Friday, July 31, 2009
The Dead by Stan Brakhage
This was the first Stan Brakhage film I ever saw, screened in a Philosophy of Film class in college. I remember a number or people being moved by the thing and I spoke up at the end, declaring this a total misfire, hastily patched and overlain, underdeveloped tourist footage from Paris, and I still stand by that physical assessment. Philosophically, though I can see it now. This is the fleeting eye of someone who no longer knows everything. At twenty, I knew everything and was thereby repulsed by this notion. This thing is not aiming for profundity, but for experience, which I suppose is all we ever have. I particularly like the wobbly gait through the cemetery at the end - nothing captures the raw human condition like walking past the graveyard.
A reader of these musings on Brakhage suggests that the rest of you, assuming there are more of you reading this than just him, might like the Brakhage documentary simply titled "Brakhage" available on iTunes, and I am happy to pass that info along.
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