By Grace Woodwards
Lisa Rovner’s first feature documentary, Sisters with Transistors (2020), takes us through the forgotten history of pioneering women who shaped electronic music. From mathematicians to classical musicians, the history of electronic music is one of discovery and experimentation but also the erased relationship between women and technology. Delicately narrated by Laurie Anderson, a pioneer herself, Sisters with Transistors presents us with another case of women finding their own space in industries dominated by men.
From rare footage of Clara Rockmore expertly playing the theremin (an instrument played without physical contact) to Delia Derbyshire’s iconic composition of the Doctor Who theme, this documentary foregrounds the intelligence, charisma and determination of women directing the evolution of sound, from the post-war and countercultural period, into what we recognise today. However, their careers were not always taken seriously or credited. When Bebe Barron and her husband, Louis Barron, composed the first all-electronic film score for Forbidden Planet (1956), it was not taken seriously by executives simply for being ‘electronic’. Suzanne Ciani describes the preconceptions of being a female music composer, walking into studios where men assumed she was a singer.
Rovner lets the pioneers talk for themselves through archival footage. Her articulate and understated filmmaking is like viewing a postcard. The quality of many of these clips is like watching stagnant time, but seeing these pioneering women move freely and passionately with technology is as liberating as their discoveries. Their remarkable lives and hard work are lifted off the screen by the dissonant, vibrating and oscillating sounds of their machines.
You can watch Sisters with Transistors on Kanopy.
Further viewing:
The Sensual Nature of Sound (2005) – Dir. Michael Blackwood
The Girls in the Band: Female Jazz Musicians (2013) – Dir. Judy Chaikin
Bombshell (2017) – Dir. Alexandra Dean