Author: Kara McVey
Last summer, the world of film lost a great force. Chick Strand, a legendary avant-garde filmmaker, died of cancer on July 11, 2009. She was known for being one of the first filmmakers to combine aspects of documentary and fiction, creating a unique style of storytelling. Strand also taught at Occidental from 1970 until 2005 and was one of the founders of Oxy’s film program. Last Saturday, Oct. 3, colleagues, friends, students and admirers of Strand gathered in the Johnson 200 to celebrate her work and share memories of her.
Dean of Students and Art History Professor Eric Frank began the proceedings. He explained that it was rare for Strand to show her films at Oxy, but one afternoon in 1990, she chose to screen her film “Kristallnacht.” Though only seven minutes long, the film was so powerfully evocative that Frank said he “knew immediately that [he] was in the presence of a great artist.” After Frank, Strand’s friend and former Oxy colleague, now USC professor Martha Kinder, shared memories of her free-spirited friend. “She never did what was predictable,” Kinder said.
Chick Strand was born Mildred Strand in December of 1931 and was raised in San Francisco. When Strand was young her father gave her the nickname “Chick,” which she kept for the rest of her life. Strand studied Anthropology at UC Berkeley and helped start the San Francisco Cinemateque in the early 1960s. There she began to rub shoulders with other rising independent filmmakers, such as Bruce Baillie.
Strand made her first experimental film “Angel Blue Sweet Wings” at the age of 34. This three-minute film utilized original footage interlayed with animation and mixed sounds. Strand described the film as a “celebration of life and visions.” After studying ethnography at UCLA, she began making films with a distinct cultural focus, many of which she shot while traveling between L.A. and Mexico with her husband Marty Muller. In 1970 Strand joined the faculty at Oxy.
Strand gained a reputation for her frankness and raw honesty, but students say that she was still a very supportive professor. Steve Hochman (’78) remembers her as very helpful in fostering her students’ creative development. Hochman said that in Strand’s classes, “It was all about expression. It was all about finding a voice.” She had high expectations of her students, though the program began “in the dank basement of Thorne Hall” using Super 8 cameras and manual frame-by-frame editing boards, as Hochman recalls. Strand helped students experiment in different styles and stressed that filmmaking was all about expressing oneself.
While teaching, Strand continued to travel and create films. She became known for her blend of unconventional style with serious non-fiction subjects such as poverty, rape and consumerism, which, according to the Portland Mercury, introduced “an intensely personal and poetic approach to the idea of representation.” Her way of storytelling was all her own and she never shied away from subjects that were sensitive, controversial or provocative. Her film “Soft Fiction” (one of three films screened last Saturday) focused on female sexuality and survival, while “Cosas de Mi Vida” studied a Mexican-Indian’s plight for survival. Whatever her focus, Strand always presented a deep personal connection to her subject. One of her many strengths was her ability to convey the resiliency and strength of her subjects.
Martha Kinder considers Strand a trailblazer in whose death “the world [has] suffered a great loss.” Many who knew her feel the same way. She will be remembered for works in film, art and ethnology, but perhaps more importantly, she will be remembered for her strength of character and the impact she had on the people around her. Her son Eric Strand is probably best able to describe Strand’s unique contribution to the world: “She taught me to be strong, independent, determined, righteous, adventurous, [to] think things through and be creative, all in an unassuming way - all the qualities she had.”
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