Three films about abortion make for a timely Sundance sidebar
Call Jane, The Janes, and Happening serve as harrowing reminders of the human consequences of outlawing abortion
Film Features Sundance
It would be a mistake to think that the three movies about abortion at this year’s Sundance—Call Jane, The Janes, and Happening—are about the past. True, all three of them take place in the 1960s and/or early ’70s. And two of them end on a celebratory note, as Roe V. Wade struck down anti-abortion laws in Texas and around the country in January 1973. But if you think that a woman’s right to choose is a settled question, then you haven’t been paying attention. S.B. 8, a new Texas law that makes obtaining a safe, legal abortion in the state all but impossible, is currently traveling through the federal appeals courts. And with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Roe V. Wade’s chances of celebrating its 50th birthday are far from secure.
It’s more common that you might think for a series of films about the same topic to all coincidentally make their way onto the same festival program. In 2016, for example, four films about gun violence were featured at Sundance. And ambient anxiety over reproductive rights has been a constant since… well, as long as I can remember, but particularly since Donald Trump took office in January 2017. It takes a while for a film to go from an idea to a finished product, and the fact that all three of these films are hitting Sundance at the same time shows how pervasive fears about losing reproductive freedom have been in recent years. Sadly, this is one issue that doesn’t seem like it’ll fade from relevance any time soon.
Looking into the past, when whisper networks and septic abortion wards (i.e., wards for women dying of botched at-home abortions) were common, the facts always defy current misconceptions and stereotypes. For example, the fiction feature Call Jane and the documentary The Janes, about Chicago’s JANE collective, both feature clergy members involved in the movement to legalize abortion. The fact is, anti-abortion rhetoric was not a cornerstone of evangelical Christianity until the late ’70s: In 1971, 1974, and 1976, the Southern Baptist Convention passed resolutions supporting women’s right to choose. Catholics, meanwhile, have been anti-abortion practically since the church’s inception. But that didn’t stop activist nuns like Sister Mike, a fictionalized version of whom Aida Turturro plays in Call Jane, from joining the fight.
One has to be careful not to re-write history out of convenience. Directed by Carol screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, Call Jane takes an approach too often adopted by films about activism that are trying to toe a centrist line: It inserts a “safe,” not-too-radical protagonist to assure some (presumed) comforting familiarity for the film’s (presumed) white, middle-class audience. Roland Emmerich’s 2015 film Stonewall did this by adding a fresh-off-the-bus white Midwestern jock into an event that was actually led by trans women of color. And Call Jane does it through the character of Joy (Elizabeth Banks), a white upper-middle-class suburban housewife who connects with an underground network of women committed to providing safe abortions after being denied the life-saving procedure by an all-male hospital board.
Call Jane underlines the importance of not judging the women who passed through JANE’s doors over the years. But the movie undercuts that message by making sure the audience knows that Joy had her abortion because of a heart condition that would have killed her if she brought the pregnancy to term. And although we do meet other members of the collective—some based on real people, like Sigourney Weaver’s Virginia, an analogue for JANE founder Heather Booth—none of them get more than a few lines of dialogue filling in their lives and backgrounds. It’s a move that’s especially egregious when looking at the character of Gwen (Wunmi Mosaku), JANE’s sole Black member, whose desire to better serve the impoverished Black women of Chicago is given only obligatory air time and a pat resolution.
In terms of narrative structure, Joy is a convenient contrivance. Call Jane does mean well. But in turning a story about a collective into a narrative about a nice white lady who showed some radical feminists how to really get things done, it shortchanges both its fictional story and the real-life inspiration for it. Inconsistent, sometimes sloppy direction from Nagy doesn’t help, either. Call Jane looks a lot like the feminist version of Trial Of The Chicago 7: an oversimplified take on a complicated chapter of history.
For a fuller picture of that history, viewers can turn to The Janes, a documentary that doesn’t do anything radical in terms of structure or storytelling, but at least acknowledges the multi-faceted nature of the story. I’ve seen quite a few nonfiction films that focus on the early days of second-wave feminism (the best of which, in my estimation, is She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, currently streaming on Tubi). The good ones always include details about how much women’s lives have changed within my mother’s lifetime that blow me away. Here, it was the fact that, in 1968, it was expected for a woman to quit her job if she got pregnant, and doctors would not write you a prescription for the Pill unless you were already married.
