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.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Orpheus
Even though Orpheus was at times difficult to grasp, I found it held its suspension of disbelief. The first time we see Death go through the mirror, common constructs of reality would tell us that this is not possible. Orphée’s disbelief and shock in viewing this phenomenon reassures us of this, which is reinforced by the image of his face pressed against the mirror, unpermitted to enter the portal, at first. We see some sort of pain on Orphée’s face; his hold on reality slackens and he enters into the other world through the mirrored portal.
The image of Orphée lying in a puddle of his reflection symbolized the major message I took from this film; poets break their egos to create meaningful art but ultimately can come back to living in the regular constraints of reality. I saw Orphée’s reflection as being the part of him remaining on the other side of the mirror where he was a failing poet, married to a typical housewife, and being overshadowed by up in coming artists; the part of him who didn’t know Death. His physical body represented desire, curiosity, the longing to slip through the mirror to follow Death. Putting the two images together shows a broken ego, a willingness to question what Orphée considered to be true in order to transcend the boundaries he is contained by.
The person’s poetry most revered in the film is Cégeste, who in the beginning of the film, seemed to live closely with Death and therefore closest to presenting another side of reality unseen by others in his work. It is when he losses is ego completely, seduced and taken by Death, is when Orphée become fixated with Cégeste’s transmitted words. For Orphee he needed the separation from Cegeste and his ego in order to consider his poetry valuable.
I can definitely see parallels in the roles played as being a poet and being homosexual in contemporary society. Both have to be constantly on watch for signs, interpreting everything around them which leads to great scrutiny of their character. Both may be seduced by Death, allure offering another side of reality. I didn’t see many references in the film that were obviously nodding to a gay sub text but I definitely see how it could be another message of the film. The one thing that did stand out to me happened in the beginning of the film when Orphée is at the café talking to a man about Cegeste. The camera goes into a very tight close up, the man’s lips practically in Orphée’s ear, whispering about whether or not Cégeste is one of them or not. It seemed like the men were sizing up this poet, checking him out more so then discussing his work.
The image of Orphée lying in a puddle of his reflection symbolized the major message I took from this film; poets break their egos to create meaningful art but ultimately can come back to living in the regular constraints of reality. I saw Orphée’s reflection as being the part of him remaining on the other side of the mirror where he was a failing poet, married to a typical housewife, and being overshadowed by up in coming artists; the part of him who didn’t know Death. His physical body represented desire, curiosity, the longing to slip through the mirror to follow Death. Putting the two images together shows a broken ego, a willingness to question what Orphée considered to be true in order to transcend the boundaries he is contained by.
The person’s poetry most revered in the film is Cégeste, who in the beginning of the film, seemed to live closely with Death and therefore closest to presenting another side of reality unseen by others in his work. It is when he losses is ego completely, seduced and taken by Death, is when Orphée become fixated with Cégeste’s transmitted words. For Orphee he needed the separation from Cegeste and his ego in order to consider his poetry valuable.
I can definitely see parallels in the roles played as being a poet and being homosexual in contemporary society. Both have to be constantly on watch for signs, interpreting everything around them which leads to great scrutiny of their character. Both may be seduced by Death, allure offering another side of reality. I didn’t see many references in the film that were obviously nodding to a gay sub text but I definitely see how it could be another message of the film. The one thing that did stand out to me happened in the beginning of the film when Orphée is at the café talking to a man about Cegeste. The camera goes into a very tight close up, the man’s lips practically in Orphée’s ear, whispering about whether or not Cégeste is one of them or not. It seemed like the men were sizing up this poet, checking him out more so then discussing his work.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Vertigo
Throughout this film, I couldn’t stop thinking about Susan Sontag’s quote describing the action of looking at photographs, which can be applied to the viewing of films; “Like sexual voyeurism, it is a way of at least tacitly, often explicitly, encouraging whatever is going on the keep on happening.” There were many times through out the film when I was creped out by what was going on but it’s not like I ever stopped looking and we don’t want it to stop even if it gets weird and uncomfortable.
There are definite camera tricks that tell us what and who we should be fixated on the screen. The first time we see Madeline, we see a large span of flawless skin through the deep v in her dress, back turned to us. Immediately we want to see what she looks like. This is followed by a tight close up of her face, we take her all in, realizing through tight angle and misty lens that we are suppose to be watching her. As the camera holds for a long time on John’s face as he drives, following Madeline, it is not he we want to see it is her; although this shot is successful in strengthening our view of his obsession.
To me, Midge and John’s interactions represented the idea of identity from separation. Midge is the lost object John knows he cannot have and he separates himself from her, taking a detective job after he retires in order to identify himself and hopefully get past his acrophobia. I thought the shots in the beginning of the film in Madeline’s apartment were very interesting. Madeline on the left, John on the right, a frilly bra framed in-between them in most of the shots. The bra in this case can be seen as a symbol of femininity, and this particularly one with its ultra provocative design, especially for this time, seems to get very little attention. It is safe to say that if a heterosexual man is with a women he is sexually attracted to and her frilly undergarments just so happen to be lying around, he is probably going to be very interested in them. John asks about the bra in a way someone would ask about a new clock on the wall, not like he cares but feels that he should because it is there. If we are following the narrative through the view of male lead, this interaction tells us that we aren’t interested in Midge.
