Mothlight (Stan Brakhage, 1963)

How does one explain a Brakhage film ? To today's multiplex moviegoer the short films which make up a lifetime's work may elicit a response like, "What kind of drugs was he on?" But this kind of response fails to get the point of Brakhage's corpus of films. Stan Brakhage made personal documentary films. Stylistically, many would label his films surreal or avant garde, but that which he was striving for was very organic and personal. How doe one capture the feeling of being drunk on film? (Desistfilm, 1954) How does one express the joy of making love to one's wife? (Wedlock House: An Intercourse, 1959) How does one capture the pregnancy and birth of a first child? (Window Water Baby Moving, 1959) What happens to bodie when we die? (The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, 1971) What kind of film does one make before they die of cancer? (Comingled Containers, 1997; Love Song, 2001) Brakhage films deal with the very personal. The parts of life we don't usually like to talk about. Sometimes they are also childlike and whimsical. Remember as a child pressing your fingers so slightly against your closed eyes and seeing the dizzying array of colors that are produced. Stan would try to replicate these spots and blotches of closed eye visions in many of his hand-painted films. For him, the film was more like his canvas and he took painstaking measures in addressing each frame. If you watch one of these films on DVD you can stop and goe frame-by-frame to see what I mean. Stan worked with a number of film formats including IMAX film which offered a larger canvas to work with. For Stan film was very tactile. Something to be held. Projection and environment became integral parts of the film. He would meet regularly with friends and filmakers who would share their silent films whose soundtracks would be made up of children playing, crying, people talking, guitars strumming, music playing in the background. Films were meant to be shared, discussed, enjoyed with friends. Mothlight (1963) falls in the whimsical or curiosity seeking category. For this film Brakhage collected bits of moths which had been zapped by a buglight along with grass and other yard particles. No camera was used - rather the bits where assembled using tape - roughly the width of 16mm film. Projecting the light through these bug bits and grass strips gives one a sense of how film flows through the camera. This film flows with its battery of wings and things for just over 3 minutes which in film terms would be around 4500 frames. I remember seeing this film in a number of classes and at special Brakhage film showings on the University of Colorado campus or at the Public Library in Boulder Colorado where Stan at which Stan was usually present. Brakhage films remind me of the personal nature of film. Really of any artistic media. We often get clouded by the mass marketing of movies, music and art; that we lose track of the original intent and purpose. Personal expression of emotions, of intellect and of worship. For Brakhage, and others like him, film was an attempt to capture not just their personal vision, but their search for meaning, for God, for transcendence.