From: bryan mckay (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2008 - 20:15:57 PST
While it's certainly a problem if people feel that Brakhage's
vocabulary isn't validated unless it's used in the service of a
traditional narrative, I don't think utilizing the vocabulary itself
ought to be an issue. Here's Brakhage's own words on having his
techniques borrowed (particularly with regards to the Superman + Text
of Light parallels):
When you want to worry about it is when they rip you off and make a
bad movie or sell some product that's disgusting. We've all had a lot
of that. But if someone makes a decent movie that's the way it should
go. Poetry inspires the novelists and the novelists sometimes include
a little poem at the front of the book or before every chapter and
vice versa. Great novels have caused poems to come into existence.
Bryan
On Dec 8, 2008, at 10:32 PM, Myron Ort wrote:
> Now that you mention it, I think maybe you are right. I am not
> sure I would be any better taking "criticism" the way Safer
> brought up a known negative ringer like that. (The critic Hughes did
> not even "see" what the real Basquat was doing! -- calling him the
> worst painter to Schabel's second worst -- Hughes, imo, another
> jerk in all likelihood). Schnabel faired much better when he was
> interviewed along with David Bowie by Charlie Rose who actually
> knows his stuff across many areas. This was back when Schnabel had
> made "Basquiat" and in it Bowie had played Warhol. Incidentally,
> in that interview, Bowie was the one who came across with a rather
> surprisingly deeper aesthetic knowledge than the painter turned
> director, imo. But in any case, it shows how a good interviewer like
> Rose can bring out the best, and, as you say, in the end, Safer was
> a network jerk by comparison, and Julian may have been correct
> saying that the ploy was "lazy" on the part of Safer. But it was
> amusing how Schnabel couldn't let it go....I probably would have
> behaved the same though if a supposedly "friendly" interviewer
> brought up a known nemesis like that.
>
> It is easy to be annoyed by this artist's somewhat overblown sukce$
> $, but more power to him....it enabled him to make movies, and to
> even make one that has been called (again by all too clever
> critics) "Brakhage for dummies" for using a smattering of the
> maestro's camera techniques (approximately) in the service of
> narrative, which, as we know, is typical of cinema these last few
> decades especially, however in this case, having chosen Brakhage,
> instead of just "fast cutting" or a light show dazzle ala Belson
> etc. , and having stayed on the techniques for a rather extended
> section. Really extended! Friends assumed I would really like
> "Butterfly" immensely, but I had to overcome resistance to seeing
> this type of camera used in that way and I am still not totally
> comfortable with some kind of assumption that Schnabel seems to
> have made "utilizing" that vocabulary so uninhibitedly . That is
> why I wondered if he, Schnabel, ever mentioned anything about seeing
> Brakhage films. I guess what annoys me, and what is difficult to
> explain to friends who assume I would be so impressed, is that there
> is, ever so subtly, the suggestion that this "first person cinematic
> vocabulary (so elegantly, uniquely, and miraculously innovated by
> Stan) is now somehow more "justified" because a bit of it is in the
> service of an otherwise "normal" narrative film. I don't know. Talk
> me down. Am I being too cranky?
>
> So is Schnabel now an "experimental" filmmaker as well as being
> independent and avant garde etc.?
> (at least he's not "underground".....yet.)
>
> Myron Ort
>
> (ps. in my aesthetic arrogance "(in the eye of the beholder...")
> seemed to me Basquiat often could "organize space and color" quite
> well, I have yet to see this in Schnabel's work....but that is just
> my own taste. {eg. remember the Hoyt Sherman link etc.)
>
> hmmmm....I am in deep doo doo now......
>
> {we are just talking here..... right....?}
>
>
>
> On Dec 8, 2008, at 3:16 PM, V Wolfe wrote:
>
>> The interviewer is the one who comes across like a jerk. I
>> especially like where he asks Schnabel
>> if he was a 'doper' because the artist mention marijuana. What an
>> idiotic inteview. Kudos to
>> Schnabel for getting through it. I'm sure it was extremely
>> irritating, and in order to do the publicity
>> for his films he had to put up with a lot of stupidity. Anyone who
>> has tried to live as a professional
>> artist in NYC knows how difficult that is. I give this guy a lot
>> of credit. He even changed forms, which
>> most people only dream about. I think Safer was jealous.
>>
>>
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>> From: jason livingston <email suppressed>
>>> Date: December 8, 2008 7:27:21 AM PST
>>> To: email suppressed
>>> Subject: Re: Schnabel
>>> Reply-To: Experimental Film Discussion List <email suppressed
>>> >
>>>
>>> I liked the film quite a bit, though Schnabel can come across as a
>>> bit of a blowhard. Definitely seemed like Kaminski had borrowed
>>> some of the blue-brown ice melts from Brakhage's Creation.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jason
>>> Ithaca, NY
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://jasontlivingston.com/
>>>
>>>
>>> On Dec 7, 2008, at 11:45 PM, Myron Ort wrote:
>>>
>>>> Happen to see a repeat interview on 60 minutes. Why does this guy
>>>> annoy me so much?....ooops, never mind. But I am curious, did he
>>>> ever, in public or in print, acknowledge, mention, or otherwise
>>>> credit Stan Brakhage, in any way, after he made that "acclaimed"
>>>> Diving Bell Butterfly movie of his? Or are we just as glad he
>>>> didn't?
>>>>
>>>> Myron Ort
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> __________________________________________________________________
>>>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>>
>>>
>>> __________________________________________________________________
>>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>
>>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.