You can see how this confluence of factors would put a lot of young, unmarried women into desperate situations. There are some shocking moments in The Janes, as we see stock footage of women admitted to hospitals after an unsuccessful abortion: There’s so much blood, staining shift dresses and white gloves and the blankets that were wrapped around these poor souls when they arrived at the emergency room. Interviews with doctors and nurses who worked on septic abortion wards add valuable context, as do sections of the documentary outlining how women being sidelined in anti-war and civil rights movements directly led to radical ’60s feminism.
The Janes is also a Chicago story, full of very Chicago details. The accents are thick, and the impunity is real. It took four years for the Chicago police to bust JANE, which operated just under the surface by advertising in underground newspapers and on community bulletin boards. (“Pregnant? Worried? Call Jane,” the ads read.) Several interviewees speculate that the reason the CPD didn’t act was because their daughters and girlfriends were using the service, and one member says it never occurred to her that there might be actual consequences for her activism until she got arrested.
There’s a youthful naiveté to that, but also an element of white privilege—it’s probably not a coincidence that detectives started paying more attention to JANE after New York State legalized abortion, shifting the underground network’s clientele to mostly Black and Latina women on the South and West sides. The Janes does acknowledge these facts, however, and discusses them openly. The most affecting part of the documentary comes when surviving collective members pull out the notecards on which they recorded the personal information of the people who called the service. One by one, they read aloud the intimate details of these desperate pleas for help: “Father is a cop. Be careful,” one reads. “Afraid of pain,” reads another. One card just has a name, weeks pregnant, and the word “terrified.”
The cumulative effect of each of those note cards is devastating. But so is the intimate detail of the most powerful of Sundance’s three abortion stories this year: Audrey Diwan’s Happening, which is playing as part of the festival’s Spotlight program after winning the Golden Lion at Venice last fall. Set at a provincial French college circa 1963, Happening is based on Annie Ernaux’s memoir about her experience trying to get an abortion so she could continue her studies at the age of 23. Diwan turns Ernaux’s story into a film that’s full of intimate, autobiographical texture, plainly yet eloquently told.
Of these three films, Happening is the most unflinching in depicting the bodily reality of the situation. The most compelling sequence in Call Jane is a 10-minute scene that goes through most of the steps of a D&E (dilation and evacuation) procedure, but a white sheet covers the action, so to speak. In Happening, we get a similarly extended look at what actually happens when someone lays down for an abortion. But this time there’s no white sheet and no stirrups, just two strangers and some scary-looking tools. The scene isn’t quite gynecological in detail; Diwan pans up to star Anamaria Vartolomei’s face once the really painful part begins. Nevertheless, the actor’s agonized expressions make the point clearly.
That’s just one of several visceral, harrowing medical sequences in Happening. (Earlier in the film, Vartolomei’s Anne tries to self-induce with a knitting needle, as you can see in the still above.) These are hard to watch, but essential to understanding what Anne is going through. “I’ll manage,” she says, over and over, to those few friends she can trust with this very sensitive information. Society’s judgement of a girl like Anne in ’60s France was intense, so much so that even the subtle intimation of abortion is met with panicked whispers of, “We don’t talk about that.” Anne is alone, and afraid, and in pain. But she never wavers in her decision.
Happening isn’t afraid of the physical, but its depiction of the psychological effect the pregnancy has on Anne is equally affecting. She can’t concentrate. Her grades suffer. So do her friendships. If she doesn’t find a way to end this pregnancy, then her life as she knows it is over. And Happening keeps the viewer in suspense up until the end. “I’d like a child one day, but not instead of a life,” Anne tells a confidant at one point.
Looking through that lens, it becomes overwhelming to think about all the lives that were saved by underground abortion providers like the members of JANE. And not just in the literal sense that these organizations helped women who might have died trying to perform the procedure themselves—also in the sense that they allowed women to keep living the lives they chose. Having a baby and a career was rarely an option back then, which meant that bearing a child set the course for the rest of a woman’s life. There are those who would like to return society to that place. Let these films, all directed by women, serve as a reminder of how much potential is lost when we see human beings as little more than incubators.
