https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9774-2550
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Abstract
This article aims to identify various ways in which women’s amateur filmmaking becomes obscured in both film archives and in the academic scholarship on film and filmmaking. Recognising that amateur film is marginalised and undervalued in relation to commercial and professional filmmaking, the article uses the case study of one Irish amateur filmmaker to identify the processes and practices that have resulted in her work being obscured and overlooked. The filmmaker, Sr Maureen MacMahon, was practicing amateur filmmaking from the 1960s to the 1970s and her work is held at the Irish Film Archive. Investigation of Sr Maureen’s filmmaking drew from a variety of sources including the films and film materials, film metadata recorded at the archive, newspaper archives, an archive held at Sr Maureen’s religious order and an interview with Sr Maureen. Analyses of these materials has resulted in three findings: firstly, the dispersal of materials and information pertaining to Sr Maureen across multiple sites posed challenges for our construction of a coherent narrative about her; secondly, Sr Maureen turned her hand to many creative and pedagogic activities beyond filmmaking, and, in her own estimation, she was an arts educator more than a filmmaker; and, finally, the films are not easily categorised as they are generically and stylistically diverse, making auteurist approaches difficult. Drawing from these findings we discuss the challenges that this creates for foregrounding women’s contributions to film.
Acknowledgements
The authors state their thanks and gratitude to Sr Maureen MacMahon and her extended family; The Irish Film Institute and the Irish Film Archive; the Dominican Order Archivist, Sr Mary O’Byrne; and the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding provided to carry out this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For further scholarship on women’s amateur filmmaking see: Patricia R. Zimmermann, ‘Professional Results with Amateur Ease: The Formation of Amateur Filmmaking Aesthetics 1923-1940’, Film History (1988): 267–81; Ryan Shand, ‘Theorizing Amateur Cinema: Limitations And Possibilities’, The Moving Image 8, no. 2 (2008): 36–60; and Sarah Hill and Keith M. Johnston, ‘Making women amateur filmmakers visible: reclaiming women’s work through the film archive’, Women’s History Review 29, no. 5 (2020): 875–889. For further scholarship on women’s commercial and feature filmmaking see: Katarzyna Paszkiewicz, Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers (Edinburgh University Press, 2008); Christine Gledhill, ‘Introduction: Transnationalizing Women’s Film History’, Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 51, no. 2 (2010): 275–82; Patricia White, Women’s Cinema, World Cinema: Projecting Contemporary Feminisms (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015); and Vicky Ball, Pat Kirkham and Laraine Porter, ‘Structures of feeling: contemporary research in women’s film and broadcasting history’, Women’s History Review 29, no. 5 (2020): 759–765.
2 Sherry J. Katz, ‘Researching Around our Subjects: Excavating Radical Women’, Journal of Women’s History 20, no. 1 (2008): 168–86.
3 Patricia R. Zimmermann, Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), x.
4 Heather Norris Nicholson, ‘Through the Balkan States: Home Movies As Travel Texts And Tourism Histories in the Mediterranean, c. 1923–39’, Tourist Studies 6, no. 1 (2006): 13–36; and Zimmermann, Reel Families, x.
5 Fred Camper, ‘Some Notes on the Home Movie’, Journal of Film and Video (1986): 9–14; R. Chalfen, ‘Home Movies as Cultural Documents’, in Film/Culture: Explorations of Cinema in Its Social Context, ed. Sari, Thomas (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1982), 126–38; Patricia Erens, ‘Home-Movies and Amateur Film Making’, Journal of Film and Video 38 nos. 3–4 (1986): 4–7; Chuck Kleinhans, ‘My Aunt Alice’s Home Movies’, Journal of Film and Video (1986): 25–35; and Zimmermann, ‘Professional Results with Amateur Ease’, 267–81.
