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Born in Flames

December 15, 2023

Born in Flames is a 1983 American dystopian docufiction drama film written, directed, produced and edited by radical intersectional feminist Lizzie Borden that explores racism, classism, sexism and heterosexism in an alternate socialist democratic United States.[1] The title comes from the song "Born in Flames" written by a member of Art & Language, Mayo Thompson of the band Red Krayola.[2]

Born in Flames
Directed byLizzie Borden
Written byEd Bowes
Lizzie Borden (uncredited)
Produced byLizzie Borden
Starring
Cinematography
  • Ed Bowes
  • Al Santana Michael Oblowitz
  • Lizzie Borden
Edited byLizzie Borden
Music byIbis
Red Krayola
Distributed byFirst Run Features
Release date
  • February 20, 1983 (1983-02-20)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot edit

The plot concerns two feminist groups in New York City, each voicing their concerns to the public by pirate radio. One group, led by an outspoken white lesbian, Isabel, operates Radio Ragazza. The other group, led by a soft-spoken African-American, Honey, operates Phoenix Radio. The local community is stimulated into action after a world-traveling political activist, Adelaide Norris, is arrested upon arriving at a New York City airport, and suspiciously dies while in police custody. Also, there is a Women's Army led by Hilary Hurst and advised by Zella that initially both Honey and Isabel refuse to join. This group, along with Norris and the radio stations, are under investigation by a callous FBI agent. Their progress is tracked by three editors for a socialist newspaper, who go so far that they get fired.

The story involves several different women coming from different perspectives and attempts to show several examples of how sexism plays out on the street and how it can be dealt with through direct action. At one point, two men attack a woman on the street, and dozens of women on bicycles with whistles come to chase the men away and comfort the woman. The movie shows women, despite their various differences, organizing in meetings, doing radio shows, creating art, wheatpasting, putting a condom on a penis, wrapping raw chicken at a processing plant, etc. The film portrays a world rife with violence against women, high female unemployment, and government oppression. The women in the film start to come together to make a bigger impact, by means that some would call terrorism.

Ultimately, after both radio stations are suspiciously burned down, Honey and Isabel team up and broadcast Phoenix Ragazza Radio from stolen U-Haul vans. They also join the Women's Army, which sends a group of terrorists to interrupt a broadcast of the president of the United States proposing that women be paid to do housework, followed by bombing the antenna on top of the World Trade Center to prevent additionally destructive messages from the mainstream.

Cast edit

Civil rights activist Florynce Kennedy, and former star athlete, Jean Satterfield appear in the film. This film also marks the first screen appearance of Eric Bogosian;[3] he plays a technician at a TV station who is forced at gunpoint to run a videotape on the network feed. The movie also features a rare acting appearance by Academy Award-winning film director Kathryn Bigelow.[1] Story contributor Ed Bowes portrays the head of the socialist newspaper that ultimately fires the female journalists.

Awards edit

In 1983, the film won the Reader Jury prize at the Berlin International Film Festival[4] and the Grand Prix at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival.[5]

Born in Flames experienced a rebirth in 2016 — a meticulous restoration by the Anthology Film Archives, promotion by the Criterion Channel and a re-release that took Borden to screenings around the world.[6]

Reception edit

Rotten Tomatoes reports an 88% approval rating based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10.[7]

Variety wrote that it has "all the advantages and the disadvantages of a home movie".[8] The Guardian in 2021 described the film as a zero-budget underground film with all the hallmarks of guerilla filmmaking, writing that "Borden is filming on the real New York streets, also using real news footage of real demos and real police violence" and that the "anarchic spirit of agitprop pulses from this scrappy, smart, subversive film." In an interview, Borden herself said, "I could only shoot once a month, when I had $200,...I would gather everyone in this old Lincoln Continental I kept parked in front of my loft, go somewhere and shoot, and then I'd spend the interim just editing."

