Filmabuse

"Pup Birth" captures the excitement, chaos, and tenderness between a dog and her newly-born litter of puppies. In intimate close-up, the puppies crawl around and nuzzle with their mother, mirroring JoAnn Elam's own affection for dogs and animals in general. The date of production remains unknown.

Elam turns in place while filming nature.

Rape has three victims discussing their emotional, physical and intellectual responses, then and now, highlighted and commented upon by a series of visual interpolations.

Portraits of Chuck’s cats and friends, as well as a self-portrait.

An outdoor gathering.

Farm work and nature.

"Popcorn" begins with a teenaged boy reading from an unknown text inside a living room. JoAnn Elam is seen knitting, presumably nearby, before entering the kitchen and proceeding to cook popcorn on the stovetop. Each step is filmed in extreme close-up, with an emphasis on hands and tactility. This attention to process is similar to other films from Elam, notably " Chocolate Cake " (F.2011-01-0166). At the end of "Popcorn," following a flurry of light leak and mis-aligned optical printing, the boy happily eats the popped and seasoned kernels. The exact date of production remains unknown.

Elam records several men moving boxes and furniture as they track across her backyard.

The film was made in response to an evening during which a number of male members of Chicago's experimental film scene gathered at JoAnn's house and proceeded to ignore both her and the chocolate cake she made for the occasion. The film consists of a series of shots documenting the making of a chocolate cake, followed by a shot of JoAnn's sandaled foot stepping in the middle of the cake. When JoAnn screened the film in homes or loft spaces in Chicago, she would always serve chocolate cake as an accompaniment. Date of production unknown (likely 1973).

In this footage by JoAnn Elam, almost nothing is discernible, with the exception of buildings sometimes emerging in the dark and stripes of orange light invading the black screen near the end. Like other elements from this collection, Light Leak exemplifies the type of cinematic experimentations that Elam was interested in her work.

Gardening was an essential part of Elam’s life; she not only tended to her own, quite impressive, backyard garden, she also attained the status of Master Gardener and then helped Chicago communities develop gardens and landscape neighborhoods. Elam’s garden features prominently in many of her films, and here is captured with devotion and blended beautifully, through use of double exposure, with other elements of her home.

"Closet Film" flickers hues of white and yellow intermittently. Stretching to its halfway point, the frame cuts to black as a myriad of blues barrage across the frame, before returning to the film’s original abstract yellow and white sequencing. Near the end, a lone human actor opaquely appears. The film concludes on a shot of what is seemingly a marred closet wall.

Elam's husband prepares vegetables at the sink.

“Windows” documents the views of and out from windows around JoAnn Elam’s Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago. The first section begins at an El train stop, capturing the station itself and the views of people playing tennis as seen from the moving train. A switch approximately halfway through the runtime moves the action to downtown Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain and then Logan Square as filmed through Elam’s window screen. The shapes of the buildings finally abstract into geometric forms on film.

USPS workers go bowling.

Joann Elam captures urban residents on the go in various seasons. The film begins in winter, as JoAnn captures sleepy neighborhood scenes from her snowy Logan Square windowsill. This is followed by manipulated summer scenes of a fast paced marathon. Through light flares and in-camera editing, marathon runners deconstruct into colorful forms.