Feminists: What Were They Thinking?

In 1977 a photographer published a book. There were portraits of women in it; all of them at ease before the camera, none of them posing. The documentary starts from those photographs and finds the women in them today. Some are artists, some writers, some activists. It asks what they were thinking, what has changed and what has not. Names from a newer generation come into it as well. The subject begins as a history and connects to the present; harassment, unequal pay and representation are still in the same place. Johanna Demetrakas directs. Laurie Anderson, Phyllis Chesler, Judy Chicago, Funmilola Fagbamila, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are among those who speak. It is an American production. The source is Cynthia MacAdams's book of photographs. The documentary went out on Netflix. Its form is weighted to talking heads; archive and interview alternate. The matter it treats is how a movement is remembered; the film reads the women's movement of the seventies through today's eyes. The documentary takes on the divisions inside the movement as well; questions of race and class are in it. The photographs are its spine and each portrait opens a section. Its limit is depth; the interviews are short, the subject wide, and the narrative stays on the surface. Who it is for: viewers who like documentaries about social movements and portrait work. Who it is not for: it is scattered, superficial, and the ending is a call to action.