Deren and Brakhage - but mostly just Brakhage

In all of the films we watched in class Tuesday there was a common theme: visual stimulation. This was done in both public and private settings. For example, a party moving in slow motion Deren's "Ritual in Transfigured Time" and the intimate steps of a woman's birth process in Brakhage's "Window Water Baby Moving."

It's easy to see why the presentation of "Ritual" does not give the viewer the feeling of a spy looking in. It's an everyday occasion, and Deren lets us view what is going on at the sort of cocktail party taking place. She puts us right up to the action with the close camerawork, and there's just nothing going on that we feel we should not be privileged to see. But the fact the Brakhage's "Window Water Baby Moving" does not give off the feeling of spying with it's the private place it takes us -- well I found that interesting.

Okay, so maybe "Window" does give many the sleazy sensation that they're watching something private, but this comes out of moral and ethical constructions rather than the actual viewing process. Seeing another woman's bleeding vagina is not something our society is accustomed to at all. Brakhage speaks of the infant's eye as "an eye which soon learns to classify sights," and writes of this as a sad fact. One can never go back he says, "not even in imagination" to the time before words obscured our vision of the world. And yet, Brakhage suggests, "there is a pursuit of knowledge foreign to language and founded upon visual communication." "Window" definitely brings this pursuit of knowledge into focus for us; again, I do not feel there is anything voyeuristic about the way in which the the film was shot. Additionally, Brakhage makes a thing of beauty out of something that we have never felt the privilege to see as beautiful. In these ways, he has altered the way we look at the world the film. This is the "magic" he refers to in his essay.

When speaking of "looking in," otherwise knowing as scopophilia, we can't help but think of "Vertigo." But honestly, it's hard to compare a filme like "Window Water Baby Moving" to "Vertigo," but I guess I'll give it a shot. The former does not have any aspect of scopophilia in the way it was filmed, but of course the viewing process feels invasive because of the content. So Brakhage is working against social connotations and expectations. With "Vertigo," Hitchcock has society on his side. The viewer knows what it means to spy on Judy as Scottie does, and taking part in this activity can be shared with Scottie - who is caught up in it - as a guilty pleasure. The downward, around-the-corner filming of Vertigo serves to remind us of the activity we're engaging in. That Scottie is often hidden from Judy's view and that we see her but she doesn't see us confirm the activity as spying. But with "Window," there is no character acting invasively on another. We are the only ones seeing something we feel we're not supposed to be seeing. And this is based on our experience with and knowledge of intimate relationships.

This brings up an interesting dilemma. The viewer who says "I wouldn't want someone watching me in this situation" but continues to watch "Window Water Baby Moving" might be called a hypocrite. This is because Brakhage has presented a morally invasive activity very objectively through film. To view a man and woman's intimate relationship, a woman's vagina during menstruation and a crowning baby so closely, in normal light, at normal film speed, would have a different effect than what has Brakhage has done. I don't know what exactly, though I imagine we would feel more invasive as viewers if there was no quality of "art" to it. By producing the events of "Window" non-linearly, Brakhage creates a cohesive work that puts all aspects of love and birth on the same playing field. He equalizes them in a way, and we view each in less biased ways because of it. Of course, being squeemish at the sight of blood coming from a vagina is something that Brakhage cannot prevent, but his objective presentation of everything at least serves to make us think that maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be so squeemish.

I am not exactly sure how Brakhage makes "Window" as artful as he does. I'd probably have to watch it again, too, to come up with more reflection on lighting techniques and lense speed and things of that nature. Any one with more ideas on this, please feel free to post them.

La Dolce vita

We've watched a few films with subtitles this semester, and the viewing process always feels a little disjointed. For one, when reading the dialog my eyes are taken away from important visual elements. It's also near impossible to take notes without missing something. While these are just a few problems that arise when watching a foreign language film, I'd say it's definitely worth the sacrafices. And of course, it beats becoming multi-lingual. But of all the foreign films we've viewed so far, La Dolce vita was by far the most conflicting on my eyes. There were just so many moments of visual euphoria that I did not wish to avert my attention from, but I had to to know what was going on. And for what? For the most part, there wasn't anything going on, in the sense of a plot or structure (at least within my own comprehension). For this blog post I decided to devote my attention to the parts of La Dolce vita that conflicted my eyes and left me wondering...well, just wondering.

Frankie
The only thing I was certain about when it came to Frankie was that he looked a lot like Will Ferrell's character in Zoolander, Mugatu. I did like how Sylvia's description of him as"an actor" was good enough justification for his insanity. The reading helped me understand the role of Frankie more than I did upon first viewing. He definitely serves as a "charicature" within the film's "almost documentary realism, making us see the "unusual in a familiar context."

Sylvia's voice
Did anyone else notice how hers was often the only discernible voice? It would be normal for her voice to standout among the mashup of background noises in an effort to let her be heard, but in the dance scene, for instance, the background noises were incredibly muffled, and no one even responded to what she was saying. She was the focal point to an extreme, with no legible responses from anyone.

EYES
Eyes were a prominent symbol in this film, but of what? When the one celebrity gets off the plane, the paparazzi beg to see her eyes but she refuses to take off her sunglasses. She has no problem accomodating the photographers in other ways, but her eyes are off limits. Then there are the portraits of the women in the one family. They all have the same eyes, Marcello says. To me they all shared similar intensity to the Mona Lisa's. And of there's that mysterious fish that washes up onto the coast in the closing scene. I couldn't tell what it was, but I could see two very large eyes, the only real proof that it was a once-living creature at all. And finally, we are left with the image of the girl, with the focus on her thoughtful eyes. I have one proposal about this symbol: perhaps Fellini meant to question the way we view people. With eyes such a focus of the film, he seems to stress the importance of how we use our eyes, how we perceive the world from our own perspectives, and how others perceive us.

Marcello rides the girl like a horse
This was clearly meant to shock. Not only in what Marcello was doing to the "chubby country girl," but the way she put up with it. He rode her like a horse, feathered her to look like a chicken, and what did she have to say for herself? "SQUAWK!" It was disturbing. If anything, the extremes Marcello used in depicting women as defenseless had me siding with the women. But they did not seem like real depictions at all and in some cases I honestly wasn't sure what to feel other than perturbed. When Marcello left his wife stranded after verbally abusing her, however, because she had put up somewhat of a fight I naturally felt far more sympathy for her -- she seemed more real.