54 Comments
Remember, folks: it’s all about controlling and oppressing women. Everything else is a smokescreen.
Do you assume anti-abortion women want to control and oppress women?
Even though the vast majority of Americans want safe, legal abortion available, the Republican appointed courts would overturn precedent and that hard fought right. They will not stop stripping away other assumed rights and protections.
In order for there to be any hope for our civilization and possibly the human race. Biden has to reform the courts. Double the number of judges, all the way to the Supreme Court. Arrest criminal, bribe taking hacks on the federal bench, like Clarence Thomas. Drag seditious conspirators in the January 6th Coup like Brooks, Cawthorn, Greene, Hawley et al. to prison. Do whatever it takes.He doesn’t have to break the law to do it. He just has to bring Republican lawbreakers and their corrupt, captive judges to justice. If those Republican criminals are able to regain power, they will not hesitate to trample the Constitution and break the law to keep that power and make us all suffer.
Do you actually think a judge would write an arrest warrant for Thomas? Do you think even the Dem appointees on SCOTUS would stand for it?
Why do you think that the Republican seditionists aren’t already planning mass arrests when they can steal back power? Newt Gingrich said so. How naive can you be?I am sure they can find a judge that despises Nazis somewhere on the bench. I know they can find juries in Washington D.C. more than willing to convict.You institutional types are clutching your pearls so tightly that you are cutting off your air supply. The institutions have proven they are inadequate by letting Trump and the rest of the minority rule Republicans take power already. The institutions have failed by letting Clarence Thomas sell Supreme Court decisions for decades through his fanatical wife. The institutions will have completely failed if the aforementioned criminals escape justice for their very real and very well documented crimes.It’s very simple. Are you against Nazis or will you do nothing to stop them? You seem a little dense so I will tell you that the Republicans are the Nazis here.
I feel like every time someone tells me something is “very simple,” they are actually telling me they don’t understand something.Let’s say a jury in Washington DC convicts Justice Thomas or a member of Congress, as you recommend. The defendant then appeals that case to the D.C. Circuit. If they lose there and appeal again, where do you think the case goes? And that’s assuming the case doesn’t get tossed at a lower level. Even a liberal judge would be very, very wary of these cases.
You must have missed a violent mob of thousands sent by lame duck Donald Trump to violently disrupt the appointment of the lawfully elected President.That happened.The Republicans will let it happen again.They have to be stopped. Just like the Confederacy. Just like the Axis.
I’d like the country to not be in tremendous peril, but your ideas for how to prevent that are nonsense fantasies. I don’t have to get on board with them, for the same reason I think COVID is dangerous, but don’t have to back someone who says we can prevent it by wearing pants on our heads.
Try wishing harder.If you close your eyes really tight and cross your fingers, maybe your dreams will all come true…
QAnon was saying there would be mass arrests. QAnon was wrong. It was always an idiotic idea.The court system is not designed to let people punish political opponents they “despise”. It is designed to give defendants the benefit of the doubt (of course, most actual defendants plea out and thus don’t get such benefits).The institutions were compatible with Trump taking power… but then he lost an election and all his power.
Trumpism is still alive and well. Trump still has sway over the minority rule, extremist Republican Party. They are passing laws in the red states now to sway future elections in their favor. The Republicans in the Senate, along with Manchin and Sinema, have sabotaged Democratic attempts to protect our elections from Republican criminality.Did former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich join Q? I missed that although I’m sure he would join them or the Nazi Party if it gave him wealth and power. He has called for the mass arrest of Democrats involved in investigating the numerous crimes, including sedition, of Trump and his followers and accomplices.Republicans have committed crimes. Serious, terrible crimes that are real abuses of power. Holding Republican criminals to criminal account may be interpreted as a political act. It is not. They really committed those crimes!
Not prosecuting Republican criminals is an act of political cowardice and only leaves Republicans emboldened in their criminality and free to engage in more crime and atrocity. If they get back in power, the results will be catastrophic. They have already shown us with their words and deeds.
