Week 1 - Jan 28th Screening

There were multiple questions raised while watching the screenings but the one that popped out to me the most dealt with Miranda July's "The Amateurist." The question I kept thinking about over and over again was "What was July's intention and purpose of using all of those numbers and comparing different angles and shapes made with the human body to those numbers?" The film made clear that July had a background in numbers but I didn't fully understand the connection to why she would explain these numbers using the legs of the woman in the tv screen. What further perplexed me was "what was the relationship of the professional to the amateurist (woman in the tv)? If you step aside from the knowledge knowing that July played both parts and look at it from a more narrative angle as two separate characters, where was the amateurist? Was she trapped in the same room modeling for the professional? Could she hear the professional instruct? The use of a B/W surveillance camera (as mentioned by a student) did give off this trapped-against-her-will, serial-killer kind of feel to the piece. July was a professional? A professional of what... holding people against their will forcing them to make numbers with their limbs?! While I may be way off with my analyzing this piece I felt that this piece represented a disturbing narrative of a psychopath (i.e. "professional" ) holding a scantily clad woman hostage. To make my point more persuasive look at what was presented.... 1) a scantily dressed woman in the same room with a camera pointed at her. When it comes to the stereotypical hostage holding crazy, the victim is usually a woman and she will usually be barely dressed or nude. 2) A person claiming to be a "professional" watching this woman over a surveillance camera. Once again the stereotypical hostage holder will have some sort of guard over the victim. 3) The so-called professional has an obsession with numbers. Many brilliant psychopaths tend to have obsessions that they feed off of. These three factors lead me to believe that this is not a film about empowerment or women's rights, but instead a short film about a hostage and a number obsessed psychopath. As for answering my own question, I believe this weird fetish with numbers and limbs is simply a disturbing ritual that the professional psycho feeds off of.