From: malgosia askanas (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Mar 24 2009 - 14:12:35 PDT
Cari wrote:
>black and white thinking
>i avoid that like i avoid putting my film of my friend brodie the cat
>into circulation
Actually, what you posted seemed all-grey, so I greyed it up a bit
more, to see what happens. There was no black and no white involved.
>as far as my analysis of the film i see no large difference between
>it and a brakhage film when he films a cat - that was my exact
>reference point in the post - the only difference to me is in my
>mind because i know that brakhage filmed his wife having a baby, an
>autopsy... other more 'amazing' things than the cat
>
>
>Cari, but if this is the case, why go see an experimental film at
>all? Seeing a cat surely beats seeing any images of a cat,
>
>
>no because the thing about art is that it is co-creative
>it is a relationship between the artist and the subject
>yes the optics can often be the art - the highest form of art
>- the optical experience one has in the viewing of a cat -
>however not all humans experience this height
>therefore there is a need to share
OK, so then what did you mean when you said " i see no large
difference between it [Martin's film] and a brakhage film when he
films a cat"? Did you mean the heights of all "cat viewings"
(irrespective of the kind of cat, its mood, the situation, etc.) are
interchangeable, and also interchangeable with the heights of all
"kid viewings", and all creative relationships of film-makers with
their (animal) subjects are interchangeable, and therefore there is
no real difference between a Martin film showing a kid, and any
Brakhage film showing a cat? Or did you mean something very
particular to Martin's film and (a particular) Brakhage film?
Also, what you said sounded as if the only real difference between
experiences was how "spectacular" they were - you appreciated
Brakhage's cat more than Martin's kid not because Brakhage better
succeeded in capturing the height of a "cat viewing", but because you
knew he also made movies of more spectacular events. Would Martin
be more of a "filmmaker" if "Gabriel" included, say, footage of a
plain crash?
>and present-day documentaries or realistic portrayals of autopsies
>and childbirths surely beat what Brakhage could accomplish with his
>limited means, no?
>
>
>no
>first of all i do not think his means where so limited
>- technically i think you mean -
>i really don't see it that way
>his 'limitations' may have created more art actually
>
>plus again you are missing the artists mind (not brain) in your equation
>and what that brings to fore
>which is more than half of it i would say
All right, but that seems to go against your equation between
Martin's kid and Brakhage's cat. Don't they each bring something
different to the equation and to the fore - for better of for worse?
>do you know the writing of robert smithson?
Some, yes. "Sedimentation of the mind", for example.
-m
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