Matter
Stan Brakhage's Filmography
In today’s session, I discovered the materialist school of filmmaking, which has influenced experimental and alternative filmmaking by challenging mainstream cinema's conventions and exploring new possibilities for the medium. One of the most notable examples of this approach is the work of avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who rejected the conventions of narrative cinema and instead focused on the physical properties of film, such as hand-painting and scratching the film stock to create abstract and immersive visual experiences. His work emphasizes the tactile and material qualities of the film medium and often incorporates the rhythms and textures of the natural world. I found that it emphasizes the tactile and material qualities of the film medium and often incorporates the rhythms and textures of the natural world.
"In many ways, the emotions we experience when we watch a film or read a book are a way of navigating the complex and often overwhelming reality of our environment, as they allow us to engage with it in a way that is both affective and intellectual" (p. 3, edited byAlexa Weik von Mossner’s In Moving Environments:Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, 2014).
While studying various concepts in film, I found myself drawn to Romanticism, which emphasizes emotion, imagination, and individual experiences. I could see the tenets of Romanticism having an impact on alternative films. Using techniques such as montage, surreal imagery, and experimental sound design to create films that emphasize the individual's inner world and subjective experience, I feel that it expresses a sense of personal vision and inner life, in contrast to the objective realism of mainstream cinema.
The Tree of Life (2011) by Terrence Malick, uses concepts of Romanticism and Transcendentalism
Another concept which captivated me while doing my reading was 'Transcendentalism', which emphasis on nature and the beauty and power of the natural world. The themes of spirituality and a connection to the divine, also central to transcendentalism, have found expression in alternate films. What interested me most was that it uses metaphors, symbolism, and allegory. I could identify both these concepts illustrated in Brakhage's film Dog Star Man (1964) through its abstract imagery, intense color and light, and non-linear narrative structure, which create a sense of transcendence and connection with the natural world, while also emphasizing the emotional and imaginative experience of the world, reflecting the Transcendentalist idealization of nature and the individual's ability to connect with the divine.
Dog Man Star (1965) by Stan Brakhage
Overall, Dog Star Man (1964) incorporates elements of both Transcendentalism and Romanticism, reflecting a complex and multi-layered engagement with the values and aesthetics of these two movements.
Furthermore, I also see the influence of Modernism in Brakhage's work, with its rejection of traditional values and celebration of innovation, experimentation and individualism. Brakhage's focus on the non-realistic, surreal, or symbolic aspects of a film's narrative or style, using non-linear storytelling, self-reflexivity, focusing on sensory experiences creates a more immersive and emotional experience.
I am very much drawn to the form of film art which is grounded on visual communication and the moving images as active participants in forming worlds, becoming forms of thought, constituting a new kind of knowledge. "The Anthropocene thus announces the collapse of the future through “slow fragmentation towards primitivism, perpetual crisis and planetary ecological collapse" (Irmgard Emmelhainz’s Conditions of Visuality Under the Anthropocene and Images of the Anthropocene to Come, 2015). I identified Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man (1964) being a prime example of an Anthropocenic film, as it explores the transformative power of nature, using abstract imagery and sound to create a powerful environmental narrative. Sean Cubitt's article Affect and Environment in Two Artists: Films and a Video (2014), further provides me with a useful framework for understanding the use of environmental narratives in film, and emphasizes the importance of affect, emotion, and sensation in creating a powerful and engaging filmic experience. The film uses a variety of techniques, including multiple exposures and negative images, to create a sense of otherworldly beauty. I identified that Brakhage's use of natural imagery, including trees, clouds, and mountains, emphasizes the importance of nature in the human experience and highlights the beauty and power of the natural world.
"In the Anthropocene, art is no longer simply an object or representation; it is an event, an intervention, an action in a world that is no longer merely a background or setting, but an actor in its own right." (p.33, Davis & Turpin's Art & Death: Lives Between the Fifth Assessment & the Sixth Extinction,in Art in the Anthropocene)
In conclusion, alternative films challenge mainstream cinema's conventions and offer a fresh perspective on the medium by incorporating various concepts such as Romanticism, Transcendentalism, and Modernism. These films often center on environmental narratives that aim to create a sense of immersion and engagement with the natural environment, making them an important aspect of alternative filmmaking. Overall, I believe that film has the power to capture and interpret the spaces and places we inhabit, and to help us imagine places we do not know, it forms a new kind of knowledge.
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Bibliography
Brakhage, Stan (1964). Dog Star Man (1961-4) [online]. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5896468/. [Accessed March 7th 2023]
Cubitt, Sean (2014). ‘Affect and Environment in Two Artists’ Films and a Video. In: Alexa Weik von Mossner, ed. Moving Environment. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 249-265. ISBN 978-1771120029 [Book Section] [online]. Available at: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/14134/. [Accessed March 5th 2023]
Davis & Turpin (n.b.), Art in the Anthropocene: Art & Death: Lives Between the Fifth Assessment & the Sixth Extinction. [online]. Available at: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/retreat/files/davis-turpin_intro_2015_art-in-the-anthropocene.pdf. [Accessed February 28th 2023]
Irmgard Emmelhainz (2015), Conditions of Visuality Under the Anthropocene and Images of the Anthropocene to Come. e-flux journal #63. [online]. Available at: http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8996537.pdf. [Accessed February 28th 2023]
Irmgard Emmelhainz (2012), Conditions of Visuality Under the Anthropocene and Images of the Anthropocene to Come. [online]. Available at: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Irmgard-Emmelhainz-Conditions-of-Visuality-Under-of-Herzog/edcb1fd77191f84655b994ab68e6cdd9a10315fb. https://www.elgaronline.com/display/edcoll/9781800884281/9781800884281.00038.xml. [Accessed March 2nd 2023]
Mossner, AlexaWeik von (2014). Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014. Project MUSE [online]. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/36094. [Accessed March 5th 2023]