I think this is why the painting is so strange to us. The woman in the painting is posed in a feminine and dainty way, and we are set up to see the glamour in Madeline, Midge just happens to be there so to see Midge in this role is just funny and off-putting. And as John tries to understand himself through the body, misrecognition, he falls deeper into his obsession with Madeline, who is vapid but glamorous. John, watching Judy and following her to her hotel room, grosses us out but yet we are watching too. We are have the same scopophilia.
There are definite camera tricks that tell us what and who we should be fixated on the screen. The first time we see Madeline, we see a large span of flawless skin through the deep v in her dress, back turned to us. Immediately we want to see what she looks like. This is followed by a tight close up of her face, we take her all in, realizing through tight angle and misty lens that we are suppose to be watching her. As the camera holds for a long time on John’s face as he drives, following Madeline, it is not he we want to see it is her; although this shot is successful in strengthening our view of his obsession.
To me, Midge and John’s interactions represented the idea of identity from separation. Midge is the lost object John knows he cannot have and he separates himself from her, taking a detective job after he retires in order to identify himself and hopefully get past his acrophobia. I thought the shots in the beginning of the film in Madeline’s apartment were very interesting. Madeline on the left, John on the right, a frilly bra framed in-between them in most of the shots. The bra in this case can be seen as a symbol of femininity, and this particularly one with its ultra provocative design, especially for this time, seems to get very little attention. It is safe to say that if a heterosexual man is with a women he is sexually attracted to and her frilly undergarments just so happen to be lying around, he is probably going to be very interested in them. John asks about the bra in a way someone would ask about a new clock on the wall, not like he cares but feels that he should because it is there. If we are following the narrative through the view of male lead, this interaction tells us that we aren’t interested in Midge.
I think this is why the painting is so strange to us. The woman in the painting is posed in a feminine and dainty way, and we are set up to see the glamour in Madeline, Midge just happens to be there so to see Midge in this role is just funny and off-putting. And as John tries to understand himself through the body, misrecognition, he falls deeper into his obsession with Madeline, who is vapid but glamorous. John, watching Judy and following her to her hotel room, grosses us out but yet we are watching too. We are have the same scopophilia.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Laura
As I watched McPherson slink back into Laura’s floral stuffed chair, alcohol in hand, I felt uncomfortable as I waited for the camera to do something; it remains motionless as McPherson drinks then looks over his shoulder at Laura’s portrait. In this shot, Laura takes up more space in the frame than McPherson. Falling in love with the painted portrait of Laura seemed perverse, calling into question the intentions of McPherson in solving Laura’s murder case.
After considering Nick Schager’s perspective in his movie review of Laura, the character of McPherson, falling in love with the presumably dead Laura’s picture, is a literal manifestation of the type of obsession the three men have for Laura. Lydecker’s image of Laura as socialite oozing with sophistication makes it unbearable for him to see her with anyone lacking such refinement. Meanwhile, Carpenter imagines Laura as a “gorgeous, expensive bauble to wear on his cheap, philandering arm”. McPherson has literally fallen in love with an image but also the idea of Laura as a person of great manners, politeness and scruples, formed through the accounts of others who knew her. None of them really love Laura, they love the idea of what she can be to them, a malleable material responsive to the roles the men wish to assign. She is a femme fatal not by choice, but because of the men who desingn her to be attractive to them, leading to obsession. Lydecker, Carpenter, and McPherson all think they know who Laura is, but they all have a constructed idea of Laura based on how they have made her fit into their lives, and to see Laura in any other way than how they imagine her would make them question their own grasp on reality.
The way the camera treats Laura reminds us that she is only an idea, a concept of love, companionship, femininity, beauty, that the men are obsessed with having and controlling. Her entrance into the movie after being pronounced murdered is very anticlimactic. In the shot with Laura next to the fireplace, Laura and her portrait take up about equal height in the frame, yet the frilly lap next to McPherson is taller and wider than her in the shot. There aren’t any dramatic close-ups of her that would make us concerned with her reactions to her own murder. Scale in this film places attention on objects such as the lamp, distancing us from Laura as a person.
Her dreamy angelic lighting makes Laura seem translucent next to the men who have strong inky black shadows. The men’s shadows seem to compete with each other. There’s a shot in Laura’s apartment when McPherson is asking Carpenter about the concert he attended. Back to Carpenter, McPherson’s shadow is very dark, spilling onto Carpenter who stands behind him. Leydecker comes to stand behind Carpenter, and the three men are in perfect a diagonal line; their shadows overlap each other’s bodies and Leydecker’s, the most opaque is sprawled behind him on the apartment walls, difficult to discern. It is as though their shadows are trying to prove who has the greatest presence.