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "Only those who already share Miss Borden's ideas are apt to find her film persuasive."[1] Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle wrote "Beautifully made, courageously edited, and swift-moving, this challenging, provocative film is a work that is both humanist and revolutionary."[9] Frances Dickinson of Time Out London wrote that Borden "[handles] her story with audacity and make[s] even the driest argument crackle with humour, while the more poignant moments burn with a fierce white heat."[10] TV Guide rated it 2/4 stars and wrote "This feminist film wins laurels for close attention to detail in a radical filmmaking effort."[11] Greg Baise of the Metro Times called it "an early '80s landmark of indie and queer cinema".[12] In 2022, the film was ranked joint 243rd in Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time poll, tied for the distinction along with 21 other films, including A Clockwork Orange, Annie Hall, and Possession.[13]

References edit

  • The movie refers to many feminist movements and tools, including black feminism, white feminism, consciousness raising, independent radio, and police brutality.
  • There is also a reference to wages for housework, a feminist social movement from the seventies addressing women's reproductive labor, in a scene in which the president announces on TV that “For the first time in our history we’ll provide women with wages for housework”, just before a group of women hijack the broadcast to pass a militant message. This moment in the film highlights political antagonisms, between white hetero-normative feminism and anti-racist and anti-capitalist feminism.[14]
  • The movie refers to US policies like the workfare programme and the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1976, which discriminate single and queer women (news scene where the journalist announces that ‘male heads of families’ would get jobs).[14]
  • Media historian Lucas Hilderbrand made a parallel with A Black Feminist Statement, from the Combahee River Collective (1977), a Black feminist lesbian organization.[15]
  • The film includes the Red Krayola song "Born In Flames", released as a single in 1980,[16] as well as the songs "I’ll Take You There" by the African-American gospel, R&B, and soul group The Staple Singers, "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday, "Voodoo Child" by Jimi Hendrix and "New Town" by the British female punk rock group The Slits.
  • The casting of the movie stages civil rights lawyer and activist Florynce Kennedy, Adele Bertei from the bands The Bloods and The Contortions, film director Kathryn Bigelow, and actors Ron Vawter and Eric Bogosian.

Influence edit

The film is discussed in Christina Lane's book Feminist Hollywood: From "Born in Flames" to "Point Break".[17]

A “graphic translation” of the movie made by artist Kaisa Lassinaro, which contains an interview of Lizzie Borden, was published by Occasional Papers in 2011.[18] The book is a collage composition made of screencaps with a selection of dialogues from the movie.

In 2013, a dossier on the film was published as a special issue of Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory.[19] With an introduction from Craig Willse and Dean Spade, the dossier includes a number of essays that address race, queerness, intersectionality, radicalism, violence, and feminism in the film.

The film has experienced something of a renaissance after the 35mm restoration print premiered in 2016 at the Anthology Film Archives.[20] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote "the free, ardent, spontaneous creativity of Born in Flames emerges as an indispensable mode of radical change—one that many contemporary filmmakers with political intentions have yet to assimilate."[21] He also wrote "Borden's exhilarating collage-like story stages news reports, documentary sequences, and surveillance footage alongside tough action scenes and musical numbers; her violent vision is both ideologically complex and chilling."[21] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice wrote "this unruly, unclassifiable film — perhaps the sole entry in the hybrid genre of radical-lesbian-feminist sci-fi vérité — premiered two years into the Reagan regime, but its fury proves as bracing today as it was back when this country began its inexorable shift to the right."[22] Borden was invited to show the new 35mm print in Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, San Sebastián, Milan, Toronto, the Edinburgh Film Festival, London Film Festival, along with screenings in Detroit, Rochester, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.[20]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Maslin, Janet (November 10, 1983). "Film: 'Born in Flames' Radical feminist ideas". The New York Times. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
  2. ^ Baise, Greg (March 1, 2017). "Lizzie Borden talks about her scrappy, feminist magnum opus, 'Born in Flames'". Detroit Metro Times. Retrieved August 21, 2017.
  3. ^ "Eric Bogosian Biography". Film Reference. Retrieved May 13, 2009.
  4. ^ "Born in Flames (1983) Awards & Festivals". MUBI. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  5. ^ "Lizzie Borden". Equality Archive. November 3, 2015. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  6. ^ "This 1983 Feminist Film Was Set In The Dystopian Future, So Basically Right Now". NPR.
  7. ^ "Born in Flames (1983)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved August 5, 2023.
  8. ^ "Review: 'Born in Flames'". Variety. December 31, 1982. Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  9. ^ Baumgarten, Marjorie (June 20, 2001). "Born in Flames". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  10. ^ Dickinson, Frances (September 10, 2012). "Born in Flames". Time Out London. Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  11. ^ "Born In Flames". TV Guide. Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  12. ^ Baise, Greg (June 16, 2010). "Born in Flames". Metro Times. Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  13. ^ "Born in Flames (1983)". BFI. Retrieved February 11, 2023.
  14. ^ a b Capper, Beth (2017). "Domestic Unrest". Third Text. 31 (1): 97–116. doi:10.1080/09528822.2017.1366410. S2CID 149187896.
  15. ^ Hilderbrand, Lucas (2013). "In the Heat of the Moment: Notes on the past, present, and future of Born in Flames". Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. 23 (1): 8. doi:10.1080/0740770X.2013.786340. S2CID 144915893.
  16. ^ "The Red Crayola* – Born In Flames". discogs.com. September 10, 1980. Retrieved July 19, 2018.
  17. ^ Kessler, Kelly (March 22, 2001). . Velvet Light Trap. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  18. ^ Borden, Lizzie; Lassinaro, Kaisa (2011). Born in Flames, Occasional Papers. Occasional Papers. ISBN 978-0-9562605-9-8.
  19. ^ "Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory". Taylor & Francis. 23 (1). Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  20. ^ a b Ulaby, Neda (July 3, 2021). "This 1983 Feminist Film Was Set In The Dystopian Future, So Basically Right Now Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email". NPR. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  21. ^ a b Brody, Richard (February 19, 2016). "The political science fiction of Born in Flames". The New Yorker. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  22. ^ Anderson, Melissa (February 16, 2016). "Fire Starter: Lizzie Borden's First Films Still Light Up (and Burn Down) the Left". The Village Voice. Retrieved December 31, 2022.

