Doublecross

Blumenthal constructs a loose narrative around the sexual evolution of a woman (played by Yvonne Rainer) through a stunning collage of images appropriated from TV and film. Certain images come to dominate this effusive stream—tall buildings, sex scenes, an Elvis movie, the courtroom, fireworks. Doublecross pits the indeterminate, disruptive power of the erotic against the rigid, normalizing structures of family, law, marriage, popular culture, movies, and music—societal institutions that codify sexual relations. The "doublecross" is that in a society that equates sex with pleasure, the definition of what is permissible and what pleasures are off limits, catches individuals in a double bind of sanctioned pleasures.

Daughter: “What do you and Daddy talk about when I’m not around?” Mother: ”Oh, I don’t know—everything.” Daughter: “You do a lot of laughing... I hear you sometimes.” Mother: ”You shouldn’t be listening.”