This
week we shot a small video on campus reflecting the natural life of the area.
This task helped us get acquainted with the cameras while also making a
piece of work in itself. The nature piece was meant to showcase the natural
environment in a way that had a sort of narrative of and within itself. Our
video was meant as an example of how we see nature often through reflections,
and how seeing images on top of images can be damaging to the scene but also
beautiful in some ways. We conveyed this by filming the reflective glass doors
right up next to the shot of overlaid images of nature, edited to give a
transparent attribute to the first.
Stan Brakhage’s Avant garde film
making is influential in the way that he tampers with film, rearranges frames, and
paints on frames and scratches into film. The methods he practiced are
considered to be staples of the craft
This could be compared to the Wonder Ring in that
it serves as a visual memento and it says a lot without any dialogue and little
sound. Stan Brakhage shows the train route in the beautiful 5 minute film that
serves to document something that is no longer there. The film conveys a
powerful message without saying anything. Michael Renov discusses this film as ‘lyrical’
and offers that it is subjective and powerful because it puts the viewer in a
position where they are seeing things as he saw them. The Wonder Ring served to
give Brekhage a visual memento to something that is gone.
Our film, Votive to Progress. Is meant
to convey the title in that, nature is the votive, or sacrifice, when progress
is sought. It is a trade-off. This is why interspersed with nature, we see
images of buildings and a few people walking by without noticing it.
I think that one of the core tenants of documentary is to have a point. One could hardly say that Brekhage is a documentarian, and yet, many of his films do exibit techniques used by the documentarian. One could say that his subjectivity, especially in regards to Wonder Ring disqualifies him form such a title but I think subjectivity is at the core of all documentary. I would say that his films are art films and not documentary because they do not lend themselves to a narrative.
I think that one of the core tenants of documentary is to have a point. One could hardly say that Brekhage is a documentarian, and yet, many of his films do exibit techniques used by the documentarian. One could say that his subjectivity, especially in regards to Wonder Ring disqualifies him form such a title but I think subjectivity is at the core of all documentary. I would say that his films are art films and not documentary because they do not lend themselves to a narrative.
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