From: Raha Raissnia (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Oct 21 2009 - 09:47:06 PDT
Thanks Marilyn,
I know about Brakhage's tremendous knowledge of music. I have listened repeatedly to "The Test of Time", Stan's radio shows, that is entirely on music, and I LOVE THEM. It is clear and almost obvious how inspired he was by music, yet to say that his films were "musical thinking" is wrong. They are "visual thinking" inspired by music and many other things.
I agree with you in seeing nothing wrong for someone to respond to his film with some kind of music...but knowing all we know about Stan and why he didn't want music or sound to his film, if someone does it, to me is annoying !!
Raha
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:54:49 -0700
From: email suppressed
Subject: Re: Stan Brakhage Copyrights _Experimental sound-art
To: email suppressed
I am certainly as concerned as anyone to protect the integrity of Stan's films. However, I find these attacks on a musician's interest in investigating sound-vision relationships to be just a bit harsh. Raha, you will find, with a little more research, that Stan was indeed very involved in musical aesthetics. He once wrote that "the more silently-oriented my creative philosophies have become, the more inspired-by-music have my photographic aesthetics and my actual editing orders become, both engendering a coming-into-being of the physiological relationship between seeing and hearing in the making of a work of art in film." He referred to music as the "sound equivalent of the mind's moving," and said he believed that a study of music would reveal "the physiology of thought," writing, also, that "I seek to hear color just as Messiaen seeks to see sounds." Interestingly (in reference to the Bach question), he also claimed that several films of his had been inspired by Webern's adaptation of Bach's Musical Offering. And much later than that, Stan was inspired to make films IN RESPONSE TO PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN MUSICAL PIECES, WHICH HE THEN INCORPORATED INTO NEW FILMS: Tenney's "Flocking," for example, and Corner's "Through the Mysterious Barricade: After F. Couperin." Of course, his silent works he considered complete, and made TO BE silent - and to be experienced as "visual music" (which is also how he referred to his work). And it would certainly seem that any attempt by anyone else to add music to them would be like adding music to music -- dubious at best, and the result would certainly no longer be the film that it was. . . . But that said, even Stan was not completely averse to the notion that someone MIGHT be able to make a great soundtrack to one of his silent films. (He agreed to let Joel Haertling, for example, try to do so with the silent film "Creation" -- though I don't think anything came of it.)
Nonetheless, Peiman Khosravi did not presume to say that he wished to "make a soundtrack" for Dog Star Man, Part II (a 6 minute section of the total film). He was, rather, apparently inspired to try to create a musical response that would be, as I understand it, his own aural interpretation of HIS visual experience of the film (which I certainly did not think he was taking as a "neutral vehicle," as Tony Conrad suggested he was doing). In fact, how is it "insultingly dismissive" of the field of filmmaking, I wonder, for a musician to wish to interact with it -- any more than it would be insultingly dismissive of musicians for a filmmaker to incorporate their music?
"Dog Star Man" stands on its own. It is not in need of a soundtrack. Obviously. But that someone has been inspired by it and wishes to try to make a response of some kind does not seem to me to be necessarily "ignorant" -- though certainly intrepid! Khosravi's project may end up being an empty exercise, or it may lead to a creative revelation (for him, and perhaps for others). I would not presume to know. . . But whatever it is going to be, it is certainly not going to change or threaten "Dog Star Man," which has its own life.
Marilyn Brakhage
On 19-Oct-09, at 9:48 PM, Raha Raissnia wrote:if Khosravi does a smallest amount of research on Brakhage he will quickly find out that that Brackhage himself referred to his work as "visual thinking ", never as "musical thinking " man !!
therefor I agree with tony and also find khosravi's project as "ignorant or (more kindly put) jejune"
raha
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Thanks Marilyn,<br>I know about Brakhage's tremendous knowledge of music. I have listened repeatedly to "The Test of Time", Stan's radio shows, that is entirely on music, and I LOVE THEM. It is clear and almost obvious how inspired he was by music, yet to say that his films were "musical thinking" is wrong. They are "visual thinking" inspired by music and many other things.<br>I agree with you in seeing nothing wrong for someone to respond to his film with some kind of music...but knowing all we know about Stan and why he didn't want music or sound to his film, if someone does it, to me is annoying !!<br>Raha<br>
<br><br><hr id="stopSpelling">Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:54:49 -0700<br>From: email suppressed<br><br>I am certainly as concerned as anyone to protect the integrity of Stan's films. However, I find these attacks on a musician's interest in investigating sound-vision relationships to be just a bit harsh. Raha, you will find, with a little more research, that Stan was indeed very involved in musical aesthetics. He once wrote that "the more silently-oriented my creative philosophies have become, the more inspired-by-music have my photographic aesthetics and my actual editing orders become, both engendering a coming-into-being of the physiological relationship between seeing and hearing in the making of a work of art in film." He referred to music as the "sound equivalent of the mind's moving," and said he believed that a study of music would reveal "the physiology of thought," writing, also, that "I seek to hear color just as Messiaen seeks to see sounds." Interestingly (in reference to the Bach question), he also claimed that several films of his had been inspired by Webern's adaptation of Bach's Musical Offering. And much later than that, Stan was inspired to make films IN RESPONSE TO PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN MUSICAL PIECES, WHICH HE THEN INCORPORATED INTO NEW FILMS: Tenney's "Flocking," for example, and Corner's "Through the Mysterious Barricade: After F. Couperin." Of course, his silent works he considered complete, and made TO BE silent - and to be experienced as "visual music" (which is also how he referred to his work). And it would certainly seem that any attempt by anyone else to add music to them would be like adding music to music -- dubious at best, and the result would certainly no longer be the film that it was. . . . But that said, even Stan was not completely averse to the notion that someone MIGHT be able to make a great soundtrack to one of his silent films. (He agreed to let Joel Haertling, for example, try to do so with the silent film "Creation" -- though I don't think anything came of it.)<div><br></div><div>Nonetheless, Peiman Khosravi did not presume to say that he wished to "make a soundtrack" for Dog Star Man, Part II (a 6 minute section of the total film). He was, rather, apparently inspired to try to create a musical response that would be, as I understand it, his own aural interpretation of HIS visual experience of the film (which I certainly did not think he was taking as a "neutral vehicle," as Tony Conrad suggested he was doing). In fact, how is it "insultingly dismissive" of the field of filmmaking, I wonder, for a musician to wish to interact with it -- any more than it would be insultingly dismissive of musicians for a filmmaker to incorporate their music?</div><div><br></div><div>"Dog Star Man" stands on its own. It is not in need of a soundtrack. Obviously. But that someone has been inspired by it and wishes to try to make a response of some kind does not seem to me to be necessarily "ignorant" -- though certainly intrepid! Khosravi's project may end up being an empty exercise, or it may lead to a creative revelation (for him, and perhaps for others). I would not presume to know. . . But whatever it is going to be, it is certainly not going to change or threaten "Dog Star Man," which has its own life.</div><div><br></div><div>Marilyn Brakhage</div><div><br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On 19-Oct-09, at 9:48 PM, Raha Raissnia wrote:</div><br class="ecxApple-interchange-newline"><blockquote><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="ecxApple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">if Khosravi does a smallest amount of research on Brakhage he will quickly find out that that Brackhage himself referred to his work as "visual thinking ", never as "musical thinking " man !!<span class="ecxApple-converted-space"> </span><br>therefor I agree with tony and also find khosravi's project as "ignorant or (more kindly put) jejune"<br><br>raha<br></span></span></blockquote></div><br></div></div>
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