Reelout Film Festival Movie Blog

Vision Portraits, by Rodney Evans

At the Screening Room in Kingston, Ontario

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Andrew’s View

Vision Portraits – A Review

Directed by: Rodney Evans

Release date: August 9th, 2019

By: Andrew Jonker, 20017361

February 13, 2020

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Vision Portraits is a movie by Rodney Evans which shows how visually impaired artists continue to pursue their passion of art after a loss of sense. The movie shows the struggles of every day people living with disability, and how they adapt to their surroundings. The film shows what it means to be to be a visually impaired artist through depicting the life of the filmmaker himself, a photographer named John Dugdale, a dancer named Kaya Hamilton, and a writer named Ryan Knighton, all are minorities who suffer from visual impairments and blindness. The movie is largely about the filmmaker himself in a partial autobiography format, where the filmmaker, Rodney Evans, depicts his own life while the other stories provide supplement. Rodney is motivated by his own struggles to share a rare glimpse of this life. Vision Portraits is a movie about practicing art with a visual disability, filmed by a person with a visual disability.

The film goes though the life of all four people suffering from visual impairment in detail.  Each artist was born as a seeing individual and over time they have suffered from loss of vision for various reasons. Perhaps the most influential story, over the filmmaker himself, is the photographer John Dugdale. He is a photographer who lost his eyesight due from HIV and continues to practice photography through his visual vocabulary (memories), and help from an assistant who centers the shot. John is passionate about photography and admits he no longer wishes for his sight back.  After some tough years of his life, John was happy he stayed on the earth and continued to practice art, because he realized how much he could still do with just his memoires. Just because he lost his vision didn’t mean he had to stop doing what he was passionate about. You see with you heart, and your head.

The loss of vision can make a person feel lost with no purpose; no longer being able to work independently and are limited in what activities they can pursue. Eventually, it becomes possible to adapt and continue to practice art as the film proves.

The film uses blurred images and dizzying city sounds to assist the viewer in the realization of blindness. Similarly, bright colours, and small sight holes on screen help in depicting the various visual disabilities shown in the film. The film does an excellent job in showing what the day to day life is like for a visually imparted person, which includes both the physical and mental burdens associated with it.

The film does a great job sharing the difficult truth of blindness, without the depiction of pity or remorse. While the more your vision deteriorates, the more you deem things unsafe, blindness is like a new form of freedom.  John Dugdale has found comfort in being blind and enjoys it as a new way to express his feelings.

Evans clearly defines what life is like as a disabled person. There are many obvious problems which come with a physical disability aside from the mental struggles. The filmmaker shares a story of a near death experience falling between a train and the platform while exiting a train on the subway. Similarly, the dancer Kayla Hamilton struggled with weight gain as a result of being forced to stop dancing and being active in her everyday life. There are numerous physical challenges a visually impaired person must overcome, and Vision Portraits shows them quite well.

John Dugdale is a gay, fully blind man. Life becomes difficult living outside of the norm, beside the intersectionality of being gay and blind. Dugdale struggled with suicidal thoughts because of not only being different, but because he could not see others faces. He felt as if he was see-through. “There are countless individuals who experience oppression in society because of the cumulative and intersecting effects of racism, sexism, class oppression, transphobia, able-ism and more” [Everyday Sociology Blog].The movie depicts very well the idea of intersectionality; the accumulative effects of different modes of discrimination [Everyday Sociology Blog]. In all four individuals, the film highlights the intersectionality of being discriminated against for disability (ableism), racism, and transphobia cumulatively. For example, Kaya Hamilton is a female, black, visually disabled dancer which provides grounds for intersectionality.

With disability, or as a minority group, comes a stigma. The writer, Ryan Knighton, made many efforts to distance himself from his relationship with disability. Knighton used a cane to assist him in navigating rather than a walking stick, to not be associated with the stigma of being blind. Blindness could hold him back in his carer as a writer, because employers often turn away from disability. This is an ableist point of view. “Disability is not something you want to engage with in a relationship”, whether it be an intimate relationship, or a job, says Knighton. Ableism is discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities and is a large reason why a person with a disability may be considered undesirable.  “Disabled people are not our doctors, or teachers. They are not real people. They are just there to inspire.” (Young, Stella, 2:12-2:38) Ryan, like all people with disabilities, does what he can to avoid the stigma of being a disabled person, while proving to the world that he can be a teacher and a roll model. Ryan shows that it is not an accomplishment for him to get up in the morning because he can do so much more than that.

Vision Portraits is a very important film which demonstrates, along with the stories it tells, that visually disabled people can create meaningful and attractive artwork for everyone to enjoy, and that they are not necessarily limited in any way like society believes.

