Director's Statement / Concept

'CHEAP BLONDE' is based on an idea to deconstruct then reform one single sentence 'A famous filmmaker said, 'Cinema is the history of men filming women'.
The twelve words which make up this sentence are rearranged twenty two times, to in fact alter and completely subvert the original meaning. The first half of the twenty two statements are spoken by a man's (computer-generated) voice, then the second half by a woman's (computer-generated) voice. Do we listen differently to the words according to who the speaker is? How do subtle changes to the order of words in a sentence have the capacity to totally alter its meaning? Can we in fact trust that the
sentence under consideration is an authentic quotation at all?

This film is essentially a study of language, and the profound impact of words on our understanding of ideas, and the world. However, there is also a certain level of irony in the work, especially as conveyed through the use of computer generated voices. The film is also an investigation into the 'truth' of images, and how they too can be layered and ordered in different ways to alter our perception of what they in fact represent.

The film is based on an image of a woman sitting beside a waterfall. This was shot at one of the stalls at the SMPTE film and television equipment trade show. For several years I have been interested in the fact that (blonde) models are frequently used as sales devices for electronic equipment displays. Lines of grey suited men can be seen testing out the focus of ever 'new and improved' cameras on the sensual lines of suitably flawless models.

The first image of the woman sitting basking in front of a waterfall is complemented by a male voice over describing the scene, as if he were an unseen voyeur crouched in the 'mossy grotto' nearby. The audience is drawn into this scene, the woman's looped gestures creating a repetitive almost erotic rhythm - we too are caught in the act of looking, of desire. As the film progresses, and the structure of the original statement - "A famous filmmaker said, 'Cinema is the history of men filming women' " is reworked, the image is broken down into its component parts. In fact the image of the woman is a construct. The real woman is sitting in a studio against a blue screen. A fan is blowing her hair, and artificial shadows move across her face. She is splashing her face, not with cool river water, but with water from a bucket beside her in the studio.

This is an amusing and surprising visual deceit, especially when the waterfall disappears to be replaced by colour bars and other electronic backgrounds. The image is revealed to be a fake, and finally disintegrates into pixels and lines, highlighting the fact that every filmed image is, in reality, a highly contrived artifact. This work seeks to explore the notion of 'truth', and how it is constructed through language and the manipulation of the cinematic image.

Janet Merewether
(Writer/Director) April 1998

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