The Wold Shadow

I tend to judge Brakhage films entirely by gut, and many of them do little for me, this one included. The straight shots of the woods are cool but everything he does with them is uninteresting.

I saw this right after watching the pilot episode of "The O.C." on Hulu. That show is a perfect example of all the things I see stuff like Stan Brakhage films to avoid. Mr. Brakhage's work, unlike most everything on TV, is (a) artistically done, and (b) completely devoid of any desire to be normal, and both traits endear his work to me greatly

A visual embodiment of the representation of nature in art. Sometimes I feel like such a tool discussing experimental film. I wonder if I'm just fooling myself. I think to myself, "is this really art, or is it just a guy fucking around?". But I think if something forces you to think about whether or not it's art, then it must be art. Whatever that means.

The opening shot of the woods is beautiful, but I don't really like the still painted images that follow. Interesting, but not my favorite Brakhage.

This reminds me of vomit. Vomit and trash.

Film-making in a nut-shell. There's enough tricks in this short to get to keep up the interest, the variety of which proving a single image can be distorted until it's no longer it's original version, which is what happens (oops, spoiler).

Kinda eerie, actually. Brakhage uses exposure and abstraction to suggest a primeval and ancient force.

stan brakhage just discovered photoshop.

Brakhage brings a forest to life, again emphasizing the camera as a Creator and the subjectivity of perception. On the wanky side but somewhat pretty.