Stan Brakhage reaction

Working with film in any way, shape, or form was a completely new experience for me; working with what I guess I would label as abstract film animation was a new experience, but one that I enjoyed both in the physical aspect of making the film to be viewed, and actually viewing the film once I had manipulated it. In Brian Frye’s article on Stan Brakhage, Brakhage is described as having realized the potential of the American avant-garde cinema. What I found most interesting in this article was how clear Brakhage’s growth was in to that realized potential, from his original films being described as more primal, stressing psychological themes, to his first physical alteration of the film itself, to a fascination with birth, sex, and death, and finally to a focus less on actual filming and more on scratching and drawing directly on to the film.

The aspect I enjoyed most about manipulating the film in class was that, especially since the practice was entirely new, no one in the class knew what the film would actually look like once it was projected. Connecting all of our film together created a really neat combination of effects, both with colors and textures. I’m looking forward to adding sound to back up the feelings we were aiming to create with our mark-making as well.

While reading Frye’s article, I watched many of the films mentioned to get a feel for the progression of Brakhage’s filmmaking. Personally, I enjoy his later films, like the ones we viewed in class, more than his earlier films. While his pieces like “The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes” (1971) are interesting because they understandably presented material that was new to the film world, I don’t think that they are as interesting as films to actually be viewed as his films such as “Mothlight” (1963) because of both the creative thought and originality that went in to them. While many people are capable of going to film an autopsy, it takes much more to create a film like “Mothlight,” in my opinion.