Sur Faces (1977)

Emshwiller writes that Sur Faces is a stylized collaborative videotape in which actors working with the artist explore sexual politics as expressed in styles of drama from Shakespeare to 19thcentury social theater early 20thcentury Freudian work and contemporary fictional autobiographical improvisation A video collage juxtaposing different ways of using video to express psychological states and conflict In a synthesis of densely processed textural images with documentations of dramatic roleplaying from sources as varied as Richard III Strindberg and the Open Theater Emshwiller undertakes an inventive inquiry into the transformation and representation of malefemale relationships via video and theater