Interference

Interference consists of three different segments. At the beginning there is a series of shots depicting a fragmented interior while a voice-over introduces the film by repeating the statement “this film is a souvenir, I will show some pictures, I will photograph my hair, I will tell a story, I will show a fi lm”. This is followed by a segment that displays hair on a fi lm strip while a voice-over tells the story promised in the beginning. The third and last segment shows a horizontally split screen displaying Paley’s feet and a fl ickering TV screen. The last shot envisions that interference between subject, apparatus and object are part of any act of fi lmmaking but that this fact is actually denied by mainstream cinema.

The strength in Paley’s fi lm is that she is not just applying mainstream apparatus theory, but – as so often when it comes to women fi lmmakers – includes herself in the act as a concrete and corporeal human being. When the third segment starts Paley states: “I’m looking at my feet, I’m looking at the TV, I’m looking at myself, I’m looking at a fi lm, the movement on the TV is similar to the movement of my feet, one is personal, one is impersonal, I am looking at both, I am looking at them in a fi lm, I am looking at them outside a film, the motion of my feet is caused by me breathing while holding the camera, it is not abstract, it is concrete”. Accordingly, the split or interference is not reconciled; instead, Paley underlines that the act of filming is an act of interference and not that of interaction.

A History of Swedish Experimental Film Culture : From Early Animation to Video Art