New York City, 1934 > From the shooter’s side of the camera

Berenice Abbott would not agree to have her life story told on film. And many people had asked because Abbott’s was a life worth filming.

She had left New York City, an expatriate, and became a photographer of artists in Paris during the 1920s. In the 1930s, she was back in New York, freeze framing shots of America’s booming hot spot and working for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. And in the 1940s and 1950s, she experimented with photography as a tool for the illustration of scientific phenomena.

Abbott’s career was busy, and her mind was inquisitive, independent, driven. She was also very private, and preferred to be on the shooting side of the camera.

That’s why it took filmmakers Martha Whellock and Kay Weaver 20 years to get Abbott to agree to do “Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century,” a new documentary on the life and work of the photographer and longtime Maine resident. The film, a project of the Maine Humanities Council, debuted last month in Maine, and will be shown again today at the College of the Atlantic, where Wheelock and Weaver, of Ishtar Films in Hollywood, Calif., will speak about the making of the film. The event is the Maine kick-off celebration of President Clinton’s declaration of October as National Arts and Humanities Month.

The beginning of the actual project, however, goes back three years, when Abbott invited Wheelock and Weaver to her home in Monson. She had not agreed to do the film, but said she was willing to discuss it.

Wheelock and Weaver had not received funding for the film or any indication that the project would take flight, but they packed all their gear and left Los Angeles at once, because, as Weaver explained, “When a 91-year-old woman says `Come on up,’ you can’t say, `I’ll be back in three years after I’ve written grant proposals.’ You go.”

Finally, Abbott gave the go-ahead, and out came the cameras.

Shot primarily at Abbott’s home in Monson, the one-hour piece was filmed during Abbott’s 91st and 92nd years, before her death in 1991. She agreed to do it, said Wheelock, only after the two filmmakers convinced her that if they did not do make the film while she was alive and able to tell her own story, then someone else would do it after her death, and it could reflect a life very different from the one Abbott had known.

Abbott’s 91st and 92nd years, before her death in 1991. She agreed to do it, said Wheelock, only after the two filmmakers convinced her that if they did not make the film while she was alive and able to tell her own story, then someone else would do it after her death, and it could reflect a life very different from the one Abbott had known.

This comment, plus a previous Ishtar film on the life of Maine writer May Sarton, and the sincerity of the filmmakers’ mission convinced Abbott to open her home, her works and her thoughts to the two women.

“I think she saw in us a kindred soul,” said Wheelock, who had first come upon Abbott’s works as a doctoral student at New York University in the 1970s. At that time, she wrote to Abbott and asked to make a film, but Abbott did not respond.

During the shoots, Wheelock and Weaver stayed in Abbott’s guest house, and when they weren’t working directly on the film, they were busily writing grants for the $300,000 budget. The seed money to script the film was fronted by the Maine Humanities Council, which eventually allotted $10,000 for the project.

“Berenice Abbott is such an important figure in the history of photography and the history of culture in the 20th century,” said Dorothy Schwartz, executive director of the Council.”She was living in Maine a long time, and we consider her one of Maine’s own.”

The filmmakers made eight week-long trips to Maine, during every season, to film and interview Abbott. According to Weaver, Abbott was “a very playful 92-year-old,” but one day, she had to work from bed. Still, she was happy to be recording her memories of photographs and experiences. She spoke openly of her beginnings in 1898 in Springfield, Ohio, through the 20th century and her time in Greenwich Village and in Paris, where she was darkroom assistant to surrealist Man Ray. In Paris, she also opened her own studio and photographed many of the literary renegades of the time — James Joyce, Andre Gide, Jean Cocteau, Claude McKay, and Djuna Barnes.

Wheelock, who primarily worked behind the camera, and Weaver, who primarily ran sound, made up the entire crew for most of the film. In their travels, Weaver and Wheelock also interviewed Juris Ubans, art professor at the University of Southern Maine, Maria Morris Hambourg of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Hank O’Neal, Abbott’s friend and biographer, and Hilton Kramer, former art critic for The New York Times. All of these additional people appear in the film to put Abbott’s work into some historical and critical perspective.

“It was a great challenge to make a film about such a world-renowned photographer,” said Wheelock, an educator and historian who founded Ishtar to produce films about women. “It’s like writing a biography about a writer. It has to be as good as you can get, because it’s the same as that person’s art form.”

Still, said Wheelock, the film belongs to Abbott and her view of her own life.

“We let her tell her own story,” added Wheelock. “All the interpretations of who she is and what she accomplished are in her own words. She herself imposed so little in her own art with her subjects. She thought they should be revealed. Berenice never saw the finished film, but I think she would have liked it.”

In addition to leading lively discussions about the technical side of photography while the film was being shot, Abbott was very forthcoming with her feelings about Maine. During the 1950s, when Abbott was traveling from Florida to Maine documenting life in the towns that lined Route 1, she decided to move here because it was rugged and independent in ways that appealed to her sensibilities.

In the 1960s, she settled in Maine permanently and undertook “Portrait of Maine,” a photographic study of the state. From her home on Lake Hebron, she continued to make prints of her photographs until the 1980s, when she finally attained critical standing and financial security.

“Berenice gave Maine a lot of credit for her longevity,” said Weaver. “It had peace of mind, good water, good air, good food — all of the basics.”

Wheelock added: “Maine is an image of who Berenice Abbott is — independent, fiercely inventive, resourceful, rugged. She began to look a little like the Maine landscape as I filmed her — that fierce independence and resourcefulness. Maine should be proud of its adopted daughter.”

The collaborative filmmakers also agreed on another point. Like May Sarton, Abbott hasn’t received acclaim for the contributions she made to the arts.

“I just feel so deprived that I didn’t know of Berenice Abbott all my life,” said Wheelock. “I think women feel that way about other women — deprived that we don’t know who these women are who help define us as artists.”

The film has already been awarded several honors, including a Blue Ribbon in Media Arts at the American Film Festival, a Bronze Apple at the National Education Video Festival, and a certificate of merit at the Chicago International Film Festival. The Maine Humanities Council has video copies which are available free of charge for public showings.

“Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century” will be shown 8 p.m. today at the College of the Atlantic. For information about the showing or the availability of the film, call the Maine Humanties Council at 773-5051.