External links edit

December 15, 2023
born, flames, 1983, american, dystopian, docufiction, drama, film, written, directed, produced, edited, radical, intersectional, feminist, lizzie, borden, that, explores, racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, alternate, socialist, democratic, united, states,. Born in Flames is a 1983 American dystopian docufiction drama film written directed produced and edited by radical intersectional feminist Lizzie Borden that explores racism classism sexism and heterosexism in an alternate socialist democratic United States 1 The title comes from the song Born in Flames written by a member of Art amp Language Mayo Thompson of the band Red Krayola 2 Born in FlamesDirected byLizzie BordenWritten byEd BowesLizzie Borden uncredited Produced byLizzie BordenStarringHoney Adele Bertei Kathryn BigelowCinematographyEd Bowes Al Santana Michael Oblowitz Lizzie BordenEdited byLizzie BordenMusic byIbisRed KrayolaDistributed byFirst Run FeaturesRelease dateFebruary 20 1983 1983 02 20 Running time90 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Awards 4 Reception 5 References 6 Influence 7 See also 8 References 9 External linksPlot editThe plot concerns two feminist groups in New York City each voicing their concerns to the public by pirate radio One group led by an outspoken white lesbian Isabel operates Radio Ragazza The other group led by a soft spoken African American Honey operates Phoenix Radio The local community is stimulated into action after a world traveling political activist Adelaide Norris is arrested upon arriving at a New York City airport and suspiciously dies while in police custody Also there is a Women s Army led by Hilary Hurst and advised by Zella that initially both Honey and Isabel refuse to join This group along with Norris and the radio stations are under investigation by a callous FBI agent Their progress is tracked by three editors for a socialist newspaper who go so far that they get fired The story involves several different women coming from different perspectives and attempts to show several examples of how sexism plays out on the street and how it can be dealt with through direct action At one point two men attack a woman on the street and dozens of women on bicycles with whistles come to chase the men away and comfort the woman The movie shows women despite their various differences organizing in meetings doing radio shows creating art wheatpasting putting a condom on a penis wrapping raw chicken at a processing plant etc The film portrays a world rife with violence against women high female unemployment and government oppression The women in the film start to come together to make a bigger impact by means that some would call terrorism Ultimately after both radio stations are suspiciously burned down Honey and Isabel team up and broadcast Phoenix Ragazza Radio from stolen U Haul vans They also join the Women s Army which sends a group of terrorists to interrupt a broadcast of the president of the United States proposing that women be paid to do housework followed by bombing the antenna on top of the World Trade Center to prevent additionally destructive messages from the mainstream Cast editHoney as Honey host of the Phoenix Radio Adele Bertei as Isabel host of the Radio Ragazza Jean Satterfield as Adelaide Norris Florynce Kennedy credited as Flo Kennedy as Zella Wylie Becky Johnston as Becky Dunlop newspaper editor Pat Murphy as Pat Crosby newspaper editor Kathryn Bigelow as Kathy Larson newspaper editor Hillary Hurst as the leader of Women s Army Sheila McLaughlin as other leader Marty Pottenger as other leader woman at site Bell Chevigny as Belle Gayle the talk show host Joel Kovel as the talk show guest Ron Vawter as FBI Agent John Coplans as chief John Rudolph as TV newscaster Warner Schreiner as TV newscaster Valerie Smaldone as TV newscaster Hal Miller as detective Bill Tatum as Mayor Zubrinsky Mark Boone Jr as man in subway harassing womanCivil rights activist Florynce Kennedy and former star athlete Jean Satterfield appear in the film This film also marks the first screen appearance of Eric Bogosian 3 he plays a technician at a TV station who is forced at gunpoint to run a videotape on the network feed The movie also features a rare acting appearance by Academy Award winning film director Kathryn