References

Young, Stella. “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much | Stella Young” YouTube, TED, June 9, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K9Gg164Bsw

Everyday Sociology Blog, 13 Apr. 2018, http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2018/04/intersectionality-for-beginners.html#more.

Word Count: 955

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Hanna’s View

Vision Portraits – A Review

Directed by: Rodney Evans

Release date: August 9th, 2019

By: Hanna Girndt 20009334

February 13, 2020

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Vision Portraits is a deeply personal documentary which explores what it means to be a visually impaired artist through the lives of four diff erent artists: filmmaker Rodney Evans, photographer John Dugdale, dancer Kayla Hamilton and writer Ryan Knighton, each with a varying degree of visual impairment. Each artist either lost or began to lose their eyesight sometime after birth, which initially made it quite difficult for the artists to picture a continued career in art. It highlights the ways in which each artist has facilitated their creative process in their own unique way which has helped them all continue to lead successful careers in their field. Vision Portraits opens the mind to what it means to be creative and challenges normative views on art and ability. Vision Portraits is a work of art which accurately portrays what it means to be a visually impaired artist and the systems of power interconnecting their lives.

What Vision Portraits does by explaining the real-life stories of people living with disability is very helpful to counter the traditional storytelling in Hollywood. Harnet (2000) explains “depiction of disabled people behaving ‘ordinarily’ arising much less frequently in film”. Vision Portraits tells the life story of these four artists from the perspective as someone interested in their life and their art, not their disability. Regardless of the stream of art practiced by the artists, visually impaired artists may be considered to be less capable than their seeing counterparts. Society has constructed a direct relationship between art and visuals, which Vision Portraits begins to deconstruct. This issue is examined by Rodney Evans, the filmmaker. As his vision decreased, Evans tries to hide his disability for as long as he can in the fear that people within his industry would see, which would affect his credibility as a filmmaker; this is known as passing. “[…] Passing might be what you have to do to avoid being harassed. Passing is what you have to do because or when your legitimacy is in question” (Ahmed, S., 2017). The struggle Evans faces has forced him to try and pass through his own life with little detection from others. This is inherently against what it means to be an artist. Being an artist means self-expression through the work that is created. When self-expression is denied or hidden, the work cannot be created to the same extent. Vision Portraits delves into the struggle Evans must face in order to fully accept himself and his abilities; this takes time but ultimately is something that is overcome. Vision Portraits explains Evans’ struggle not as something to pity, but something to artists continue to express themselves as who they are.

Each artist faces their own struggle in their own way because the varying oppression against each individual is specific; that is each artist has faced their own version of oppression based on the various systems of power which act upon them. Being black artists, Evans and Hamilton encounter a host of challenges caused by their race alone. Racism has persisted since the beginning of recorded history, however modern technologies like that used in the art industry have increased its reach: “racism is connected integrally to the history of modernity and modern technologies have provided a key means in the establishment of racial supremacy” (Solomos and Back, 255). Media and modern technology are not only used to facilitate racism and white supremacy now, but they are built into the very fabric of society of the 21st century. Media’s use to facilitate racism makes it harder for black artists to enter the field, let alone thrive in it. However, Vision Portraits does an excellent job creating a platform for the artists to showcase their talents. Once other systems of power come into play such as sexual orientation, gender and ability, the individual effects of each system compound to form a unique situation of oppression for each individual. Vision Portraits accurately uses an  intersectional lens to identify and present the interlocking forms of power which affect each artist differently.  For example, the photographer John Dugdale reveals himself as a gay, HIV positive, blind photographer. Here, oppression from homophobic, xenophobic and ableist views all interconnect which form a specific situation with which John must cope. From an normative point of view, “with no context in which it is perceived as ‘normal’, disability is perceived as threatening and unusual” (Harnet, J., 2000). This view from the general populous could be detrimental to John’s mental welfare and may interfere with his desire to create, however Vision Portraits explains that this is not the case. Specifically, sight is not only an ocular ability; people see with their heart and their head. Vision Portraits explains the intersectionality of John’s situation while maintaining his  and personhood and talent as an artist.

Vision Portraits does a superb job revealing the many hardships with which the artists encounter without eliciting feelings of pity from the audience. It successfully uses the concept of intersectionality to help the artists explain why what they do is so unique. It portrays the artists as creative beings who are breaking the barriers of normativity both in the art world and beyond. Overall, Vision Portraits is a groundbreaking film which not only incorporates those with disability into its content, but focuses on them. It is a wonderful change to the disability typically seen in film production and should be used as an example for future works across all categories of film.

References

Ahmed, Sarah. (2017). Being in Question. Duke University Press.

Harnett, Allison. “Escaping the Evil Avenger and the Supercrip: Images of Disability in Popular Television in Popular Television.” Irish Communication Review, vol. 8, no.15, 2000. pp. 21-29.

