Week 8 Films

I loved Stan Brakhage's films. They were so engaging that I couldn't look down to take notes while I was watching them. In particular, I didn't want to miss any shot in Mothlight or Dog Star Man. The beauty of these films is even more powerful when it passes by quickly.

Mothlight (1963)
I appreciate how Brakhage highlighted the natural color and shape of the elements he used and crafted them into patterns without altering them. Like I mentioned before, I was able to see the images for just enough time that I was compelled to see more. The combination of the silence with the light colors created a peaceful viewing experience.

Window Water Baby Moving (1959)
After a fair amount of warning, I had an easier time with this than expected - although it was extremely difficult to watch the placenta and the umbilical cord being cut onscreen.
Otherwise, I found it stunning and surprisingly, wanted to see more when it ended. It's interesting that no one else saw the first part in the tub as being tender. Maybe I just have a tendency to over-romanticize what I see.

Prelude: Dog Star Man (1962)
I was enthralled by this film. The colors of the light astounded me and I tried to take a mental picture of certain images to use the colors later in my paintings: red-orange on deep green, bright pink on cobalt, mango-orange on sage. The use of silence in the film elevated it to a spiritual experience.

Hymn to Her (1974)
I didn't enjoy this as much as the first three films because it felt more narrative but wasn't. However, I really enjoyed the shot with the blurred green in the foreground. I can't even remember what the shot was of entirely, but I made sure to make a note of it.

The Dante Quartet (1987)
I actually was not as in awe of this film as I was of the others. For the other films, I felt that no one but Brakhage could have made them. While I understand the time and skill that went into these painted frames, it didn't seem as unique of a vision. Maybe for this reasons I thought the fast frames were more effective than the slow ones that lingered on the individual composition.

I found Phil Solomon's films less easy to watch, because they focused more on deep moods than on the composition of each frame and beauty of life.

Psalm II: Walking Distance (1999)
I found the use of sound to be a little jarring in this film. While it definitely contribute to a melancholy mood, it sounded unnatural and reminded me that it was edited to the visuals. It did find it effective when the sound of a wave crashing accompanied a filtered visual of a wave. I felt like I was being overtaken by the water.

Psalm III: Night of the Meek (2002)
This felt very depressing with the heavy use of blue and image of the person in a hospital bed. One very effective moment was when we were engulfed in a dark screen with night noises. But this film had more disparate types of imagery going on than the other two.

Still Raining, Still Dreaming (2009)
It was easiest to see Brakhage's influence in this film. The figures did feel like dream images, and they acted almost like Rorschach tests for what someone could read into them.

Week 6 Films

Scorpio Rising, Kenneth Anger

I really enjoyed watching this film. While the imagery was interesting enough that I would have been engaged anyway, the soundtrack really drew me in. Together with the haircuts and styling of the people in the film, it created a nostalgic experience. I’m very curious as to what the experience would’ve been for the audience when it was first released. I can assume that many of the people watching wouldn’t have been aware of the goings on of the motorcycle subculture, so maybe the popular music of the day would have made the subculture more relatable while also creating an interesting friction.

On another note, the use of homoerotic imagery in this made me think about objectification in general. I’m so used to seeing women’s bodies objectified that I’ve come to feel that there is inherently wrong with such a portrayal. Now I wonder if it’s just wrong that the objectification is overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, of women in mainstream media. I don’t think a solution is to fill the mainstream with more male objectification without addressing women, but it’d be nice for it to be more equally distributed.

Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol

I agree with the rest of the class that I felt somewhat trapped watching Chelsea Girls and therefore didn't exactly enjoy it. But as I stuck with it, it revealed itself to be an extremely thought-provoking film experiment. I was at first extremely bored with the Nico in the kitchen footage, but once she was contrasted with the louder couple to the left, I came to appreciate her scene much more. Next to the shrillness and immaturity of other the couple, the bright, silent close-ups of Nico rendered her angelic.

As audience members we were presented with the interesting “choice” to follow one of the little films at a time because it was impossible to watch both. While in general I was most attentive to the films with sound, during the portion where the shrill drug-administering woman was talking on the phone I sought refuge in the silent classicality and strangeness of the Boys in Bed scene. This was another instance where the silence was more engaging because I could better appreciate the composition and imagery. When the same boys in bed reappeared on the right side of the screen with audio later on, they were far less engaging. It took all the mystery out of what was going on.

I was also extremely impressed when both sides of the screens lined up despite their both being continuous shots. For example, when the Hanoi Hanna storyline was on both sides, at one point the two shots of her face were almost identical. In a match-up of content, both the couple at the beginning and Nico got beverages at the same time.

Week 5 Films

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) Maya Deren

               I had seen this before in art class but didn’t properly appreciate it as a surrealist film. It was easy to see a direct relationship between surrealist painting and film this time around. The flower visual from the start looks straight out a Dali painting. I enjoyed how this film depicted a self-referential dream, as opposed to the other surrealist films we have seen. This particularly interests me because I am considering using my own dreams as image material for my senior thesis. It was very effective to sometimes have the scene depicted from her point of view and at other times having Deren herself in the shot. Showing her in bed was unexpectedly dreamlike as well because often we dream about waking up from another dream. And of course the visual of the continually chasing after the nun with the mirror face was delightfully nightmarish.

Cleo from 5 -7 (1962) Agnes Varda

               I loved this film. It was a beautifully subtle and really felt like a women’s film—particularly when Cleo, her manager, and the taxi driver are all chatting. The characters seemed very lifelike, and I appreciated that Cleo was even likeable in the beginning when she acted like a spoiled child. The visual of her doing pull-ups in that ridiculous fluffy robe and her wig were perfection. And it was very interesting to see her appear much more mature once she changes out of the wig and the fluff and goes about on her own. I loved the way Varda mixed mainstream film techniques with avant-garde—including posed portraits of her manager and songwriter amidst all the people naturally looking at the camera and the way she sings straight on against a dark background, until the camera pulls away and reveals that she was actually in the room’s natural set up. That zoom out shot reminded me of a similar one in The Graduate. Also, towards the beginning, the way the shot was composed when Cleo listens to the couple’s conversation in the café was very painterly—it looked like a divided canvas with Cleo set against the background of the mirror. It was clever how Varda used mirrors and other reflective surfaces often to symbolize her vanity.

Asparagus (1979) Susan Pitt

               Asparagus was crazy. Personally I thought it went on a little too long—that tends to pull me out the dream. Though I did appreciate how much I wanted to see her face but it remained a mystery.  I also liked the visual where she is standing in the ballroom and a series of flowers passes by her between the curtains. I’m not sure if the blatant but comical sexuality was ironic or celebratory, but it certainly got a strong (I think positive) reaction out of all of us. And that’s what the avant-garde should do.