''Tender Fictions'' is a 1996 autobiographical documentary film directed by American experimental filmmaker

Barbara Hammer Barbara Jean Hammer (May 15, 1939 – March 16, 2019) was an American feminist film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She is known for being one of the pioneers of the lesbian film genre, and her career spanned over 50 years. Ham ...

. It is the second of a trilogy of documentary films that includes ''

Nitrate Kisses ''Nitrate Kisses'' is a 1992 experimental documentary film directed by Barbara Hammer. According to Hammer, it is an exploration of the repression and marginalization of LGBT people since the First World War. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of ...

'' and '' History Lessons''. Together, the three films are sometimes known as the "History trilogy". ''Tender Fictions'' details Hammer's life and her attempts to "construct" a

self In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes. The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) same ...

. The film was nominated for a prize at the 1996

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

Background

At the end of Hammer's 1992 experimental documentary film ''Nitrate Kisses'', writer

Joan Nestle Joan Nestle (born May 12, 1940) is a Lambda Award-winning writer and editor and a founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. She is openly lesbian and sees her work of archival work as critical to her identity as "a woman, as a lesbian, and as a ...

urges the viewer to preserve and document lesbian history for future generations. Hammer decided to create an autobiography, "before someone idit for er" The intention of ''Nitrate Kisses'' had been to explore the "making" of history, and who it is made by, with a particular emphasis on the "lost" history of lesbians and gay men. In making ''Tender Fictions'', Hammer extended the ideas from ''Nitrate Kisses'', and focused them on the nature of the autobiography. Her 2000 film ''History Lessons'' rounded off a trilogy of films about LGBT history that is called her "History trilogy".

Content

The film contains a collage of old

home movies A home movie is a short amateur film or video typically made just to preserve a visual record of family activities, a vacation, or a special event, and intended for viewing at home by family and friends. Originally, home movies were made on ph ...

, photographs, interviews, sounds and quotations. It details Hammer's childhood as a young girl born into a Ukrainian family, with a mother who wanted her to be like child actress

Shirley Temple Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple; April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat, who was Hollywood's number-one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. Later, she was na ...

, and a grandmother who worked as a cook for actress

Lillian Gish Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American actress best known for her work in movies of the silent era. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was dubbed the "F ...

. It chronicles her life in the 1960s and the moment in 1970 when she first heard the word ''lesbian'', and realized that it applied to her. According to Hammer, and to film academic

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is an experimental filmmaker, artist and author. She is Willa Cather Professor Emerita in Film Studies. Her work has focused on gender, race, ecofeminism, queer sexuality, eco-theory, and class studies. York College of ...

, a central theme of ''Tender Fictions'' is the "constructedness" of biographies and autobiographies and, by extension, the

. To find her sense of self, Hammer explores the lives and works of artists including

D. W. Griffith David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the n ...

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered o ...

and Shirley Temple. In the film, she says "I invented myself as an artist by reading autobiographies of famous artists, poets, painters. None of these were by or about lesbians".

Release and reception

''Tender Fictions'' was screened at the 1996

and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. It also played at the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

, the

Ann Arbor Film Festival The Ann Arbor Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Established in 1963, it is the fourth-oldest film festival in North America (after the Yorkton Film Festival, 1947; Columbus International Film & Video Festival, 19 ...

, the Charlotte Film and Video Festival and the

Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festival held biennially in Yamagata, Japan ( ). It was first held in October 1989, which makes it one of the longest- running documentary film festivals in the world ...

. Writing for ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'',

Emanuel Levy Emanuel Levy () is a veteran, well-known American film critic and professor emeritus of sociology and film of Arizona State University. For the past 50 years, he has taught a wide variety of courses in sociology, film studies, and popular cultur ...

called the film "a frustrating experience". He said that parts were interesting but there was "too much narration" and that ultimately the film was "exhausting and not much fun to watch." He also said that it was "best suited for gay and lesbian festivals."

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 0114646 1996 films 1996 documentary films 1996 LGBTQ-related films American biographical films American independent films Documentary films about lesbians Autobiographical documentary films 1996 independent films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films English-language documentary films American LGBTQ-related documentary films American collage films English-language independent films Films directed by Barbara Hammer