Exploring Autofiction Through Barbara Loden's Wanda and Feminist Art Theory

Barbara Loden's 1970 film Wanda, featuring her portrayal of Wanda Goronski, blurs autobiography and fiction. Nathalie Léger's 2012 book Suite for Barbara Loden examines this overlap, describing it as a woman telling her own story through another. The film follows Wanda leaving her marriage, drifting, becoming an accessory to a bank heist, escaping a rape, and ending ambiguously at a roadhouse. Loden's performance and visual style make the film feel autobiographical despite being based on a true story about someone else. Isabelle Huppert noted a scene with hair curlers as more intimate than nudity. This confusion between 'I' and 'She' reflects contemporary autofiction, where narrator and character converge. Lauren Elkin's 2023 book Art Monsters argues that feminist art uses the 'I' subversively against universal voices, citing Carolee Schneemann's embrace of excess. Delphine Seyrig's comment in Marguerite Duras's 1975 film India Song suggests all women are actresses, making every film about a woman a documentary. Pedro Costa and Duras observed that filmmaking documents its own creation. The piece advocates for art where identities swap freely, collapsing distinctions between history and fantasy.