The Thinking Machine #101
Passivity
Not Wanted
In their series The Thinking Machine, critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin create a new video essay for Filmkrant every month.
In 1980, the American critic Ronnie Scheib (1944-2015) wrote a brilliant essay for Film Comment magazine about Ida Lupino (1918-1995) as a director. The guiding idea – that Lupino’s remarkable films of the 1940s and ‘50s explore the experiences of women who are passive and alienated – was sometimes dismissed as an ‘anti-feminist’ rant by this ‘Ronnie’ – who was incorrectly assumed to be male! However, her insights can take us deep into the texture and meaning of Lupino’s inaugural masterpiece, Not Wanted (1949).