Trump holds no office. He doesn’t even have a Twitter account anymore!There are still Republicans in office and Democratic senators who demand concessions in exchange for their support of bills. That’s how it always is!“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken” and that Merrick Garland etc better understand the intersection of criminal law & politics than you do.
QAnon was saying there would be mass arrests. QAnon was wrong. It was always an idiotic idea.
Newt Gingrich said it a few days ago.
The institutions were compatible with Trump taking power… but then he lost an election and all his power. Trump has not lost his power. He has an iron grip on the Republicans, who are all terrified of pissing him off.
Well if Newt Gingrich says something, it must be sensible, right? I’m sure he’d face devastating reputational damage if it turned out he was spewing nonsense.Can Donald Trump sign any laws, promulgate any executive orders, appoint any officials? Do those Republicans form a governing majority?
Can Donald Trump sign any laws, promulgate any executive orders, appoint any officials?
Lots of Republican governors that worship Trump can.
Do those Republicans form a governing majority?
In many states, yes, they do.
Trump can still run for office.Trump is still the most popular Republican Presidential primary candidate.Trump is still an existential threat to the United States of America.Every elected Republican President since Nixon has been involved in treasonous conspiracies that helped them attain or hold office.It’s not too late to prosecute Trump. (and G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney)
We already had a Trump presidency, and the US still exists.
Logic is not your strong point.
Holy shit!You are making sense and I am agreeing with you!!!!I miss Splinter also…
You institutional types are clutching your pearls so tightly that you are cutting off your air supply. Just because we don’t think anything you’re saying has any chance of happening (specifically doubling the number of judges, prosecuting Clarence Thomas) doesn’t mean we’re “clutching our pearls.” We just have one foot still in reality. The current state of the GOP is the predictable result of the past twenty years of politics, and the Democrats have failed to do anything about it. They’re not going to suddenly grow a spine.
It’s really forty years of rolling over for Republicans! (Ronald fucking Reagan!!!)Even if the things I have stated have little chance of happening, these ideas have to be pushed out in to the public. We have to give those waffling Democrats their spine and demand action. The more action, the better. Call your reps!!!
We are really in danger of becoming a White Power, minority ruled, Republican Party autocracy.It can happen here.
We are really in danger of becoming a White Power, minority ruled, Republican Party autocracy.Yes.But Biden is not going to arrest Justice Thomas.
He and his bribe taking wife should still be arrested.They are criminals.
First of all, there is no way to achieve this without the votes in Congress (which Biden doesn’t have) and support of the Courts (which he also doesn’t have). Some of the stuff you’re proposing would be extremely dangerous. Arresting Justice Thomas? For what? Being terrible at one’s job is not a crime, and neither is having a wife who is terrible. Second of all, Americans’ views on abortion are less coherent than your comment suggests. The majority of the public clearly favors abortion being legal in some cases. But it’s just as clear they do not support abortion being available as it is when Roe and Casey are being actually taken seriously by judges. It’s just not true that most of America wants abortion on demand available to women throughout pregnancy. I wish it was, but it’s not.
It’s just not true that most of America wants abortion on demand available to women throughout pregnancy.
A majority of Americans want abortion to be legal & accessible. That’s not up for debate.
lmao, you people are hilarious. Good luck with your fan fic.
“the vast majority of Americans want safe, legal abortion available” Overturning Roe would not stop “the vast majority of Americans” from getting the abortion laws they want. If Roe is overturned, each state will be allowed to make their own abortion laws, so if the vast majority of Americans wants what you say they want, abortion will remain legal.
No.This will not protect those without the resources to go out of state to get the personal, medical procedure of abortion. The recent, terrible Texas law that the radical, extremist Supreme Court refused to stop could potentially even punish those with the resources to flee Texas.
Your flippancy would deny basic human rights to tens of millions of people.
I’m not being flippant. You’re the one saying the “vast majority of Americans” want abortion to be legal. If that were true, Roe would not be necessary.If abortion rights are as popular as you say, why don’t we just add an abortion rights amendment to the constitution? Then we wouldn’t need judges to pretend it is already there.
