{"id":150632,"date":"2024-10-28T10:00:42","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T10:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/?guid=df2aefa8329d95c6a3e5a19bc26951e3"},"modified":"2024-10-28T10:00:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T10:00:42","slug":"in-praise-of-stan-brakhages-most-disturbing-film-document","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/28\/in-praise-of-stan-brakhages-most-disturbing-film-document\/","title":{"rendered":"In praise of Stan Brakhage\u2019s most disturbing film document"},"content":{"rendered":"
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T<\/span>here is nothing special about a morgue in the city of Pittsburgh. One could argue there is also nothing special about Pittsburgh itself \u2013 but American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage decided to train his eye on institutions (policing, healthcare, coroner) in urban Pennsylvania all the same. The result was what is now referred to as his \u201cPittsburgh Trilogy\u201d consisting of Eyes, Deus Ex, and The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes.<\/p>\n

The morgue situates us in the final of these films (The Act of Seeing with One\u2019s Own Eyes), a Brakhage title that\u2019s gained cult-classic, almost grindhouse-level status. This status really only means anything in niche cinephile circles and underground film fandom, but I think it should be required viewing in a general audience sense for the Halloween season. Brakhage achieves an extremity of body horror that splatterhouse auteurs and David Cronenberg could only strive for, but most notably, he does so without extraordinary explanation, escapist mythology, or brand construction.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to mention the fact that The Act of Seeing with One\u2019s Own Eyes is incredibly hard to find, lending it a forbidden, taboo reputation. It\u2019s also silent, as with all of Brakhage\u2019s work \u2013 another tough but unusual selling point for casual moviegoers. This allows for a visual experience untethered by sensory accompaniment. You are not directed how to feel by the addition of music, dialogue, ambience, or narration. You just feel it all.<\/p>\n

I saw a 35mm print of it at Anthology Film Archives in New York City, which was one of the most intense and exhilarating screenings I\u2019ve ever attended. In the deafening quiet, all you could hear were people fidgeting in their seats, breathy groans, nervous laughter, and concerned whispering. A dizzying, voyeuristic camera lingers on actual cadavers posed rigidly across cold, obelisk-like slabs. Often faceless morticians handle them like manufactured goods, measuring their limbs (and genitalia, which provoked a loud involuntary chuckle from a guy in the front row), carving into skin and lifting and pulling it like taffy, scooping out brains from skull chambers with gloved hands \u2013 need I go on?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Well, I will. A couple of the most stomach-squirming scenes will forever be wriggling like nematodes through my memory, including blood being vacuumed from the corpse through a tube, and then not smoothly cascading out of it into a chasmic industrial sink. No, much worse: sputtering. A ch-ch-ch-ch motion, like a sprinkler. That one really got me. The other is a face’s flesh being snipped enough to become stretchable and rolled back entirely, exposing the inner workings beneath.<\/p>\n

Which is more chilling \u2013 these images themselves or the thought of viewing them in total silence? The answer is both in equal measure. Brakhage extensively engaged<\/a> with the distinctions between documentary and document in the context of moving images; this difference took on many forms, but the general paraphrasing is that he viewed documentary as a manipulative tradition of presenting factual occurrences as objective, without acknowledging the subjectivity inherent in the camera\u2019s frame. Document, on the other hand, was a bit more complicated but crucial to his practice as a filmmaker. It was, as Marie Nesthus<\/a> observes, not simply a matter of whether there\u2019s \u201ca presence or absence of the artist\u2019s mark, but rather in the degree of its visibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Act of Seeing with One\u2019s Own Eyes is, through and through, a document. Contrary to some of his earlier work, Brakhage shrugged off the urge here to intercut the morgue footage with more impressionable imagery, like mountains and open sky and snow, for he \u201cknew it was impossible \u2026 to interrupt THIS parade of the dead with ANYthing whatsoever, any \u2018escape\u2019 a blasphemy.\u201d There\u2019s still an acknowledgement of the director\u2019s imprint, with hyper close-ups and bodies framed in fragmented tableaux. But it\u2019s arranged in such a way as to evoke the forceful machinations and oversight of institutional documents.<\/p>\n

Brakhage is running us through the factory line, shoving the fine print of autopsy protocol right in our faces, prying our eyes open to make us look. In one of the starkest works of body horror, he strips away all the storytelling, all the shock, all the worldbuilding, and makes the monster our very own perception. While this has always been present in Brakhage\u2019s work, nowhere is it done so insidiously.<\/p>\n

It is a document in the sense that the filmmaker decided to make his imprint visible, but just barely enough to let the images and processes on display speak volumes in our registering of them. Without any literal volume \u2013 silent in often unbearable ways \u2013 this morbid work leaves all the heavy lifting on us. For that reason, it\u2019s horror. Right to its disemboweled, de-brained core.<\/p>\n

In a seminal essay<\/a>, Stephen King argues that \u201cWhen we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare.\u201d While it’s a lot more expensive now (and personally, I don\u2019t like the center of a row)King’s point is that, whether we are cognizant of it or not, we all desire the experience that horror affords. So why not add The Act of Seeing with One\u2019s Own Eyes to that pantheon that we cycle through every October? It\u2019s a unique class of nightmare unto itself, daring us to spend 32 un-accessorized minutes of silence in a sub-basement that doubles as a city morgue, the only thing guiding us being Brakhage\u2019s uncomfortably intimate curiosity behind the lens.<\/p>\n

