Window Water Baby Moving

Stan Brakhage’s quote, “Somewhere, we have an eye (I’ll speak for myself) capable of any imagining (the only reality),” for me really defines the purpose of Deren and Brakhage’s films. What he is implying, is that that is no singular reality as we each construct our own, rooting itself in imagination. Therefore he is not trying to create films that appear true to life but rather expressive of the reality of imagination. He does this by abstracting recognizable forms, as he does in “Window Water Baby Moving,” and “Mothlight.” Through abstraction, we are able to see with our eyes instead of our minds, which like to place associations and narrative on familiar subjects. By taking the signified from the signifier we allow experience through sight, overcoming previous boundaries.

This week’s viewing was definitely my favorite so far. Although I appreciate Maya Deren’s work, I really gravitated toward Stan Brakhage’s work. There is simplicity of subject matter in each shot that looks extremely thought out and determined, allowing for a focus on textures, shapes, and hues. Especially in “Window Water Baby Moving,” every shot was lit beautifully and composed with, what appeared to be, careful consideration that they could have stood on their own as photographs. These film shorts celebrated film making itself as art and was very enjoyable to view.

Initial class reactions to the short film were somewhat shocking. It seems like perhaps it was difficult for viewers to stop thinking and start seeing. Instead it seemed like some jumped to create a narrative about the woman, making her into an existing figure (rather than an abstraction) who is being violated by having this “private” footage taken. I think some viewers, as well as Deren who saw the film as a violation of women believing birth to be observable exclusively by women, got too caught up in what they thought was going on in the film instead of just watching it. As said by Brakhage, “To search for human visual realities, man must…transcend the original physical restrictions and inherits worlds of the eyes.” Aesthically the film is beautiful. The shots are put together with intent, which is obvious just in composition but as well as all the instances when the film jumps from an image of giving birth to the window or bathtub, showing that Brakhage had an intention in editing the film. The graceful lighting and tender bathtub images create a softness and calm. Shadows are deliberately aligned, a windowpane on a pregnant belly.

I don’t believe it was Brakhage’s intent to make a film of his wife giving birth, but rather to make us see through capturing the physicality of the event. The film cannot be a violation of the woman in the film, Brakhage’s wife, as it exsists as an artistic expression, abstracting an actual event by changing time and space and choosing which shots to show and the order they go in. She is as much as an abstraction as the moth pieces pulled apart shimmering on the screen.

It is understandable to see where the argument arising of birth being a “private” moment, but if the film short is viewed as in a “world before the ‘beginning was the word’” it would be a totally different experience. The film doesn’t take the experience of giving birth away from women, or his wife, but presents birth lovingly while giving power back to women. “Window Water Baby Moving” is not presenting an absolute, “This is birth”, but instead a possibility through physicality. I very much appreciate how Brakhage has presented a woman actively involved in giving birth instead of a traditional depiction in which the men, doctors and partners, are the hero’s, which I find more offensive than Brakhage’s flattering film.

Last Year at Marienbad

Last Year at Marienbad was an extremely intriguing film. Lacking a traditional narrative form, the focus of the movie was more on strangely beautiful images than plot or characters. The way this film was shot disrupts realism as we view surrealistic images, such as the image of the garden when the trees and bushes have no shadow yet the people have elongated black silhouettes.

Through applying the philosophy of Rene Descarte, “I think, therefore I am,” I gathered an interpretation of the film as addressing the separation between mind and body. In this case, body represents the tactile, raw material of the physical world on which, the mind superimposes its designs. A can be seen as representing the landscape. She fits in to the glamorous extreme artificial setting of the film. Her dress is always very flashy, her feathered robe ridiculous in its intense luxury. In a literal sense, she enjoys being in the landscape, sitting in the garden where she feels at ease. This links her again to the physical world. Her opinions and reactions to things aren’t shown in a definite matter. She seems to exists in the landscape and X is trying to force upon her a reality that isn’t true.

X, the stranger in the film sticks out in the landscape. No one seems to know who he is and he attempts to prove his presence and importance in the landscape. He seems only to acknowledge his thoughts as being truth. Trying to convince A that he has known her, X desperately tries to conquer nature, insisting that he knows the truth. It seems clear that A doesn’t want X around. She pulls away from his advances and asks him to leave her alone. X doesn’t want to acknowledge the existence of A but merely construct his own idea of who she is. This can be seen in the allusions to rape. X wants to make A his lover, even though she is not and never was. He doesn’t ever try to acknowledge the real truth in the landscape, connecting with it to formulate his own perception of reality. He is so removed from the physical in the mental world. This film, through the separation of X and A in which we never really know the actuality of their possible shared time together, illustrates the separation between body and mind and how one cannot ignore or void out the other in constructing reality.