There are way too many untruths in your outrageous statement for me to unpack right now. I’m just not interested today.Maybe tomorrow.
The “vast majority of Americans” want something, and we need courts to overrule legislatures in order to get it. This makes no sense on its face.
You really hate women..
Nonsense. You are claiming the “vast majority of Americans” believe something, therefore it must be imposed on states against the wishes of their legislatures. You don’t have to be anti-abortion to see the fault in your logic. You can believe abortion should be legal while also keeping a foot in reality, and I recommend you try it.
You really hate women.You are also making the old “State’s Rights” argument.Do you want to tell us all who else you hate? Too late, you already did.
All you have is ad hominem because your argument makes no sense on its face.
Nothing ad hominem about it.You would deny women an established right to a personal medical decision through the discredited and unconstitutional argument for state’s rights. The same argument for the treasonous Confederacy and its later worshipers in the Jim Crow south. That’s what you are saying.You hate women.
You’re arguing with yourself.
There is no argument.You hate women.
We’re not a nation that can peaceably co-exist. I think the last several years have borne that out. White violence is written into our constitution, it’s in the soil. There won’t be a civil war with muskets and cannons this time, it’ll be a war of radicalized magical thinking, cults fomenting rebellion on social media, and small targeted strikes on courthouses, schools and state parks. We spent the last 20 years proving how powerless we were to quell violent religious zealots; our own violent religious zealots were watching all that, and learning from them.One half of us has a desperate need to kill – I don’t really care to delve into the psychology of why, there are a hundred different reasons. And everyone who has their balls in a vice, from Murdoch to Zuckerberg to McConnell to Trump, only get more money and power every time they squeeze, so they’ll never stop until the train really goes off the cliff and it’s time to split for good or “rebuild,” whatever the fuck that looks like. The real kicker is that neither Biden, nor Harris, nor any Democrat candidate who will be elected in the next 50 years, has 1/10th of an idea how to stop it, or gives half of a shit to even try.Get ready.
Maybe.That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try and stop the Republican crazies and demand leadership that does just that.Also, it is far less than half of the country that are Trumpublican whackos. They are way over-represented by Congressional gerrymander and the ancient slave holder institutions of the Senate and Electoral College.I also do not think that McConnell and Trump et al. have their balls in a vice. They revel in the cruelty and chaos that has given them wealth and power.
“Catholics, meanwhile, have been anti-abortion practically since the church’s inception.”This is absolutely wrong.From Catholics For Choice’s website:“Catholic teachings on abortion have changed over time. Many past and present Catholic theologians have said abortion can be a moral choice. Others disagree.St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, both Doctors of the Church, believed that the fetus did not become a person (or become “ensouled”) until later in the pregnancy. For much of the church’s history, Catholic popes made a clear distinction between ensouled and un-ensouled fetuses. The Vatican’s total ban on abortion was not codified until 1917. Even today, although the Vatican does not condone abortion, it has said definitively that it does not know when a developing life becomes a person. This history demonstrates that the Catholic tradition includes more than the teachings written down by popes and theologians. Catholicism is based on a deep respect for conscience, which each person must follow above all else when making a moral decision.”https://www.catholicsforchoice.org/issues/abortion/
Well that’s great that there turns out to be an organization called Catholics for Choice. Tell them they need a better publicist.
They’ve been around forever (Formerly Catholics For a Free Choice). You usually see talking heads from the org pop up whenever abortion’s in the news.
It’s also worth distinguishing between the Catholic Church and “Catholics.” To cite maybe the most glaring example, Church doctrine is about as opposed to contraception as it can be, and is openly aware that its position is rejected and ignored by basically all American Catholics. More Catholics agree with the Church’s teaching on abortion, but only in numbers that roughly match the country as a whole.
Right. And it’s always worth remembering that even the Catholic Church will say that Church doctrine is fallible, and Catholics have a lot of room to disagree with that doctrine.
This is absolutely wrong.
No, it’s not. The position of the Catholic Church is that abortion is wrong.
From Catholics For Choice’s website:
Irrelevant. They don’t speak for the Catholic Church.
