ABSTRACT
The documemoir is an intriguing hybrid, given the documentary's ontological obligation to objectivity and the subjective nature of autobiography, adding another wrinkle to 'life narrative'. Barbara Hammer explodes the very notion of an autobiographical subject in her 1996 postmodernist film, Tender Fictions, with its presentation of shifting identities. She moves from disobedient child, to daring young woman traveling around the world on a motor-scooter, to out-lesbian-protestor and avant-garde artist. In addition to a dazzling array of images, Tender Fictions consists of a discordant soundtrack with multifarious, at times distorted, voices. The images appear and disappear with startling rapidity, often challenging the viewer's ability to recognize what she is seeing. All genres of the autobiography put forth an identity at great risk, inviting the audience not only to 'see' and judge this self but also to identify with the seeing self.
