What does it mean when a film is “handmade”?
If we’re talking about experimental film, the term “handmade” usually refers to techniques like direct animation, processing film at home instead of sending it to a lab, or otherwise directly manipulating your negative or film print (bleaching, dying, etc.).
Naomi Uman engages in all these techniques. Her most well-known film is probably Removed (1999), which involves direct animation of found footage. Uman took pieces of a 1970s German porn film and bleached out the nude female figures, frame-by-frame, with nail polish remover. The women perform pleasure in ghosted images, frustrating the original intent of the pornography.
Handmade films draw the viewer away from focusing solely on the content of a film and instead shift at least some attention to the means of production. Hand-processing renders the emulsion itself visible as the image flutters with inconsistent contact with processing chemicals. Direct animation pulls us out of the immersive world of the photographic by making the hand of the filmmaker obvious.
In experimental cinema, “handmade” often connotes analog — sometimes as an opposition to digital — and makes a claim to intimacy between a filmmaker and their materials. It is a kind of mythos that has sprung up around this mode of production, but that intimacy is not always experienced by the viewer. Removed is a good example of this tension. Any frame-by-frame animation technique involves some degree of intimacy between the filmmaker and their subject, and Uman would have had her hands on every single frame of this film. But as a viewer, intimacy is precisely what we are denied. Removed introduces distance between us and its subject, prompting many viewers over the years to reflect on objectification and the male gaze.
However, there are times when the experience of the filmmaker and the viewer more closely align. In documentaries like Leche (1998) and its 2003 sequel, Mala Leche, Uman brings us into a world instead of pushing us out of it. Leche was shot on black-and-white film stock, processed by Uman herself and hung to dry with clothespins. We can see ripples and scratches on the emulsion, artifacts of home-processing, but in this case it echoes the content rather than undermining it. Uman features close-ups of hands working: milking cows and making cheese. Our focus is on Uman’s subjects, not necessarily on the film technique itself, but the technique still makes itself known from time to time.
The idea of handmade can be fraught and contradictory (just like its sister concept, “authenticity”), but there’s a reason why there are still filmmakers who gravitate toward it. There is an element of wild chance in handmade techniques, true experimentation. Much of filmmaking involves precise mechanical processes, and the allure of working directly with your materials with your hands is seductive, a cultivation of intimacy.
Watch a selection of Naomi Uman’s short films at IU Cinema on April 28 at 7 pm as part of the Underground Film Series.
Laura Ivins loves stop motion, home movies, imperfect films, nature hikes, and Stephen Crane’s poetry. She has a PhD from Indiana University and an MFA from Boston University. In addition to watching and writing about movies, sometimes she also makes them.