“I will never convert me, horror!, in an animal as normal, and ruthless; in that monstrosity of deformed: the virtuous woman. That is, the Devil, at least that”.
there was Much talk about the canadian author Mary MacLane (1881-1929) in the first moments of the TWENTIETH century and very little it took to go away your footprint after your death, premature, enigmatic and, as he had desired, a little virtuous, on a pension of Chicago at 48 years of age. The documentary Between My Flesh and the World’s Fingers, showing in the film festival of documentary of Montreal RIDM, moves images the confessional literary debut of the teen that opened the way to Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, when the word feminist was still a neologism.
Talena Sanders, director of the film, it does not show very excited with the nickname of “the first blogger in history” that has been imposed on MacLane in the last few years. “It is understandable that you will hang that tag, write so directly in the first person, but it is a term that understates his literary achievement and poetic depth. Was able to publish a book as a teenager and living in the deep America”, defends the filmmaker in the canadian city, where he presents his documentary film.
at just 19 years old, Mary McLane was left in a state of shock to the masses with the personal annotations of your boring life in a mining town of the united States to which he had moved years before with his family. With Desire comes the devil (1901), his first-person testimony, forced the adjectives egocentric and ambitious made almost for the first time in the feminine. Managed to break that image of purity that, more than a hundred years later, it continues to oppress women in many societies of the world.
In his text, the inner life is imposed to the environment insignificant. When he managed to publish his literary self-portrait, the editors chose to rename it as The story of Mary MacLane. Became since his first week in a sales success and inspired several women’s groups, MacLane clubs, in honor of its author.
Between my flesh and the world’s fingers (excerpt) from Talena Sanders on Vimeo.
for several decades, the work of the writer is on the point of view of feminism, and in 2015 Seix Barral published the book in Spain respecting its original title. This documentary Talena Sanders is in addition to the recovery of your figure and it fits one more piece of that puzzle lost illegal bahis in time that comprise many other women artists also forgotten.
“Mary was able to give voice to something that many women felt, and that no one had been appointed before, and did not conceal that he had partners of both sexes. Things like that made it uncomfortable,” recalls Sanders.
After his premature success, the canadian moved to New York, where he contributed regularly to several newspapers and shot in 1918 as a movie screenwriter and lead actress with George Kirke Spoor, the producer who helped Gloria Swanson and Charlie Chaplin to become a star.
Cover of the book, published in 2015 by Seix Barral
the name of The project gives a good account of their experimental character and their null commercial possibilities: Men Who Have Made Love to Me (Men who have done me the love). In addition to its stirring subject matter -“she was always very conscious of their challenge and the power granted to it,” says Sanders-, dared her to break the fourth wall, addressing the audience directly.
today there is not even a copy of the film, which enlarges the mysterious legend of MacLane and demonstrates that, in spite of his declaration of intent, was not to become an artist and free. “Without a doubt he was oppressed in his career. Never received a payment proportional to their initial success. Many of the letters which he wrote in the last years of his life were addressed to the editors, begging to pay him what was due to him,” says the director.
As a woman, on the other hand, achieving greater freedom in exchange for paying a price for it: he decided not to marry ever, showed matter-of-factly his bisexuality and he pursued to the end, the success that he craved without asking forgiveness for it. “He died with his partner, a black woman, and her obituary referred to her as his housekeeper, when no one in the modest neighborhood of Chicago in which he lived could afford to have service. Tried to delete the map until that aspect of her life,” laments Sanders.