Bigelow 1 Story contributor Ed Bowes portrays the head of the socialist newspaper that ultimately fires the female journalists Awards editIn 1983 the film won the Reader Jury prize at the Berlin International Film Festival 4 and the Grand Prix at the Creteil International Women s Film Festival 5 Born in Flames experienced a rebirth in 2016 a meticulous restoration by the Anthology Film Archives promotion by the Criterion Channel and a re release that took Borden to screenings around the world 6 Reception editRotten Tomatoes reports an 88 approval rating based on 32 reviews with an average rating of 6 8 10 7 Variety wrote that it has all the advantages and the disadvantages of a home movie 8 The Guardian in 2021 described the film as a zero budget underground film with all the hallmarks of guerilla filmmaking writing that Borden is filming on the real New York streets also using real news footage of real demos and real police violence and that the anarchic spirit of agitprop pulses from this scrappy smart subversive film In an interview Borden herself said I could only shoot once a month when I had 200 I would gather everyone in this old Lincoln Continental I kept parked in front of my loft go somewhere and shoot and then I d spend the interim just editing Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote Only those who already share Miss Borden s ideas are apt to find her film persuasive 1 Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle wrote Beautifully made courageously edited and swift moving this challenging provocative film is a work that is both humanist and revolutionary 9 Frances Dickinson of Time Out London wrote that Borden handles her story with audacity and make s even the driest argument crackle with humour while the more poignant moments burn with a fierce white heat 10 TV Guide rated it 2 4 stars and wrote This feminist film wins laurels for close attention to detail in a radical filmmaking effort 11 Greg Baise of the Metro Times called it an early 80s landmark of indie and queer cinema 12 In 2022 the film was ranked joint 243rd in Sight amp Sound s Greatest Films of All Time poll tied for the distinction along with 21 other films including A Clockwork Orange Annie Hall and Possession 13 References editThe movie refers to many feminist movements and tools including black feminism white feminism consciousness raising independent radio and police brutality There is also a reference to wages for housework a feminist social movement from the seventies addressing women s reproductive labor in a scene in which the president announces on TV that For the first time in our history we ll provide women with wages for housework just before a group of women hijack the broadcast to pass a militant message This moment in the film highlights political antagonisms between white hetero normative feminism and anti racist and anti capitalist feminism 14 The movie refers to US policies like the workfare programme and the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1976 which discriminate single and queer women news scene where the journalist announces that male heads of families would get jobs 14 Media historian Lucas Hilderbrand made a parallel with A Black Feminist Statement from the Combahee River Collective 1977 a Black feminist lesbian organization 15 The film includes the Red Krayola song Born In Flames released as a single in 1980 16 as well as the songs I ll Take You There by the African American gospel R amp B and soul group The Staple Singers Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix and New Town by the British female punk rock group The Slits The casting of the movie stages civil rights lawyer and activist Florynce Kennedy Adele Bertei from the bands The Bloods and The Contortions film director Kathryn Bigelow and actors Ron Vawter and Eric Bogosian Influence editThe film is discussed in Christina Lane s book Feminist Hollywood From Born in Flames to Point Break 17 A graphic translation of the movie made by artist Kaisa Lassinaro which contains an interview of Lizzie Borden was published by Occasional Papers in 2011 18 The book is a collage composition made of screencaps with a selection of dialogues from the movie In 2013 a dossier on the film was published as a special issue of Women amp Performance A Journal of Feminist Theory 19 With an