Framing Agnes

Anyone who believes that he/she has a good handle on understanding transgender culture and sensibilities is bound to have his/her eyes thrust wide open by this thoughtful, inventive documentary from writer-director Chase Joynt. In creating this offering, the filmmaker seeks to enliven the little-known life experiences of mid-20th Century transgender pioneers like the title character and how they blazed trails for those who followed, particularly in terms of their challenges related to acceptance and often having to trade one set of unfulfilling circumstances for another, in both cases as a result of society's rigid gender role expectations. The film also addresses how these questions were often compounded by other significant considerations, especially for minorities, such as the pervasive and persistent existence of racial inequities in the days before the Civil Rights Movement, conditions that rendered these transgender individuals virtually invisible. And the picture also shows how many of those issues have lingered to this day, with change only now beginning to emerge in some regards. This is all accomplished through an intriguing juxtaposition of the observations of contemporary transgender historians and re-created actor-portrayed interviews of community pioneers by a fictional TV talk show host who's based on UCLA sociologist Harold Garfinkel, an early researcher of this subject. Both of the foregoing elements are further intercut with interviews of the transgender performers who portray these community trailblazers, dialogues in which they provide their insights into the characters they play, as well as descriptions of events from their own life experiences. This mix of narrative components makes for an intriguing, enlightening watch, one that moves along at a refreshingly brisk pace thanks to its astute observations and economical 1:15.00 runtime. To be honest, though, as informative as the talk show sequences are (presented in a 1950-ish black-and-white format a la The Mike Wallace Interview), the use of this storytelling device feels somewhat contrived (if not more than a little precious), despite the depth of the revelations to come out of them. Still, there's ample food for thought packed into this 2022 Sundance Film Festival award winner, much of it illuminating about both this diverse community and the notion of gender itself, regardless of one's leanings.

Framing Agnes is history, a film made from archive footage that was never filmed. But acted in this way are no less believable - one of the actors points out that it is interesting that it is not known in what tone the test subjects uttered the written sentences, but no matter how a word is interpreted, one thing is important - each one was uttered by a trans woman, or some trans man at a time when the world didn't even know they existed. So limited, spoken in an office and locked in archives, they are still a revolution, because the rebellion starts from the first spoken syllable. We repeat once again - Framing Agnes is history and a very important film.

This was my least favorite film I saw at Sundance (Fire of Love was probably my favorite). I'm guessing the source material was interesting enough, so it's too bad it turned out this way. I can understand why the topic would impress festival critics. I'm also really glad to see more trans films coming out over the last few years (all the other ones I've seen were better than this one).

I have to be honest though, I mostly agree with the other review that says this could have been a much better film than the one that was screened. The problem is the way that Framing Agnes tells its story is confusing, and not in a way that pays back interpretation beyond what the film already tells you about itself. The pacing was off too. And it wasn't visually exciting. Somehow a 75-minute feature felt like it dragged for over 2 hours. At parts, this felt like a student film, its heart is in the right place but it fails -- and not in an interesting way.

Also I'm also a fan of reenactments and experimental fiction elements in documentaries. For a couple of decades I've seen many films blur history and fiction. Maybe the most creative and stunning and well known example was The Act of Killing. Framing Agnes tries to use reenactment to produce a counternarrative to the representation of trans people in history, on TV, and other contexts. In theory that's a promising idea. In practice it doesn't work well. What the film does just isn't as new as at least one of the reviews I read claimed. A couple of the performances are really strong, which is why I'm higher on this than the other reviewer even though I agree about the director's awkward performance. Still, the reenacted segments are both poorly integrated and the writing is mostly flat. The takeaways about trans people might have been more surprising or meaningful 10 years ago than they are now. I'm sure this film will win festival awards but I can't see it finding an audience beyond a smaller group of people who want to see a film that unfortunately isn't there.

Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival

This documentary is directed by Chase Joynt (Cool name) and it is about the media's ongoing fascination with trans people. With the film being shown through a talk show kind of format, it breathes into the life of six previously unknown stories from the archives of the UCLA Gender Clinic in the 1950s. The documentary is presented with reenactments and experimental fiction elements from actors to try and portray the exact moments that happened in the past. The make up from the trans actors all looked really good and feels almost like they were the real person at times. While I do appreciate Joynt doing his best to make this documentary artistically and engaging, but the movie becomes quite rough on the edges and it didn't feel really informative. It almost felt like if the participants were just best friends having conversations with no little to the main themes and purpose of the story.

Some of the interviews didn't feel like interviews but more like a conversation from a movie. Some of the things Joynt is trying to discuss kind of doesn't make any sense. It's a shame because there were some really good discussions and people being interviewed about the trans community and how media is alway interested about the topics of trans. But it's really doesn't do much and becomes kind of misinformed at times and boring. There are some good production and technical moments.

I honestly believe that if Joynt gave a more meaningful approach about this movie, then it would have been more interesting.

Rating: C+

This is being shown as part of the Seattle International Film Festival.

I found this a heart-tugging dialog on gender experience, focusing on the experience of trans-gender "now" and in the past. The past experience comes from academic interviews conducted by academic researchers at UCLA, brought to life by modern trans actors. These interviews of course are limited to the questions asked in the room, and further limited by what was shared in this presentation, and thus the nature of the actual lives lived is two-dimensional. I found the interplay with the modern insights that the trans actors and academics drew from these interviews compelling and moving. In some ways, In some ways, I found the documentary to be more about them than the actual interviewees.

I watched this production with an open heart and mind. I had no known preconceptions - documentaries by far are often opinion pieces based on collected facts. They related what is seen in the eye of the "producers."

Various people have been negative on this title for various reasons. I still would recommend it being watched.

For me, "Framing Agnes" compellingly reiterates the humanity of all members of our species. People trying to live, and trying to live in their truth.