging in a variety of ordinary activities.
Movie - 1970, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Zorns Lemma is a 1970 American structuralist film by Hollis Frampton. It is named after Zorn's lemma (also known as the Kuratowski–Zorn lemma), a proposition of set theory formulated by mathematician Max Zorn in 1935. Zorns Lemma is prefaced with a reading from an early grammar textbook. The remainder of the film, largely silent, shows the viewer an evolving 24-part "alphabet" (where i & j and u & v are interchanged) which is cycled through, replaced and expanded upon. The film's conclusion shows a man, woman and dog walking through snow as several voices read passages from On Light, or the Ingression of Forms by Robert Grosseteste.
Movie - 1968, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
The rising moon is the main theme in this short movie of three people and an animal going about their nocturnal rituals. This movie is evidently part three of my trilogy that started with HOLD ME WHILE I'M NAKED and ECLIPSE OF THE SUN VIRGIN. It evidently is, since part three never really came out. This seems to look like it could be part three. — GK (anthologyfilmarchives.org)
Movie - 1987, 2h 15m • as Self
Considered one of Canada's most important women artists of the second half of the 20th century, Joyce Wieland's art embodies the essence of her homeland, feminism, and ecology. Artist on Fire: Joyce Wieland captures the vibrant spirit of this painter, collagist, quilt maker, and filmmaker. In the early '70s, Wieland was involved in filmmaking, producing movies with a political message. In her 30-year career, she worked in a variety of mediums, including cloth, pastels, colored pencil, oils, bronze, and watercolor. Her works and her influence are examined in this detailed video portrait.
Movie - 1985, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Mother Superior commits murder to save a soul from eternal damnation. Motel Capri was original material improvised as we went along. Scenes were concocted to suit the individual members of the class and my Catholic upbringing plus immersion in horror movies helped mold the plot. The class also was populated by students interested in splatter and macho cycle gear. Joyce Wieland, the Canadian artist and filmmaker is featured here as the mother superior. She was reading her lines in the Marlon Brando technique (they were pasted onto the face of her student co-star). – GK
Movie - 1967, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Joyce Wieland: “Hollis and I came back to Toronto on holiday in the summer of '67. We were staying at a friend's house. We worked our way through the city and eventually made it to the island. We followed each other around. We enjoyed ourselves. We said we were going to make a film about each other - and we did”. A & B in Ontario was completed eighteen years after the original material was shot. After Frampton's death, the film was assembled by Wieland into a cinematic dialogue in which the collaborators shoot each other with cameras.
Movie - 1966, 2h 15m • as Love's Labor
Ken Jacobs’s most elusive and mysterious film is at once an allegory of movie-making, a demonstration of 8mm versatility, and a celebration of a now vanished neighborhood beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.