Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media

I once asked MM Serra after a screening of her films why she so often left the camerawork to other people. Without missing a beat she told me: "It's called direction, darling." And so it is. MM has been director of many things in her career: of her films, of a film cooperative, of the unfolding film that is her own life. Cameras tend to follow her from place to place these days; we all have them in our pockets, and thus we are all available to MM's direction. One wonders what a modern Boswell could do with this fast-growing archive of wit and table talk. Whatever the result, it will have the special shape that only MM could give it. The force of her directing will be everywhere apparent. Direction, of course, can be an outlet for power, but it is also an easy way to surround yourself with people.

My first meeting with MM Serra was at the Film-Makers' Coop during its brief tenure at 108 Leonard Street. I was twenty or twenty-one, and with the lack of tact to prove it. I had been sent there as an intern for a well-known microcinema to pick up a print or two to be screened in the evening. I think I had been forewarned that MM was "interesting," "eccentric," "a character," or some such euphemism. This was not untrue, though I was startled on arrival by the level of intimacy that MM established so quickly with me. She sat me down in her office and talked to me like a person for a good half hour or so. It was hardly all shop. In fact my clearest memory is of MM's concern with her long-suffering cat. She was spending as much time as she could with this dying animal, feeding it by hand, carrying it around. At that point her thoughts seemed to turn inward. She was elsewhere for the moment—caring for the cat. I [End Page 126] took the prints and left eventually. Looking back on this now over fifteen years later, I can see it in the context of MM's other actions. She is, fundamentally, a person who cares, as the testimony of other artists and scholars makes clear. There is a danger in emphasizing care overmuch, insofar as it places women in a sentimental light, yet there is so little true care in this world that perhaps we should honor it wherever we find it.

My contact with MM waxed and waned over the years depending on my level of involvement with exhibition. I have many fond memories of her constant stream of dialogue while trying to thread films on a Steenbeck at the Coop. One simply accepted that the money one was spending contained a kind of MM tax for the pleasure of her conversation.

I have little formal connection to "the avant-garde" these days, but I am lucky enough to call MM my neighbor. Especially in spring and summer, I see her tending her plot at the 6 & B Garden in Alphabet City. In fact I once had the honor of repairing it in her absence. Sometimes I come in to say hello or to see if she is there; often she is feeding three turtles she adores. A chat makes the hotter months pass a little more quickly. But sometimes I am content to admire from afar this woman who still has young people trailing after her like a celebrity. And she is a celebrity in the archaic sense of someone who brings the celebration with her. It just comes naturally to her: I can hear her cry of "Hey, babycakes!" in my ears as I write this. On the other hand she knowingly accepts this role of It Girl, as seen in a charming film she once made with Peggy Ahwesh. The best comparison I can think of is to the Duc de Nemours: "His clothes and the way he wore them set the fashion but were inimitable."² And yet this truly fabulous artist takes the time to care for cats, plants, interns, and turtles.

One memory I will always cherish is among the most recent—it occurred just last summer. MM was hosting one of her 35mm slide workshops in the garden abovementioned, an event that was open to all. I was returning home with my daughter from another child's birthday and the clock was creeping slowly toward bedtime already. My partner expressed some skepticism as to the age-appropriateness of such a workshop; our daughter, after all, was not quite four years old. Still, we can see the garden from our building and had nothing to lose beyond a two minutes' walk. Not only was the event accessible to a child; it was accessible even to me, who long ago abandoned all artistic ambitions. The process was as simple as scavenging the garden for bits of plant and dirt, glass and wire, or the like; arranging these within the frame of a 35mm slide, augmented with markers if one so desired; then placing these creations in the nearby slide projector. My daughter enjoyed the process immensely: she received a warm welcome and praise from MM. We made two, three, four or more slides, each time with the excitement of knowing we would see them almost instantaneously [End Page 127] on the pull-down screen. It was a totally unexpected and delightful finish to the day. I saw that MM could touch even the hearts of children. I myself felt a bit of childish wonder. And is that not partly what the avant-garde is all about—the sudden reenchantment of a place grown dull from habit?

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