introduction from Craig Willse and Dean Spade the dossier includes a number of essays that address race queerness intersectionality radicalism violence and feminism in the film The film has experienced something of a renaissance after the 35mm restoration print premiered in 2016 at the Anthology Film Archives 20 Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote the free ardent spontaneous creativity of Born in Flames emerges as an indispensable mode of radical change one that many contemporary filmmakers with political intentions have yet to assimilate 21 He also wrote Borden s exhilarating collage like story stages news reports documentary sequences and surveillance footage alongside tough action scenes and musical numbers her violent vision is both ideologically complex and chilling 21 Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice wrote this unruly unclassifiable film perhaps the sole entry in the hybrid genre of radical lesbian feminist sci fi verite premiered two years into the Reagan regime but its fury proves as bracing today as it was back when this country began its inexorable shift to the right 22 Borden was invited to show the new 35mm print in Brussels Barcelona Madrid San Sebastian Milan Toronto the Edinburgh Film Festival London Film Festival along with screenings in Detroit Rochester San Francisco and Los Angeles 20 See also editAfrofuturism in filmReferences edit a b c Maslin Janet November 10 1983 Film Born in Flames Radical feminist ideas The New York Times Retrieved February 27 2022 Baise Greg March 1 2017 Lizzie Borden talks about her scrappy feminist magnum opus Born in Flames Detroit Metro Times Retrieved August 21 2017 Eric Bogosian Biography Film Reference Retrieved May 13 2009 Born in Flames 1983 Awards amp Festivals MUBI Retrieved December 31 2022 Lizzie Borden Equality Archive November 3 2015 Retrieved December 31 2022 This 1983 Feminist Film Was Set In The Dystopian Future So Basically Right Now NPR Born in Flames 1983 Rotten Tomatoes Fandango Media Retrieved August 5 2023 Review Born in Flames Variety December 31 1982 Retrieved April 11 2015 Baumgarten Marjorie June 20 2001 Born in Flames The Austin Chronicle Retrieved April 11 2015 Dickinson Frances September 10 2012 Born in Flames Time Out London Retrieved April 11 2015 Born In Flames TV Guide Retrieved April 11 2015 Baise Greg June 16 2010 Born in Flames Metro Times Retrieved April 11 2015 Born in Flames 1983 BFI Retrieved February 11 2023 a b Capper Beth 2017 Domestic Unrest Third Text 31 1 97 116 doi 10 1080 09528822 2017 1366410 S2CID 149187896 Hilderbrand Lucas 2013 In the Heat of the Moment Notes on the past present and future of Born in Flames Women amp Performance A Journal of Feminist Theory 23 1 8 doi 10 1080 0740770X 2013 786340 S2CID 144915893 The Red Crayola Born In Flames discogs com September 10 1980 Retrieved July 19 2018 Kessler Kelly March 22 2001 Feminist Hollywood From Born in Flames to Point Break Book Review Velvet Light Trap Archived from the original on September 24 2015 Retrieved April 11 2015 Borden Lizzie Lassinaro Kaisa 2011 Born in Flames Occasional Papers Occasional Papers ISBN 978 0 9562605 9 8 Women amp Performance a journal of feminist theory Taylor amp Francis 23 1 Retrieved December 7 2015 a b Ulaby Neda July 3 2021 This 1983 Feminist Film Was Set In The Dystopian Future So Basically Right Now Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email NPR Retrieved December 31 2022 a b Brody Richard February 19 2016 The political science fiction of Born in Flames The New Yorker Retrieved December 31 2022 Anderson Melissa February 16 2016 Fire Starter Lizzie Borden s First Films Still Light Up and Burn Down the Left The Village Voice Retrieved December 31 2022 External links editBorn in Flames at IMDb Born in Flames at AllMovie Born in Flames at the TCM Movie Database Born in Flames at the American Film Institute Catalog Interview of Lizzie Borden by Fiona Duncan at Vice The 34 best political movies ever made by Ann Hornaday at The Washington Post Jan 23 2020 ranked 25 Heresies journal 16 1983 features a detailed synopsis of the plot with extensive quotations Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Born in Flames amp oldid 1189891025, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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