6 Camper, ‘Some Notes on the Home Movie’, 14.
7 Richard Chalfen, Snapshot Versions of Life (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 1987).
8 Ryan Shand, ‘Theorizing Amateur Cinema: Limitations and Possibilities’, The Moving Image 8, no. 2 (2008): 36–60.
9 Ibid., 37.
10 Ibid., 52.
11 Judi Hetrick, ‘Amateur Video Must Not be Overlooked’, The Moving Image 6, no. 1 (2006): 74.
12 Scholarship addressing home movies and conventions of professional film includes: Karen L. Ishizuka and Patricia R. Zimmermann, eds. Mining the Home Movie: Excavations in Histories and Memories (University of California Press, 2008); and Zimmermann, Reel Families. Colonialism and amateur film scholarship includes the following: Veena Hariharan, ‘At Home in the Empire: Reading Colonial Home Movies—The Hyde Collection (1928–1937)’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 5 no. 1 (2014): 49–61; Matthew Kerry, ‘The Changing Face of the Amateur Holiday Film in Britain as Constructed by Post-War Amateur Cine World (1945–1951)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 34, no. 4 (2014): 511–27; Heather Norris Nicholson, ‘Telling Travelers’ Tales: The World Through Home Movies’, Engaging Film: Geographies of Mobility and Identity (2002): 47–66; Nicholson, ‘At Home and Abroad with Cine Enthusiasts: Regional Amateur Filmmaking and Visualizing the Mediterranean, ca. 1928–1962’, GeoJournal 59, no. 4 (2004): 323–33; and Norris Nicholson, ‘Through the Balkan States: Home Movies as Travel Texts and Tourism Histories in the Mediterranean, c. 1923–39’, Tourist Studies 6, no. 1 (2006): 13–36.
13 Ciara Chambers, ‘Capturing the Nation: Irish Home Movies, 1930–1970’, Journal of Film Preservation 82 (2010): 60.
14 Ibid., 60.
15 James Martin Moran, There’s No Place Like Home Video: Questions of Medium Specificity (University of Southern California, 1998); Kleinhans, ‘My Aunt Alice’s Home Movies’; A. Kattelle, Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897–1979 (Transition Publishing, 2000); Norris Nicholson, ‘“As If by Magic”: Authority, Aesthetics, and Visions of the Workplace in Home Movies, circa 1931–1949’; Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes, ‘Uncensored Imperial Politics in British Home Movies From 1920s-1950s’, in Amateur Filmmaking. The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web, ed. Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young, with Barry Monahan (London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 95–107; Roger Odin, ‘Reflections on the Family Home Movie as Document: A Semio-Pragmatic Approach’, in Mining the Home Movie. Excavations in Histories and Memories, ed. Karen L. Ishizuka and Patricia R. Zimmermann (University of California Press, 2007), 255–71; Veena Hariharan, ‘At Home in the Empire: Reading Colonial Home Movies—The Hyde Collection (1928–1937)’, BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 5 no. 1 (2014): 49–61; and Francis Gooding, ‘What is Amateur Film?’, Critical Quarterly 63, no. 2 (2021): 80-101.
16 Gooding, ‘What is Amateur Film?’.
17 Dagmar Brunow, ‘Queering the Archive’. Making the Invisible Visible: Reclaiming Women’s Agency in Swedish Film History And Beyond (2020), 97; Jan-Christopher Horak, ‘Out of the Attic: Archiving Amateur Film’, Journal of Film Preservation 56, no. 50 (1998): 4.
18 Kasandra O’Connell, ‘Archivally Absent? Female Filmmakers in the IFI Irish Film Archive’, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media 20 (2021): 12–27; and Judy Hetrick, ‘Amateur Video Must Not be Overlooked’, The Moving Image 6, no. 1 (2006): 66–81.
19 O’Connell, ‘Archivally Absent?’.
20 Rebecca Hall, ‘Amateurs in the Archive: The Northeast Historic Film Symposium’, Film Quarterly 68, no. 2 (2014): 57.
21 Hills and Johnston, ‘Making women amateur filmmakers visible’.
22 O’Connell, ‘Archivally Absent?’.
23 Motrescu-Mayes and Norris Nicholson, British Women Amateur Filmmakers: National Memories and Global Identities (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).
24 Kimberly Tarr and Wendy Shay, ‘How Film (and Video) Found Its Way into ‘Our Nation’s Attic’: A Conversation about the Origins of Audiovisual Collecting and Archiving at the Smithsonian Institution’, The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 13, no. 1 (2013): 178–84.
25 Charles Tepperman, ‘The Amateur Movie Database: Archives, Publics, Digital Platforms’, Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 17, no. 2 (2017): 106–110; Paul Frith and Keith M. Johnston, ‘Beyond place: rethinking British amateur films through gender and technology-based perspectives’, Screen 61, no. 1 (2020): 129–37; O’Connell, ‘Archivally Absent?’.
26 Ibid.
27 Zoë Burgess, ‘Panning for Gold in the Amateur Film Collection of Wessex Film and Sound Archive’, Women’s Film and Television History Network UK/Ireland, online blog (2023).
28 D. Brunow, D. ‘Queering the Archive’, 97.
29 Frith and Johnston, ‘Beyond place’; Motrescu-Mayes and Nicholson, ‘British Women Amateur Filmmakers’.
30 O’Connell, ‘Archivally Absent?’; Katz, ‘Researching Around our Subjects’, 169.
31 Frances C. Galt, ‘Researching Around our Subjects: Working Towards a Women’s Labour History of Trace Unions in The British Film And Television Industries’, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media (2021): 166–88.
