Response to Stank Brakhage

Let me preface my post by saying that Stan Brakhage is the only human being allowed to say Tho' in his writing.

With that said I really enjoyed this article by Mr. Brakhage. It tires me to read papers written by "artists" that are so plain-jane and boring. Why do they do that?! If you call yourself an artist and throw paint on a canvas all day, how can you write like Ben Stein?

Immediately, I liked this essay (even though I didn't quite understand the title) because he spoke to me in first person. The whole "reader" thing wore a little thin on me after a while, but its still comforting to have Stan Brakhage talking to you. I enjoyed that he broke down the process of film making to the basic elements. No detail was too small to overlook. I though it was cute that he explained that mm stood for millimeter. I think most people know that mm is the abbreviation, but maybe somebody does not and that just helped them out. Quite near the early section of the book he explains that the book is dedicated to Michael McClure who "spoke to {him} of the need for a short book on film technique which could be read by poets;" he ends the dedication with "love, SB." I think this paper gives some good insight into the kind of man Stan Brakhage is. So not only does this small book/paper explain filmmaking techniques, it also gives insight into who Stan Brakhage was. How many textbooks can do that?!

I would like to add that I googled Michael McClure after I read this paper. To my amazement I already know of him. "How?" might you ask! Turns out, Michael McClure was the basis for one of the poets in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums which coincidently is one of my favorite books. This only reaffirms my belief that SB and I were total soulmates.

Anyway back to my interpretation of this moving picture book that we were assigned to read. The explanation of Black leader, clear leader, white leader, gray leader, and moving pics was very helpful. I always though clear leader and white leader were the same thing. How wrong I was! Also, when I was reading the section defined by the title : Part two : On Splicing, I found the concept of flipping the image so that the base-side was up to soften the image interesting. I think it would have taken me a while to figure that out. Or maybe I'm just kidding myself and I would have never figured it out at all. We will never know now. I love the hints about how to hide a splice and how to create or minimize (depending on one's desire - I guess) the crystals that are crated by the glue of splicing tape. I think I will try this out in the immediate future with my Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire project.

I think its nice that Stan includes portions that are extremely encouraging. He is so beat when he speaks. It seems like ADD, but if you've ever read beat poetry or Jack Kerouac's writings, it all makes perfect sense. My favorite such line is "AND YET I DON'T WANT TO DISCOURAGE YOU FROM ATTEMPTING, no matter how impossible-seeming, WHICH MIGHT PERMIT YOUR MUSES TO SHOW US ALL SOMETHING NEW." I might get that framed. He does make a good point after that quote that whatever you make should have the ability to be projected. Otherwise it will just be a "wall decoration." I can see that people could get really wound up and cut their film to smithereens.

This small book was quite interesting in that is juxtaposes portions of play and pure word art with portions that are incredibly technical (like the portions about f-stops and tungsten film). I honestly prefer the parts of the piece that pertain to his artistic sense, but the purpose of this writing was to be comprehensive when speaking about film. Through and through, this felt like a Brakhage piece- beautiful, jumpy, and personal. It is obvious that he pays particular attention to the human eye which he references repeatedly. I'm glad to have read it.