Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Film

Born 1945 in New Orleans, LA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA

Widely recognized for documenting America’s punk and metal subcultures during the 1980s and 1990s, the Los Angeles–based director and screenwriter Penelope Spheeris centered her 1972 film I Don’t Know on the amorphous relationship between a lesbian woman and a transgender person. The black-and-white 16mm film, set in Los Angeles and produced with a three-person crew, alternates between scripted and improvised scenes centered around Linda, Spheeris’s sister, and Jimmy/Jennifer Michaels. The film weaves together elements from diverse genres, including the thrill of a French ballad, cinema vérité-style interviews, and archival footage of West Hollywood's first gay pride parade. By blending raw video footage with vibrant performative action captured on camera, Spheeris provides unfiltered insight into her subjects’ collective spirit of nonconformity, while also giving her 1972 work a sense of unexpected beauty and a noir-like depth characteristic of Los Angeles.