Deren and Brakhage Bending Reality

At first I pretty much just figured experimental was solely synonymous with weird as hell. While it is usually the case, I think the term makes more sense to me now as taking film to its limits and experimenting with what can be done with it and how it can be used as an artistic medium.

Time and space dont have to work the same in films because like everything else, they can be controlled and changed and altered. Deren talks about how while all fim is a reflection of reality in some fashion (because it is dependent on it), it is really only form of reality which can be altered and toyed with creatively by the director. In her films, she experiments with disregarding the rules of regular reality to create abstract and strange images which are figuritive and symbolistic, as opposed to other traditional films where the audiences expectations of reality are met and the meaning is easy to find in the dialouge and such,

Brakhage also discusses the world that the camera see. My favorite part of the reading was where he says, "To search for human visual realities, man must, as in all other homo motivation, transcend the original physical restrictions and inherit worlds of eyes." He is saying give up all your other senses and preconceived notions of what reality is like and use your eyes to absorb everything that film has to offer. To me this resonated best with Moth Light because I really tried to shed everything I thought I knew and really just drink in everything that was happening to my eyes. I sort of just like went into empty mind/meditation mode, and I felt alot from that film in a way my brain cant quite explain. I mean its interesting to think about how he made the film and this is an important piece of what was produced, I think the best part of the film is what happens to your eyes when you just stop concentrating and focusing and just accept what he is trying to show you.

The most interesting part of these films in my opinion is the struggle for power and control over the film. Obviously, these films are controlled by the directors and makers in every way. They take the time to fix and make sure they are showing you exactly what they want to show you and have complete control over what you see in the film. These films in particular are in the hands of the directors because they have ever taken control away from rules like gravity, time, and what is posssible and impossible and substitute whatever else they want in order to make creative points. However, by doing all of this, I feel like there is alot of control in the hands of the audience in how they interpret the films and how they let the images soak into their brains.