A quotation from Aristophanes, “The desire and pursuit of the whole is called love,” precedes views of a man and a woman’s bodies, often in extreme close up. Off-screen, a voice recites fragments of oracular literature and purple prose. We see an eye, an ear, a mouth, a tongue, bits of hair, a hand, the tips of fingers, toes. Occasionally, the frame includes a larger scape of a body: a chest, a back, a breast. Usually the camera is stationery; sometimes, it moves across a body, remaining in close up. They hold hands for one moment. The bodies are without clothes; no genitalia are visible.

Extreme close-ups of 38 vulvas, aged three months to fifty-six years. Intended as an educational film by and for women, but screened to mixed audiences, the women photographed were mostly friends and acquaintances, or children of friends and acquaintances, of the director. The Glide Methodist Church’s education division, which specialized in community service related to sexuality and pregnancy, produced the film, despite the director’s male colleagues finding the concept unsavory.

This 11 minute homage to the male member shows its subject in the various stages of erection. The voice-over poem by James Broughton includes the line “This is the secret that will not stay hidden.”

For all intents and purposes, “Christmas on Earth” is a performance art film about genital worshipping. At 29 minutes, Barbara Rubin has created the ultimate study on the celebratory and erotic nature of free-love. The film is tinted in various colors, hence the title, and finds various individuals engaging in sexual activity. Men with women, men with men, women with women, and several orgies throughout.

A portrait of the artist during a period of AIDS-related illness.