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"Intriguing...a unique perspective
on Las Vegas."
Booklist, American Library Association (chosen as Top Ten
Videos of 1999)
. . . . .
"Captivating and consciousness-raising..."
Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times
. . . . .
" A film that not only takes us behind the Hollywood stereotypes of Vegas
women, but delivers a deeply resonant portrait of female strength and
endurance that women everywhere can relate to and appreciate..."
Jeannette Catsoulis, film critic, Las Vegas Weekly
. . . . .
From the LA New Times
By Tracy Johnson
Stripped and Teased A new documentary explores naked Las Vegas Filmmaker
Amie Williams' documentary Stripped and Teased could be described as both
the first film about Las Vegas without a prostitute and a documentary
about female pioneers in America's fastest growing city. The way Williams
sees it, her film tells the untold story of the Las Vegas women behind
the showgirl mythos and the neon. Stripped and Teased: Tales from Las
Vegas Women premieres at Laemmle's Sunset 5 on Saturday and Sunday. "Women
in Las Vegas are visible as objects and invisible as subjects," says the
writer, director, and narrator. "A lot of people ask why I didn't put
a prostitute in the movie, but they're available on every street corner.
I wanted to explore the Las Vegas we never see."
. . . . .
From the San Francisco Weekly
Stripped & Teased: Tales From Vegas Women
Dir: Amie Williams
Year:1998
Duration: 62mins
Country: USA
Format: 16mm
"Stripped & Teased" is a surprising film in many ways. I do have to admit
that the title itself conjoured up salacious images of Vegas showgirls
in a Jack Ruby / Las Vegas Grind kind of way. Not so... "Stripped and
Teased" is a very personal account of the women behind the facade. Beautifully
paced, the work delves deeply into the lives and motivations of hostesses
at Caesar's Palace, union bosses, exotic dancers, taxi drivers, hotel
maids, construction workers and showgirls. Rather than take broad bush
strokes of "women in Vegas", the film focuses on these women, capturing
them in surprising intimate and sometimes moving moments. "Stripped &
Teased" avoids all the stereotypes and clichés ordinarily associated
with Vegas, replacing exploitation film preconceptions with real and engrossing
human drama. Williams mixes a wonderfully laid back and moody version
of the Elvis standard "Viva Las Vegas" with some remarkable archival Vegas
tourist and information films. These sometimes hilarious sequences provide
the seamless transitions between issues, emotions and events which deeply
effect the lives of these passionate women.
. . . . .
Review from Interfilm
Germany
Stripped and Teased: Tales from Las Vegas Women Amie S. Williams USA 1998
62 min 16mm & 35mm Let's go beyond the neon to tell the true stories of
Las Vegas women, who not only create the fantasy but clean up the mess
in the morning. A raw look at nine lives, in three shifts, in a town that
never sleeps ... there's more to the girls than show!
Since its earliest days, Las Vegas has depended on women. Then and now,
to be female in Las Vegas is to be caught in the crossfire of every imaginable
definition of "woman" - definitions from Hollywood, feminists, gangsters,
and the corporate world. In Las Vegas, where the phonebook devotes twenty
pages to callgirls, and where most taxicabs carry buxom billboard ads
for topless clubs, the female body is more an object of commerce than
anywhere else in America. In a town that flaunts prostitution, Sex and
Pornography, Amie Williams, then an L.A resident and not short of a few
preconceptions herself, undertook the task of "stripping away the strip".
"Day shift, swing shift and night shift" is the rhythm and key that provided
the initial structure, an inlet into the superfice of so-called glamorous
life.
Preconceived notions of female exploitation in 'Sin City' are radically
altered as we encounter Shirley, a single mom who cleans suites at the
Mirage, and every day cares for her homeless brother who has AIDS. Or
Tina, a journeyman carpenter who helped to build most of the strip hotels;
Mindy, a forty-something 'goddess' at Caesar's Palace who put two sons
through medical school on a cocktail waitress salary; Susan a painfully
shy ballerina finds her confidence as Bally's lead showgirl, and Hattie,
the first African American labour Union President who presides over the
longest running strike in America today.
In this documentary, as in her earliest acclaimed work 'Uncommon Ground:
Voices of Youth in America and South Africa', firsthand comparison between
riot-torn L.A and Apartheid, Amie Williams sets the context straight.
She takes the individuals she interviews out from between the narrow confines
of preconceptions and stereotypes rendering them ineffectual by the portrayal
of the day to day struggle they face.
In "Stripped and Teased" we see women who work hard in a twenty four hour
town, who support their families, pursue their dreams and live the ups
and downs of women from all walks of life, all over the world.
. . . . .
From the Las Vegas Weekly:
Directed By
Amie Williams
In her documentary, Stripped and Teased: Tales from Las Vegas Women, local
filmmaker Amie Williams sets out to prove that "inside every woman, there's
a little bit of Las Vegas." To that end, Williams has made a film that
not only takes us behind the Hollywood and marketing stereotypes of Vegas
women, but delivers a deeply resonant portrait of female strength and
endurance that women everywhere can relate to and appreciate.
Unusual for films with such a strong feminist thrust, Stripped and Teased
is neither didactic nor hectoring, but has a gentle, confidential tone
that makes it all the more powerful. Williams has a low-key and receptive
directorial style that seems to make her subjects comfortable and encourages
them to open up. Consequently, the film has many moments of profoundly
personal revelation as women talk about plastic surgery, pregnancy termination,
unemployment and relatives who are ill or incarcerated. The beauty of
this film, though, is that its overall tone is uplifting rather than depressing,
full of hope rather than despair.
Focusing on the lives of ten women—a maid, a construction worker,
a union president, a Caesars "goddess," a resort vice-president, a showgirl,
a cab driver, a professional poker player/sex therapist, a community worker
and an exotic dancer—the film shows the disparate and necessary ways
in which women are woven into the fabric of Las Vegas. Taking us behind
the curtain (a woman who has been involved in the construction of just
about every major resort in the last ten years) and in front of it (the
head showgirl at Bally's Jubilee!), Williams chooses women on a road to
self-realization, women who have been knocked down by life and have refused
to stay down.
A great deal of the knocking down, at least figuratively, has come from
emotionally absent and immature boyfriends, missing husbands and callous
employers. There is a strong sequence in which scenes showing Sheldon
Adelson promoting the plans for his new Venice resort are intercut with
footage of the Sands implosion and un-employees bemoaning the fact that
Mr. Adelson has no plans to rehire people who have worked hard for him
for many years. A recently terminated Shelly Berkley puts on a brave face
for the camera but looks like she could cheerfully throttle her ex-employer.
Filmed over three years, Stripped and Teased feels like a work-in-progress
and makes us want to revisit these women in the future. The backbone of
the resort and entertainment industry, the heart and soul of community
activism, Las Vegas women may be less than the myth but considerably more
than the sum of our physical parts. And in that respect, at least, we
are just like women anywhere.
Editor's Note: Stripped and Teased plays at the Huntridge on December
13. Las Vegas Weekly's Cinephile columnist Jeannette Catsoulis teaches
critical thinking at UNLV.
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Bal-Maiden Films | Jua Kali | No Sweat | Uncommon
Ground | Stripped and Teased
One Day Longer | Fallon,
NV | Other Bal-Maiden Films | Buy Films
DSC Productions/Bal Maiden Films
4203 Jackson Avenue
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 559-7065
