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very direct way that I was showing my films the next evening and that if anyone had been offended by Brakhage's
Window Water Baby Moving,
I would strongly recommend that they not come to my show, or at least that they wait until the second half hour.
The next day as I was walking through one of the university buildings in the early afternoon on my way to a panel discussion, I passed a room with a door ajar, through which I heard the soundtrack from
Riverbody
. I pushed the door open, and there was a little screen and a group of men watching my films by themselves, like at a private smoker. I stayed in the back. The next film on the reel was
Chakra
and the group watched what I then called the "Cunt Movie," yakking and making jokes: "What did you have for breakfast?" "That's your mother!" that sort of thing. I waited until the program was over. Then I turned on the light, and looked very carefully to see who was there. Of course, the professor who had made the comment the day before was there. I looked at them and laughed and said, "Well, I'm certainly glad that you got to see this privately, because I know how difficult it would be for you to watch it in public!" And I quoted some of their remarks. It was wonderful. Of course, that evening I told the story to the entire community. I was also very pleased when a graduate student who had been with the all-male party that afternoon got up and talked about the difference between seeing the film in a mixed audience and as part of an all-male smoker.
MacDonald:
Did you stay in England, or did you travel through Europe?
Severson:
I showed the film as part of a program of my own films and films by others that David Boatwright and I took all over Europe for a year. If you were a recognized filmmaker, you could easily schedule a European tour and show your films all over. You didn't make much money, but enough to live on while you were traveling around with the films. And there were very interested, communicative, sophisticated people in Belgium, France, particularly in Holland, Scandinavia, and Germany. Hundreds of people would show up to see and discuss the films.
The film community in Holland at that time was very active, and I think the museum there had scheduled eighteen film showings for us in about three weeks. We would get on a train, travel to a new city, be met by people, be taken out to dinner, do a film showing that night. Sometimes we'd have a day in between, but usually the next morning we'd go someplace else. Sometimes there were small groups in basements with a little projector and screen, but often there were big auditoriums. David was in England when I went to The Hague for a show. I was met at the train station by three middle-aged businessmen, very seriousart collectors, very interested in independent film. We had a wonderful dinner