13 Though I have elsewhere argued that avant-garde artworks, including films, can rarely produce theories in any full-blooded sense of the terms, I nevertheless do refer  to Rainer’s interests in Lives as theoretical. I do so not only because filmmakers, as a matter of historical fact, often  think of themselves as involved in theorizing, but also because I do not deny that filmmakers can illustrate (as opposed to proving) theoretical insights. In this way, they may be thought of as tutoring audiences—frequently, as in Rainer’s case, maieutically. And though tutoring theory is very different than making theory, there is no compelling reason to refuse the label “theoretical” to the former—so long as we are aware of what we’re doing. Moreover, it is in this sense that I would call Lives theoretical.  For further discussion of this issue, see: Noel Carroll, “Avant-Garde Film and Film Theory,” in Theorizing the Moving Image (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Noel Carroll, “Avant-Garde Art and the Problem of Theory,” in The Journal of Aesthetic Education (Fall, 1995). Judith Mayne makes the interesting point that Rainer’s filmmaking can also be considered theoretical in the sense that it constantly undermines or, at least questions, reigning film world theories dialectically.  This is especially true, I think, of Journeys from Berlin/1971 and The Man Who Envied Women , but less pertinent, I believe to Lives. See: Judith Mayne, “Theory Speak(s),” in A Woman Who...  For a similar conception of Journeys From Berlin/1971, see Noel Carroll, “Interview with a Woman Who,” also in A Woman Who....