Lisa Gornick on bringing a female perspective to art and sex

The Book of Gabrielle is a clever dramedy about an intimate yet platonic relationship that develops between a female graphic artist and an older male erotic novelist. Director Lisa Gornick brings the film to Glasgow and Edinburgh this month, presenting the film with a live drawing show about lesbian cinema. Ahead of the event, Scottish Queer International Film Festival's Helen Wright speaks to Gornick about representing sex on screen from a female perspective, the immediacy of live drawing and the future of cinema following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

The Skinny: The Book of Gabrielle is about a woman writing an illustrated guide to sex. Why did you want to create this character?

Lisa Gornick: I want to hear/read/see women talk about important things. I want to make that happen too. In my experience, men do most of the talking about sex and I wanted to open my mouth and see what comes out. Men for too long have made the majority of creativity about the act of sex – be it film, music, art, literature, theatre – and I have loved a lot of their work. I wanted to explore a woman expressing sex, though. I don’t want to watch sex scenes by men any more – not for a while anyway, I want a holiday from that and see what women come up with.

In your previous movies Do I Love You? and Tick Tock Lullaby and now in The Book of Gabrielle, you appear as the main character. Are your films autobiographical?

I am too scared to hurt people by doing pure autobiography. I would absolutely adore to make books/films that are an intricate investigation into my life; I have the urge to do it but I stop and put in filters/lenses to make it not about me. So yes, I’m in it, acting or not acting in an understated way – my voice, my concerns but not the reality of my life. I think the best analogy is a self-portrait with watercolour and some abstraction. I love first-person films and so I drew on my love of that and made my first three feature films that way. My next feature film will not have me in it…

The Book of Gabrielle is accompanied by a live drawing show titled What (the Fuck) is Lesbian Cinema? Have you found an answer to this question yet?

As I’ve been doing the live show, the Harvey Weinstein situation has occurred and it has made the live drawing show about lesbian cinema so relevant to me. Yes, it’s about those men in power who totally stalled us, messed with us, silenced us. I am beginning to understand what it means. Each show I get a little clearer. That is the wonder of live drawing shows compared to film, you can change them as you go along. The audience becomes part of them in a collaborative way. The live drawing show came from a place of frustration... and also why do we have labels? What do labels do and what are we going to do with them? And who runs things and who labels you and why?

What does the medium of drawing offer that cinema doesn't?

Drawing is like me and the pen; it’s immediate, it has no green light of approval, and I can hold it in my hand and I can make it with my hand. It’s an intimate place. It’s vulnerable. It’s mistakes and it’s moments when the mistake is beautiful. Drawing is forgiving… Cinema is fantastic. It’s the gorgeous emotion I was brought up with [but] cinema has all these people that are defining what it is, how you do it, there are the green lights of the industry, the reviewers and academics with their opinions and the need to have an opinion. Cinema has been strangled and straightjacketed… and needs to be free. The demise of Weinstein and men like him might just open up the liberty of making film in a new way. Maybe we won’t have red carpets and bow ties and ridiculous dresses and botox and facelifts... maybe everything will change now.

The Book of Gabrielle also has an accompanying book, How to Do It, with a crossover web series planned. Why did you want to tell this story across multiple platforms?

There was so much to say/create. The finite space of a feature film was one place and then I wanted a book to explore the act of sex in a deeper way. And then the live show was to take it out of the finite element of a final cut film on a screen and make a live production that was different each time. I wanted to try and create something about sex on different planes, different levels, for them all to interweave and create something or exist independently. I think that is happening. It was a process. Things make sense the more I do them. See the film twice… read the book, see the show… maybe go back to them again if you want. Don’t be stuck. I didn’t want to be stuck.

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What (the Fuck) is Lesbian Cinema? and The Book of Gabrielle is at The Lighthouse in Glasgow, Sat 28 Oct, 2.30pm and Edinburgh Filmhouse, Sun 29 Oct, 2.30pm. Part of SQIFF 2017