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Jymi Bolden
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Video Documentarist Barbara Wolf struggles to
balance social activism and filmmaking.
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oday's inspiration is found in a worn paperback copy of Cornel West essays. A dog-eared page leads video documentarist and social activist Barbara Wolf to the essay she's read and re-read during a recent flight from San Diego. For now, West's words have her mind's attention.
"Here it is ... 'Tracing Hypocrisy,' " Wolf says, enthusiastically. "This has got me thinking about what I've been talking about. Tracing hypocrisy in one's own life is something I try to do with my work."
Wolf is a long-time fixture in Cincinnati's social community. She has worked in community-access television since 1982. Her own video documentaries focus on the efforts of non-profit and social-change organizations. Her film Degrees of Shame Part-Time Faculty: Migrant Workers of the Information Economy examines the unfair treatment of adjunct college professors. This Call Originates takes a piercing look at the prison/industrial complex that has taken hold throughout America's prisons. These Old Buildings Raised Our Many Children looks at the effects of redevelopment on low-income residents in Over-the-Rhine.
Wolf led a group of artists protesting against Cincinnati Pops Conductor Erich Kunzel's plan to relocate the Drop-In Center for a new School for Creative and Performing Arts. During last fall's Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue protests, Wolf joined the marchers on the streets of downtown Cincinnati. Since moving to Cincinnati in 1959, Wolf has become a pillar of the local activist community. She is also a woman in film.
The average moviegoer thinks of Julia Roberts when the phrase "women's film" is mentioned. They envision celebrity actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow or Michelle Pfeiffer. What they don't consider is a grassroots filmmaker like Wolf. As a long-time video documentarist, Wolf has been behind a video camera for some time. She is a women making movies whose life shares nothing in common with famous faces like Heather Graham, Drew Barrymore or Cameron Diaz. Wolf is a different breed of leading lady. She tackles social issues through her work. Her ideology goes beyond the female gender. Her cinema is one of tolerance, and its subjects are people in need of help.
"I got a call right before the anti-TABD demonstrations," Wolf says, speaking at her East Walnut Hills home. "I went down to that and spent four days running the streets with kids. That's hard work with this body.
"I just learned so much. It was a fascinating time. Over the years, I have been involved with a whole variety of things like that, starting back in the civil rights days. It's like a pattern you develop, and it becomes a part of your life."
Numerous labels might describe Wolf: hippie, beatnik, feminist and radical. But no tag can change who Wolf is as an artist. Her black hair is long and streaked with gray. Her wardrobe is a matter-of-fact ensemble of black shirt and pants. But there is an energy and a high spirit in Wolf's facial expressions. She speaks with noticeable excitement, and it is impossible not to get caught up in her enthusiasm.
The large house Wolf shares with Michael Burnham, a professor of drama at UC's College-Conservatory of Music, is a cluttered home of artists and scholars. Piles of books and papers fill each room. It's what one would refer to as intellectual clutter. Notes and newspaper articles hang from the bare branches of indoor trees. Like Wolf herself, the house is unobtrusive, distinctly arty and intentionally folksy.
Video cassettes sit on a table in Wolf's makeshift office. Her editing room is located in the basement. It does not require an abundance of donations or government funding for Wolf to make her films. She is able to remain busy and prolific on a shoestring budget. She edits her own films. The scale of her films is intentionally intimate. She is frequently a one-woman crew. Basically, Wolf wears all the hats. She also finances her work. Her challenge is to take time away from activist causes to create her film work.
"You can't do both activism and video documentary," Wolf says. "I really do believe it's one or the other. I'm taking a break from activism now, because I have to do my work. It's been almost nine months, and I need to work."
Wolf doesn't make melodramas. She's not interested in girl power fluff like Charlie's Angels. Wolf makes documentaries, and she is particular about the stories she tells. Her challenge is to find the project that unites her filmmaking with social causes. Wolf documentaries are part of a cinema of tolerance. Their value lies in the way they document the lives of their subjects. Leave it to feminist scholar Camille Paglia to determine whether Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider is to be considered a women's film. Wolf has other fish to fry.
In Cincinnati, it's easy to stay away from the boy's town mentality of moviemaking. Here, Wolf has the freedom to choose the stories that matter most to her. There is little talk about a personal film aesthetic or feminist film theorists like B Ruby Rich. With Wolf, the conversation stays personal.
Wolf was part of a college campus movement in the 1970s that supported post-modern artists like Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman and Sherry Levine. She stopped wanting to be a Montgomery housewife. Experiments in photography and slide presentations ignited her passion for visual storytelling. Volunteer work with the Urban Appalachian Council led to video documentary.
Everything Wolf knows about video she learned from experience. It was only a matter of time before she found herself permanently behind a camera.
Wolf remains focused on her heartland stories. Her documentary style shares little with the avant-garde. Her stories are not sexually oriented like Sally Potter's Orlando, Jane Campion's The Piano or the sexual transgression drama Boys Don't Cry.
Wolf has little time for film theory. She is too busy making her documentaries. She wants to make a social impact through her films. Laura Mulvey's feminist essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," does not fit into her equation.
Wolf is friendly and down-to-earth. There is no bravado or self-promotion in her actions. She is what a Midwestern filmmaker should be: confident in her abilities but content to stay close to the heartland and its people.
Wolf could do her work anywhere, but she has local commitments. A daughter lives in Montgomery. Her relationship with Burnham goes back over 20 years. Cincinnati is her home. It's also the place where she continues to find her stories. ©