Solomos, John and Back, Les. “Races, Racism and Popular Culture.” Race and Racialization: Essential Readings. Ed. Das Gupta, Tania et al. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2007. 247-256.

Word count: 907

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Ryan’s View

Vision Portraits – A Review

Directed by: Rodney Evans

Release date: August 9th, 2019

By: Ryan Jonker, 20018837

February 13, 2020

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“My best dancing is when my eyes are closed,” says dancer Kayla Hamilton. Characters in the film ‘Vision Portraits,’ provide insight into the lives of many blind artists. From the perspective of the characters, blindness allows them to tap into a deeper connection to their other senses. Although sometimes a burden, living with blindness has made the characters stronger, appreciate the life they have, and come to the realisation that there is more to life than living sighted. The movie presents many normative social constructs, and how they effect the characters. It portrays the net effect of the combination of the stigmas around gender, race, sexuality, and disability.

The movie primarily follows director Rodney Evans on his journey with blindness, who successfully made 2 movies while visually impaired. He was diagnosed with a rare genetic eye disorder Retinitis Pigmentosa, where he gradually looses vision as days pass. He is seeking treatment internationally to cure his vision, but the journey is long and has no end in sight. Evans offers his thoughts and experiences and uses other characters in the movie to help portray the struggle people have living with visual impairment. A big problem in todays society is ableism and this movie does a good job shedding light on that. In general, most people don’t know they are discriminating, until they can see what it looks like, and this movie does just that.

The movie also follows John Dugdale, a photographer. John identifies as queer and is living with AIDS. A side effect of AIDS is the loss of vision. At 30 years of age, he had a stroke and lost all sight. Before his vision impairment, he was a photographer and he wanted to continue to do so after he lost sight. For his photography, he leans on his visual vocabulary he developed throughout his life. John felt that like he was invisible to other people, because he could not see the. After a while living in blindness, he began to see vision in a new light, where he felt a new form of freedom because he did not have to see. This helps to portray blindness to the audience, not as an impairment but as an enhancement. From ‘Gendering Disability’, “disability, like femaleness, is not a natural state of corporeal inferiority, inadequacy, excess, or a stroke of misfortune. Rather, disability is a culturally fabricated narrative of the body, similar to what we understand as the fictions of race and gender” (Garland-Thomson). Society has stigmatized blindness, because it is outside of the arbitrary social norms’ society has placed on people. This movie helps people see past that, and to see in a new light.  

The third character in the movie is dancer, Kayla Hamilton. In college, Kayla developed iritis, swelling and inflammation in the eyes. Eye drops prescribes to cure the issue caused glaucoma, making her blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other. She took up dancing to cope with her issues and express herself. When her dancing took of, she led a dance recital called ‘Nearly Sighted.’ She chose to cast black women for the roles to tell a bigger story; intersectionality. As a black woman who is blind, she has to deal with the combined effect of racism, sexism, and ableism. The discrimination she faces is from privileged people. The purpose of the dance was to give audience members an insight into the life of visually impaired people. In Nearly Sighted, audience members wore eyepatches to watch the play. To impose reflexivity on the audience, the dance must make them question “what does the image represent to the people who are watching(Harnett)?” This forced them to see in a different way, shifting their perspective, and question how they see. Most people don’t know they’re privileged until light is shed on the fact.

The last character in the movie is Ryan Knighton, a blind author, and English and creative writing professor. Knighton, who is homosexual, lived as long as he could, passing as sighted.  With a career in writing, one of the most racist and homophobic industries, he was fearful of letting people know he was blind. Worried about untrue stigmas effecting his future career, he wouldn’t use a cane in public in case people in the industry seen him. The fact that this was a concern for him shows what is wrong with society. The social construct of normativity degrades anyone who is outside of the norm. Being both gay and blind, he felt the degradation of intersectionality. “Understanding how disability functions along with other systems of representation clarifies how all the systems intersect and mutually constitute one another.” (Garland-Thomson) The combination of these two stigmatized elements mutually combine to create overlapping systems of discrimination. Ryan overcame the fear of discrimination and committed to being blind in public and is very successful.

The overwhelming trend of the movie is providing privileged able-bodied people insight into the lives of vision impaired people, to allow them to see in a new light. Blindness gives the characters more access to their feeling and sensation, and that you see with your heart, not your head. It provides hope for people with disabilities that they can live life to the fullest. The movie helps undo the stigma assigned to blindness by society, confirming that disability is not a state of inferiority. The movie also focuses on the intersectional discriminatory effects of race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability, and how they can affect people. Overall, Evans does a good job representing disability in a new light.

References

Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory . n.d. 2020 02 09.

Harnett, Alison. Escaping the Evil Avenger and the Supercrip: Images of Disability. 2000. Irish Communications Review. 09 02 2020. <https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=icr&gt;.

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