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My Life Without Steve (1986)

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clip What was this pain about? education content clip 3

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

Liz affirms her commitment to love, but vows never to repeat (or at least try never to repeat) the experience of loss she has felt after the end of the relationship with Steve. She quotes Neil Finn, Bob Dylan and Juliet Mitchell and tries to understand the meaning of her months of pain.

Curator’s notes

by Adrienne Parr

By the end of the film Liz has managed to stop herself from telephoning Steve twice and is no longer wearing the bangle he gave her. After 53 minutes, the steps seem very minimal, but they are extremely significant for the obsessive, suffering Liz. In the clip spring has arrived. The light in the flat has changed and as the camera pans across the room, which by now has become very familiar to us, there’s a distinct sense of order and stability. Photographs on the wall have been rearranged, with those of Steve removed. The vases of flowers and the kettle – motifs that have featured throughout the film – are beautifully lit and the shots are painterly. Liz, in her narration, slips seamlessly between the spoken word and song, and there’s hope in the air.

Outside the window, down in Blackwattle Bay, life carries on, as it has from the beginning of the film. At the time the film was made, Blackwattle Bay was still very much a working section of Sydney Harbour. The Glebe Island Bridge, a manual swing span bridge, was still in operation. It has since been replaced by the large cable-stayed Anzac Bridge, and today apartment blocks line the waterfront.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip from the short film My Life Without Steve (1986) comprises a series of slow pans and static shots taken of the interior of a flat in Sydney’s inner west, followed by a view of Blackwattle Bay through the open window. A monologue read by Liz (Jenny Vuletic) accompanies these images and describes the grieving process that followed the end of her love affair with Steve. Ambient sounds accompany the voice, including bird song, the hum of cicadas, dogs barking and distant voices.

Educational value points

  • This clip is an example of a genre of film often called an ‘essay film’, in which a theme is explored without necessarily proposing a point of view. In this example the theme is of romantic love and obsession. The film essay allows the filmmaker to explore the complex thought processes, conflicts, ideas and feelings of a character in detail. Liz’s tightly scripted monologue provides insight into her feelings as she analyses her reactions to the end of a relationship.
  • The set design is particularly important in this clip as it provides clues to Liz’s state of mind. This clip is taken from near the end of the short film and the mise-en-scène (what appears within the frame) at this stage suggests that some order has returned to Liz’s life and that she is now able to move on; the flat is clean and organised, several vases of flowers are seen, and the photograph of Steve, the lost lover whom Liz has spent a year mourning, has been removed.
  • The scene is filmed from the point of view of a person standing or walking around the flat. There are no cut-aways or close-ups. This perspective helps support the idea that the viewer is observing the flat through Liz’s eyes, just as they are hearing her internal monologue in the narration.
  • This clip shows the way a monologue can be used to reveal a character’s thought processes, or stream of consciousness, through dramatising inner conflicts, self-analysis, imagined dialogue and fantasy. Liz questions herself and the world, analyses her behaviour over the last year, talks to Steve as if he were there and even invents a scene in which he is remorseful.
  • This clip from the end of the film demonstrates that Liz has moved towards recovery from the end of her relationship. Although she is still reflecting on the nature of romantic love, of men and women’s reactions to the break-up of a relationship and indulges in a revenge fantasy, her desire to ‘never repeat history’, her last question phrased in the past tense 'What was this pain about?’ and the tidy light-filled flat suggest some hope.
  • Liz’s monologue contains quotes from the US feminist writer Juliet Mitchell and songwriters Bob Dylan and Neil Finn that work to support Liz’s view of romantic love and obsession. The use of these quotes and lyrics also serves to link Liz’s emotional pain within the wider cultural context.
  • Filmmaker Gillian Leahy says her film explores the 1970s argument that ‘the personal is political’, that individual problems have a social context, that romantic love is in part a cultural construct. Leahy believes the film argues for a wider analysis of love and obsession that also acknowledges women’s complicity in the power structures of relationships: ‘this is the way the powerless manipulate’ Liz says at the end of the clip.
  • Gillian Leahy has directed more than 16 short films and won an Australian Film Institute award and Best Film Award at the Melbourne Film Festival for My Life Without Steve (1986). She also wrote, produced and directed Our Park (1998) for SBS Television. She is currently an Associate Professor of Media, Arts and Production at the University of Technology in Sydney.

There is a series of slow pans and static shots taken of the rooms of a flat in Sydney’s inner west – bedroom, kitchen, living room. A monologue read by Liz accompanies these images. Ambient sounds accompany the voice, including bird song, the hum of cicadas, dogs barking and distant voices.
Liz (voice-over) Does it comfort me to know that the problems of romantic love are problems for everyone in advanced capitalist society and that they probably won’t be solved in our lifetime? I do not think we should give love up.

The statistics are out again and it’s still true that more women go mad than men. The women go to the therapists and the men move on to the next relationship. Who is really more mad? What is my madness for this time? I’ve been dwelling for the past year on the theory that one needs to understand history to avoid repeating it and I do not want to repeat it, ever again – never again. ‘History never repeats, I tell myself before I go to sleep.’

The camera focuses on a noticeboard with photographs on it, followed by a view of Blackwattle Bay through the open window.
Liz (voice-over) ‘Let’s go down for a drown,’ Colin used to say. You said your rejection of me would feed my masochism, Steve. ‘Love and death are the twin components of romantic love.’ Juliet Mitchell said that. ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Your love cuts like a knife.’ Bob Dylan said that. (Sings) I saw you. I saw you coming back to me. I saw you. I saw you coming back to me.

(Speaks again) I still see it. In my fantasy I see you coming back to me. You are crying with emotion. You apologise for all the pain you put me through. You were wrong. You say I am the only one you ever loved. You beg me to take you back.

I want this powerful, commanding man but he must also be swooning at my feet. A masochist is the one receiving all the attention. She’s really the one controlling it – or trying to. This is the way the powerless manipulate. What was this pain about?