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.