An Interview with Nina Menkes

Abstract

I n the early thirties, Pierre Klossowski coined the term method of obstinacy in reference to the unique and diffident work of Georges Bataille. In the nineties, the term regains currency, this time in reference to the work of independent film-maker Nina Menkes, an artist whose work is stubbornly uncompromising. A graduate of the film school at UCLA, Menkes claims allegiance to no one in cinema history, and while the aesthetic rigor of her two feature films, Magdalena Viraga (1986) and Queen of Diamonds (1991), has led critics to connect them with Chantal Ackerman and Michelangelo Antonioni, Menkes's combination of feminist politics and an unnerving aesthetic style makes her work unique. Although Menkes's work is not widely known, she has received widespread recognition in the form of grants and awards. In 1984 The Great Sadness of Zohara won a special jury mention at the San Francisco International Film Festival and a Silver Medal at the Festival of Festivals in Houston. Magdalena Viraga has also won several prizes, including Best Independent/Experimental Film from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. In 1991, Queen of Diamonds played at the Sundance Film Festival, the AFI Festival in Los Angeles, the Munich Film Festival, the Women's Film Festival in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Independent's Forum at UCLA, and at a special benefit screening for Filmforum in Los Angeles. Menkes's career began with her 40-minute film The Great Sadness of Zohara, which was finished in 1983. This film establishes many of the themes and formal patterns that recur in Menkes's work, as well as introducing to an international audience Tinka Menkes, Nina's sister, who plays the protagonist in Menkes's two subsequent films and who works as Nina's collaborator.