This review originally ran January 22, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past,” Machiavelli noted, and while “Framing Agnes” digs into the archives for a look at the lives of transgender people in post-wwii America, director Chase Joynt uses these case histories from the past to prompt fascinating and provocative insights into the way trans people live today.
As with “No Ordinary Man,” the portrait of trans jazz musician Billy Tipton that Joynt co-directed, this is a documentary that’s constantly breaking the fourth wall, with camera angles that show the boom mics and marks on the floor, where black-and-white footage of actors performing interview transcripts will cut to color footage of the performers and the director conferring with each other about syntax and motivation.
Rather than serving to distract or distance, however, Joynt’s...
“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past,” Machiavelli noted, and while “Framing Agnes” digs into the archives for a look at the lives of transgender people in post-wwii America, director Chase Joynt uses these case histories from the past to prompt fascinating and provocative insights into the way trans people live today.
As with “No Ordinary Man,” the portrait of trans jazz musician Billy Tipton that Joynt co-directed, this is a documentary that’s constantly breaking the fourth wall, with camera angles that show the boom mics and marks on the floor, where black-and-white footage of actors performing interview transcripts will cut to color footage of the performers and the director conferring with each other about syntax and motivation.
Rather than serving to distract or distance, however, Joynt’s...
- 12/13/2022
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
In order to best explain the field of ethnomethodology, which studies how social order comes to happen through the actions of individuals, sociologist Harold Garfinkel set up “breaching experiments,” an invitation for researchers to break traditional societal rules and examine how people react to the disruption. For example: experimenters can act like they’re guests in their homes and tip their families for their “service,” or they can reach out to customers in stores and restaurants, “confusing” them for clerks and servers. With these social non-sequiturs, Garfinkel hoped people would see how they often are unconscious keepers of rules and referees of normalcy—therefore, beings with much more power than they imagined.
In 1958, while he was in the midst of defining ethnomethodology at UCLA, Garfinkel met Agnes, a 19-year-old who claimed to be intersex and arrived in hopes they would be eligible for genital surgery in order to live fully as a woman.
In 1958, while he was in the midst of defining ethnomethodology at UCLA, Garfinkel met Agnes, a 19-year-old who claimed to be intersex and arrived in hopes they would be eligible for genital surgery in order to live fully as a woman.
- 12/5/2022
- by Jose Solís
- The Film Stage
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.