The only time I remember Laura’s character ever having a very dark shadow in the film is in the scene at the party when she is on the porch smoking with Carpenter. Lifting the cigarette to her lips, the shadow of her arm and hand goes directly to her neck, as if she is choking herself. (Roughly 8 minutes 13 seconds into the clip___http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLfqnE3VvAw&feature=related) This is also strange when considering her portrait and her pose that is hard to discern exactly but appears as if one hand is up to her neck. All of these can be reminders that Laura is, as said by Schager, “just a blank slate to be written on by others.” Her lack of shadow shows that her character doesn’t have the presence that other characters have, she doesn’t have the mass, the importance as a person.
After considering Nick Schager’s perspective in his movie review of Laura, the character of McPherson, falling in love with the presumably dead Laura’s picture, is a literal manifestation of the type of obsession the three men have for Laura. Lydecker’s image of Laura as socialite oozing with sophistication makes it unbearable for him to see her with anyone lacking such refinement. Meanwhile, Carpenter imagines Laura as a “gorgeous, expensive bauble to wear on his cheap, philandering arm”. McPherson has literally fallen in love with an image but also the idea of Laura as a person of great manners, politeness and scruples, formed through the accounts of others who knew her. None of them really love Laura, they love the idea of what she can be to them, a malleable material responsive to the roles the men wish to assign. She is a femme fatal not by choice, but because of the men who desingn her to be attractive to them, leading to obsession. Lydecker, Carpenter, and McPherson all think they know who Laura is, but they all have a constructed idea of Laura based on how they have made her fit into their lives, and to see Laura in any other way than how they imagine her would make them question their own grasp on reality.
The way the camera treats Laura reminds us that she is only an idea, a concept of love, companionship, femininity, beauty, that the men are obsessed with having and controlling. Her entrance into the movie after being pronounced murdered is very anticlimactic. In the shot with Laura next to the fireplace, Laura and her portrait take up about equal height in the frame, yet the frilly lap next to McPherson is taller and wider than her in the shot. There aren’t any dramatic close-ups of her that would make us concerned with her reactions to her own murder. Scale in this film places attention on objects such as the lamp, distancing us from Laura as a person.
Her dreamy angelic lighting makes Laura seem translucent next to the men who have strong inky black shadows. The men’s shadows seem to compete with each other. There’s a shot in Laura’s apartment when McPherson is asking Carpenter about the concert he attended. Back to Carpenter, McPherson’s shadow is very dark, spilling onto Carpenter who stands behind him. Leydecker comes to stand behind Carpenter, and the three men are in perfect a diagonal line; their shadows overlap each other’s bodies and Leydecker’s, the most opaque is sprawled behind him on the apartment walls, difficult to discern. It is as though their shadows are trying to prove who has the greatest presence.
The only time I remember Laura’s character ever having a very dark shadow in the film is in the scene at the party when she is on the porch smoking with Carpenter. Lifting the cigarette to her lips, the shadow of her arm and hand goes directly to her neck, as if she is choking herself. (Roughly 8 minutes 13 seconds into the clip___http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLfqnE3VvAw&feature=related) This is also strange when considering her portrait and her pose that is hard to discern exactly but appears as if one hand is up to her neck. All of these can be reminders that Laura is, as said by Schager, “just a blank slate to be written on by others.” Her lack of shadow shows that her character doesn’t have the presence that other characters have, she doesn’t have the mass, the importance as a person.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Citizen Kane
A really intriguing aspect to Citizen Kane was the brief reference to communism in the beginning of the film. For whatever reason, it really stuck out for me while watching and interpreting the film. Taking this into consideration, the atmosphere of Citizen Kane, centered on the use of deep focus and skewed camera angles, could be reflective of communist paranoia and fear existing historical when the film was made. Allowing everything in the film to be in focus, possible symbolic meaning and importance could exist in every object. In this fear, society analyzed every detail in an attempt to find “truth”, much like the characters of the film search for the significance of “rosebud”, believing this will solve the mystery of Charles Foster Kane. The experience of the viewing audience is similar to that of the characters in the film. I found myself searching for clues in deep focus shots, trying to eliminate any insignificant visual details to discover reference to rosebud. Roses are prevalent in the film; when Susan marries Kane, one stage with Susan after a performance as well as in a vase next to Susan’s bedroom door, which the doctor brushes against as he exits in the scene when Susan overdoses. The search for truth, rosebud, doesn’t answer any of the questions brought up by the mystery of Kane. Trying to force importance into irrelevant detail to prove Kane to be a more dynamic character is much like how society at the time of this film and after tried to accuse people of being communists based one aspect of that person.
Thinking of Citizen Kane as suggested by the reading, a presentation of the problem, the mystery of Kane, instead of a solution is a compelling way to consider the film. This can lend another purpose for the “showy camera tricks” and dramatic lighting, to remind viewers that the reality presented is a construct created through memory. Perhaps Wells isn’t trying to answer questions, but instead leave us with an opened ended mystery that asks more questions than it answers. In this constructed reality, events no longer have to occur in a linear narrative, but instead events can stack on top of each other, which wouldn’t have been possible if Kane wasn’t dead.
The had a very postmodern feel to me and really reminded me of the novel The Crying of Lot 49, which involves a female protagonist’s search for truth in a mysterious post horn symbol. Anyone who enjoyed the film would be interested in the novel, which explores many of the concepts brought up by the film.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)