You’re oversimplifying. The Catholic Church has not always or uniformly considered abortion ‘wrong’, which was Rife’s implication. And it’s more complex than simply ‘The Catholic Church says it’s wrong’. That’s not claiming any sort of divine dictate; they say that only as spiritual guidance. You can have an abortion and still be in good graces with God and the Church. The Church’s thought on this and most other topics is far more nuanced than what you’ll get from the ultra-conservative Catholics the media always seems to platform.
You’re oversimplifying.
I’m really not. The official position of the Catholic Church is that abortion is wrong.
And it’s more complex than simply ‘The Catholic Church says it’s wrong’.
No, it really isn’t.
That’s not claiming any sort of divine dictate; they say that only as spiritual guidance.
They say it as the arbiters of Catholic dogma.
the ultra-conservative Catholics the media always seems to platform.
Those same ultra-conservative Catholics are also in the Vatican.
But ‘Catholic dogma’ is not law. Catholics can reject it! And many do! All Catholics are Catholics of conscience–sin is violating your conscience by turning against God, it’s not performing an act on a checklist of sins. The church hierarchy is, unfortunately, very much against abortion, but the Catholic Church is the congregation, not just the hierarchy.
But ‘Catholic dogma’ is not law.
It’s Catholic law.
Catholics can reject it! And many do!
And the Vatican doesn’t care. They don’t base their position on popular opinion.
sin is violating your conscience by turning against God, it’s not performing an act on a checklist of sins.
Not according to the Catholic Church. Most other religions as well. Not following the made-up rules is considered bad by the people who made up the rules.
The church hierarchy is, unfortunately, very much against abortion, but
the Catholic Church is the congregation, not just the hierarchy. Except the congregation doesn’t matter. The Vatican does not base its position on popular opinion. The Catholic Church is against abortion. That’s not debatable. If Catholics don’t like that, then they’re free to quit their bullshit religion. But they don’t. They continue to identify as Catholics even though the Catholic Church says LQBTQ+ abominations, forbids abortion, says divorced people are going to hell, same with people who live together before getting married… The fact that they stay with the Church says more than what they actually say themselves.
If more people interpreted Catholicism in the way you do, it might be a more popular religion. Individual Catholics can interpret and practice Church doctrine in the way they see fit, but the diversity of opinions among Catholics (both congregants and clergy) doesn’t change the hierarchical structure of the Church or the fact that the men at the top of the hierarchy have consistently, publicly expressed their disapproval of abortion. That opinion filters down to clergy and congregants (and the Catholic education system). If a woman tells a priest in Confession that she had an abortion, it would be very reasonable to assume that the priest shared the Pope’s opinion, and she was confessing to murder. There’s no point in having a Pope if the Pope’s statements don’t carry weight for the lower clergy. Rife brings it up in this review because there were Catholics of conscience involved in the underground abortion movement in the 1970s, and their views were not mainstream in the Church. At that time (just like now) it’s not oversimplifying to say that the One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, as expressed by the Holy See, says that abortion is wrong (and held the same view in the 1970s). Faith is a messy and complicated thing, but for us faithless it’s fairly straightforward (and appropriately simple) to just read to the avowed values of an organization.
To clarify a bit, Rife isn’t saying that the Catholic Church has been against abortion since the 1970s, she’s saying it’s always been against abortion (‘practically since the church’s inception’), which is incorrect. I object to that because there has been literally a millennia of debate about abortion in the Catholic Church, and many church fathers held views that we would consider pro-choice. I do think the fact that being anti-abortion has in the past century codified into what some might consider doctrine is a problem. But I think if more Catholics (and non-Catholics, frankly) understood that Catholic doctrine is not universal and fixed beyond some very basic theological (not moral) tenets, and that even Papal decrees are fallible except in extremely limited circumstances that arguably have never been met, we’d be more inclined to demand change in the hierarchy. Other than that I’ll just say that more Catholics need to be taught by Jesuits.
Its worth mentioning Ask For Jane another movie about the Jane Collective. https://tubitv.com/movies/563514/ask-for-jane
FYI, don’t go looking for more research on “Septic Abortion Wards”. It’s anti-choice links all the way down.