Stalking the image: Margaret Tait and Intimate Filmmaking Practices

Abstract

First paragraph: Margaret Tait's artistic concern with the detail of the everyday shares much with general conceptions of feminist filmmaking practices, in which self-expression is identified as an antidote to the oversimplified representations of women in mainstream cinema. As Pam Cook explains, the ‘emphasis on the personal, the intimate and the domestic, has always been important to the Women's Movement and the personal diary form, for instance, has always been a means of self-expression for women to whom other avenues were closed’.2 While Tait maintained she was filming what was around her rather than attempting any kind of autobiographical work, the body of her work, including film poems, portraits and hand-painted films, is frequently praised for its ability to capture the ‘authenticity’ of experience.