In most horror cinema, no matter its forays into various subgenres, you\u2019re presented with a sense of hope (the final girl in slashers), the lack thereof (everything in torture porn), a message (high-concept, A24 fare), or a bonkers playground (ultraviolent weirdo stuff like Mandy<\/a>). As shocking as a more contemporary cult breakthrough like Terrifier 3<\/a> may be, it\u2019s too\u2026fun. The bells and whistles make it so, and it doesn\u2019t have the leverage of real, unfictionalized gore. With this unforgettable short, you\u2019re in Brakhage\u2019s world, with no higher power on which to anchor your resilience. You may find beauty, you may find despair, you may find meaning, or, most likely, you\u2019ll find nothing at all \u2014 nothing but yourself, dressed down, literally nude, and tinkered with like clockwork.<\/p>\n

A fitting experience for the season of All Hallows: in Brakhage\u2019s world, there is no god. No anti-god either. Only flesh.<\/p>\n

Little White Lies is committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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The post In praise of Stan Brakhage’s most disturbing film document<\/a> appeared first on Little White Lies<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Halloween, no body horror fiction can compare to the haunting revelations of Brakhage’s 32-minute film The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes.<\/p>\n

The post In praise of Stan Brakhage\u2019s most disturbing film document<\/a> appeared first on Little White Lies<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[6166],"tags":[61,122,127,129,124,128,125,132,131,133,126,130,123,66,94,88,97,56,64,65,60,112,6188,6181,40,75,95,6191,6189,104,6196,6206,6183,6186,33,120,6185,105,101,6199,6190,6193,6202,6195,6204,98,115,30,29,41,86,70,69,68,72,71,26,118,108,87,46,55,48,52,54,51,50,83,6197,62,58,57,6177,109,6201,35,59,63,85,79,82,96,80,27,81,114,44,42,43,45,38,39,6205,6198,6187,6200,6192,6194,6203,110,117,6184,100,111,116,73,89,90,92,91,6180,93,84,78,37,6182,102,34,36,77,67,74,99,113,119,28,121,6179,6178,32,47,49,53,103,31,76],"class_list":["post-150632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-airpods","tag-anime","tag-anime-characters","tag-anime-cosplay","tag-anime-edits","tag-anime-merchandise","tag-anime-movies","tag-anime-news","tag-anime-recommendations","tag-anime-reviews","tag-anime-series","tag-anime-streaming","tag-animes","tag-app-store","tag-app-store-samsung","tag-appgallery","tag-appgallery-oneplus","tag-apple","tag-apple-music","tag-apple-tv","tag-apple-watch","tag-bbc-sport","tag-behind-the-scenes-footage","tag-best-comedy-movies","tag-best-mobile-games","tag-bixby","tag-bixby-xiaomi","tag-box-office-hits","tag-celebrity-interviews","tag-champions-league","tag-cinema-history-and-evolution","tag-cinematic-virtual-reality-experiences","tag-classic-romance-movies","tag-critically-acclaimed-dramas","tag-cyberpunk","tag-cyberpunk-2077","tag-family-friendly-movies","tag-fantasy-football","tag-fifa","tag-film-director-profiles","tag-film-festival-highlights","tag-film-industry-news","tag-film-production-techniques","tag-film-soundtracks-and-scores","tag-film-inspired-travel-destinations","tag-football","tag-formula-1","tag-fortnite","tag-free-fire","tag-free-mobile-games","tag-freebuds-pro","tag-galaxy-a52","tag-galaxy-note-20","tag-galaxy-s21","tag-galaxy-watch-4","tag-galaxy-z-fold-3","tag-game","tag-games","tag-golf","tag-harmonyos","tag-how-to-backup-iphone","tag-how-to-factory-reset-iphone","tag-how-to-reset-iphone","tag-how-to-restore-iphone","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone-5","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone-6","tag-huawei","tag-in-depth-film-analysis","tag-ios","tag-ipad","tag-iphone","tag-latest-movie-releases","tag-live-soccer","tag-local-cinema-listings-and-showtimes","tag-lol","tag-macbook","tag-macos","tag-mate-40-pro","tag-mi-11-lite","tag-mi-home-security-camera-basic-1080p","tag-mi-home-security-camera-basic-1080p-huawei","tag-mi-smart-band-6","tag-minecraft","tag-miui","tag-mlb-scores","tag-mobile-game-design","tag-mobile-game-development","tag-mobile-game-marketing","tag-mobile-game-monetization","tag-mobile-games","tag-mobile-gaming","tag-movie-adaptations-of-books","tag-movie-merchandise-and-collectibles","tag-movie-reviews-and-ratings","tag-movie-ticket-discounts-and-offers","tag-movie-trailers-and-teasers","tag-movie-trivia-and-facts","tag-movie-themed-quizzes-and-games","tag-nba-scores","tag-nba-standings","tag-newest-horror-films","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-scores","tag-nhl-scores","tag-one-ui","tag-oneplus","tag-oneplus-9-pro","tag-oneplus-buds-pro","tag-oneplus-nord-ce-5g","tag-oscar-nominated-films","tag-oxygenos","tag-p40-pro-plus","tag-poco-x3-pro","tag-pokemon","tag-popular-action-films","tag-premier-league","tag-pubg","tag-pubg-mobile","tag-redmi-note-10-pro","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-pay","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-steam","tag-steeam","tag-top-10-anime","tag-top-rated-movies-2023","tag-upcoming-hollywood-movies","tag-valorant","tag-when-do-the-iphone-7-come-out","tag-when-does-the-iphone-7-come-out","tag-when-is-the-iphone-7-coming-out","tag-world-cup","tag-xbox-series-x","tag-xiaomi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150632\/revis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