32 Vicky Ball and Melanie Bell, ‘Working women, women’s work: production, history, gender’, Journal of British Cinema and Television 10 no. 3 (2013): 547–62; Catherine Martin, ‘Archival Research as a Feminist Practice’, New Review of Film and Television Studies 16, no. 4 (2018): 454–60; James Fenwick, ‘The Exploitation of Sue Lyon: Lolita (1962), Archival Research, and Questions For Film History’, Feminist Media Studies (2021): 1–16.
33 Gerda Lerner, ‘Placing Women in History: Definitions and Challenges’, Feminist Studies 3, nos. 1/2 (1975): 5–14.
34 Sr Maureen MacMahon, ‘My Story’, P/OP/MMacM, Archive of the Dominican Sisters Cabra, Dublin, Ireland (2005).
35 Sr Maureen MacMahon, Sister Maureen’s Selection of Irish Art: With Reflections (Dublin: Columba Press, 2012).
36 Puppet Project. [Super8mm film]. Ireland: Black Raven Group, c. 1968; ‘Encouraging Number Enter Film Contest’, Irish Independent, February 29, 1968, 5; Kay. [Super8 film] Irish Film Archive. Ireland: Black Raven Group, 1969; ‘Fictional Films Were Favoured by Amateurs’, Irish Independent, February 3, 1969, 8.
37 Irish Film Archive, ‘Sr Maureen MacMahon Deposit Agreement’, 26 January 26 2012, Donor Reference: 601. Irish Film Archive Record, Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland.
38 Tarr and Shay, ‘How Film (and Video) Found Its Way into “Our Nation’s Attic”‘.
39 MacMahon, Sister Maureen’s Selection of Irish Art.
40 Irish Film Archive, ‘Sr Maureen MacMahon Deposit Agreement’, 26 January 2012, Donor Reference: 601. Irish Film Archive Record, Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland; MacMahon, Sister Maureen’s Selection of Irish Art.
41 Sr Maureen MacMahon Collection Filmographic, 2012. Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland.
42 Sean Brophy Collection Filmographic, 2014. Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland.
43 Irish Film Archive, ‘Sr Maureen MacMahon Deposit Agreement’, 26 January 2012, Donor Reference: 601. Irish Film Archive Record, Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland.
44 Sr Maureen MacMahon Collection Filmographic, Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland, 2012.
45 AF6783 Filmographic URN for Puppet Project. Sean Brophy Collection Filmographic, 2014. Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland.
46 Sr Maureen MacMahon, interview by Sarah Arnold, Santa Sabina House, Dominican Sisters Nursing Home, Cabra, Dublin (2022). Interview with MacMahon carried out on 27 February 2022.
47 Sr Maureen MacMahon. ‘CV’, P/OP/MMacM, Archive of the Dominican Sisters Cabra, Dublin, Ireland, 2015.
48 Sr Maureen MacMahon, interview by Sarah Arnold, 2022.
49 Ibid.
50 O’Connell, ‘Archivally Absent?’.
51 Shand, ‘Theorizing Amateur Cinema’.
52 AF5621 Filmographic URN for No Straight Lines. Sr Maureen MacMahon Collection Filmographic, 2012. Irish Film Archive, Dublin, Ireland.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Tom Hennigan, ‘Their £5 Film Won Cup and £30’, 26th Evening Herald, 13 June 1969; and ‘Mr. J.P. Murphy, Chairman of the National Film Institute…’, Irish Press, 26 June 26 1969, 4.
56 Sr Maureen MacMahon, interview by Sarah Arnold, 2022.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Sarah Arnold
Sarah Arnold is Associate Professor at Maynooth University, Ireland. Her books include Gender and Early Television (Bloomsbury, 2021); Media Graduates at Work (co-authored with Anne O’Brien and Páraic Kerrigan, Palgrave, 2021); Maternal Horror Film (Palgrave, 2013) and the Film Handbook (co-authored with Mark De Valk, Routledge, 2013). Her research interests include women and media work, as well as media education and transitions into work. Her research is published in journals including Creative Industries Journal; Cultural Trends; Industry and Higher Education; and Women’s History Review.
Carolann Madden
Carolann Madden is Postdoctoral Researcher at Maynooth University, Ireland. Her research interests include women’s methods of cultural production, material and expressive culture, folklore, and the archiving and cataloguing of material culture. She has worked as a project archivist on the KUHT Public Television Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Archives of American Art Microfilm Project. She was assistant archivist for the William J. Hill Archive, where she also held a Research Fellowship for her research on born-digital archives.