Some Excursions With Camera

Monday's screenings all seemed to be threaded by the common goal of caputuring images from unexpected perspectives. Stan Brakhage's Commingled Containers and Diane Kitchen's Wot the Ancient Sod were both short excursions into nature's imagery with Brakhage's focused on water and Kitchen's focused on leaves. These films, out of all the films screened, most obviously were linked together by their common focus. Both films attempted to capture a specific facet of nature's changing imagery using techniques of lighting, shadowing, or obscuring. The fact that Brakhage's film was created entirely while testing his camera is a remarkable achievement. While both Brakhage's and Kitchen's films contained stunning footage, I think the concepts behind both of the films were a little weak. Brakhage has an excuse in that he wasn't initially planning on shooting for a film. Kitchen however, was following a concept that in all honesty, I don't necessarily think was that strong or original. It was interesting to note this following the viewing of Nathaniel Dorskey's film, as his concept came across so much stronger. Dorskey managed to intergrate different topics, emotions, imagery, and filming technique into a striking and very authentic portrayal of every day events below our consciousness. Dorskey attempted to film through obstructions and portals, and found scenes that were almost "gritty" in their presentation. A woman behind the frosted window of a coffeeshop in the city struck me the most, as I was reminded of Saul Leiter's very underground capturing of New York City life. He also used shadowing, opacity, lighting, and obscurity to present raindrops on windows, plants and trees near buildings, and many other beautiful phenomenons. Kitchen's film lacked that sort of depth. There were leaves. And they changed. And admittedly, she captured some beautiful footage, but it was like looking at a National Geographic in motion. I have seen pretty pictures of leaves and something about the film as a whole failed to catch my interest.

The other strong film that I enjoyed was Market Street by Tomonari Nishikwa. Although we also viewed his Clear Blue Sky, an impressionist sort of imagery film, I personally though Market Street had more bite. The sharp angles of the buildings and alleys, which were accentuated by the deepness of the blacks and whites, were very successful in this sort of film presentation. I liked the one image per frame method, and as a happy urban dweller myself, enjoyed the different perspectives of a foreign city life. I love cityscapes. I love works that are are very focused on the concepts unique to urban settings. This film catered to these particular interests of mine, so I thought this film was very interesting and provoking.

As for the readings which I mentioned in the last post, I sure am glad that paid really close attention to who wrote which article...yeah right. I guess I should've focused less on the content and more on which specific filmmaker wrote what? Regardless of that terrible, terrible quiz grade I'm going to get, a second read through was useful following the Monday screenings. Stan Brakhage's writings were especially more meaningful following the focus on how the eye perceives different visual effects and perspectives. His first quote in particular makes me wonder what my eye would see or notice if it were not distracted by everything going on in the world around me and in my head. So often, I forget to notice things as I'm fatigued or distracted or focused, etc., and I don't often remember to look around and witness things as we did in the screened films.

Jonas Mekas' piece, I read as a battle cry for more independent thinkers. The article doesn't go too deep, and explains that the creative aspect of the industry needs to be revived under the torturing crush of the coporate world.

Dorskey's article reflects on vision in the same way as Brakhage did. He asks, "Where does vision take place?...Is everything mind or is everything not mind?" A few sentences later, he struck a huge chord with me regarding vision and experiencing life in general. "Sometimes...turning my head to look arond, I realize that what I'm seeing is just an image field shifting, an aspect of my own brain. But then I can experience the opposite and say no, the world is really out there and I'm here looking at it." These statements have very significant philosophical implications that plague my existence experiences all the time. I think he raises issues that can not merely be explained or answered, but just are because they are.

Mary!