Of course when I think of Brakhage I can't help thinking about a baby's head slowly emerging from a bloody vagina first, but there is also a lot of beauty in that film. The build up to the actual birthing scene is gorgeous and even the birth is shot in such a cool way. The lighting is really soothing and the angles are interesting. My favorite part is when she's in the tub and the shadow of the window panes line up on her stomach, such a neat shot. I like the sort of glow that they have going on in the bathtub too, it was pretty sweet.
The conversation we got into during class was pretty intense and I still maintain that this short has changed the way I look at birth forever (that touches upon something I'll talk about later). The intimacy of what we were saying made it hard for me to watch, harder than those films they show you in biology and health class anyways. I felt like I was prying in on a moment that belonged to them, not me and that was tough for some reason. With the other birth scenes I've seen either in movies classes or hollywood movies make birth seem like a joke or something completely devoid of emotion and it was interesting to see Brakhage put the love, pain, and beauty into his short. I like that he shows you something in a way that you haven't seen it before. He also does this with the two other films we saw. He kind of deconstructs it and puts the pieces back together in a way that is different and beautiful.
The essay Brakhage wrote threw me for a loop at first, but after our class discussion I really loved what he was saying. I like that he's asking you to really look at the images he's creating and through his films he's trying to talk right to your eyes while breaking misconceptions. Brakhage's idea of using film to change both time and space is a concept that befuddled me at first, but now nothing could make more sense. He says that the magic of film is that you are given the power to change things. Someone in class said that it explodes and expands reality and I think that explains it perfectly. Like I said about the birth video, it completely changed my perception of birth and the feelings behind it. That film changed time and space for me forever when it comes to birth and I think that concept is pretty awesome. He uses lighting, camera angles, and ideas to shift the viewers thinking on a subject.
On to Deren.... I really liked her shorts too, but I definitely found myself trying to find a narrative behind them more than Brakhages. Maybe it was because there were actors moving through scenes and repetition was such a heavy focus, I don't know. At Land had me convinced that the chess piece represented something she was missing in life and that she was trying to get it in order to put the pieces of her life together. I really liked Ritual in Transfigured Time. The party scene was so beautiful and so much like a dance. The conversation in class revealed once again our desire to put a story behind it. For me it seemed like a commentary on social interaction between men and women. How men are constantly wanting attention, how people can't stay with one partner for long (easily distracted), how the interaction between men and women is all just a dance in a way. I love how her use of slow motion, stop and go shots, and her tight camera shot completely change the way we view the scene.
In her essay Deren touches upon film moving through time and space and manipulating film to change time and space. People know that the film has been manipulated, but they accept it as it is because they want to find the narrative behind the film, even if it doesn't exist. I also like Deren's commentary on photography and painting being such different realms of expression. A painting is really just anyone's perception of something, it isn't necessarily something real, but a photo is a visual representation of something that does indeed exist. Deren says that painting is removed from reality, while photos are real. She goes on to say a photo depends on the existence of an actual image and it represents something more than a thing, it represents an idea - A photo is an image and a metaphor than stands in for an idea. All of this plays into Deren's conception of what film is too.
Wow, this post is honestly kind of mind blowing.
Thank you for reminding me of a very important aspect from Thursday's class discussion. The idea that we, as humans, try to put a narrative onto everything we see, no matter how abstract, is very, very interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteI honestly wasn't sure why we were watching these short, wordless "art" films in a class called "Narrative Film," but after the discussion, and after reading your blog, I've realized that Brakhage and Deren tell us more about narrative film than an actual narrative film could. By presenting narrative in a way we are unfamiliar with -- for one, wordlessly, a narrative of solely images -- Deren and Brakhage tell us not only a ton about how we watch films but also, I think, tell us a lot about ourselves. Their revolutionary way of telling a story on film is in my opinion a huge contribution to the post-modern era, in all media, simply because of what it these films do to our perceptions of the world -- that magic we talked about. I mean, I don't think you're alone in saying that "Window" "completely changed my perception of birth and the feelings behind it." And those are strong words.
I like the way you contrast a photo and a painting in regards to Deren's insight on animated painting. These shorts truly feel like works of art in the sense that they manipulate reality to create something of an artistic expression.
ReplyDeleteWindow Water Baby Moving clearly created a heated discussion in our class but when you remove the shock value of the fact that it shows us what no one really sees nor understand, it's a beautiful piece of art. While a biology film can be seen as a "photo" of childbirth, this is a painting of the subject: it manipulates reality with various film techniques to build tender emotion out of a childbirth instead of just showing a realistic biology-centered portrayal of what happens.
This is a really strong post, and also a very good discussion. You're really seeing what both Brakhage and Deren are asking you to see, Erin--and that's not easy. It's a leap of the mind as well as the eyes, and the effect can be interestingly physical.
ReplyDeleteI like how you compare the birth film to his abstractions, and see the similarity in both. I also like your reading of Deren. I think hers do tell more direct stories, or tug at the story-making part of us.
Nice work!