Deren and Brakhage

1. My Reaction
I liked some of the films. Trying to understand them was difficult for me. I want to put a narrative over everything and apparently the directors don't want me to do that. I couldn't understand any of the films until we had the readings and discussions in class. Even then it was a little hazy.
I would say the one thing that caught my eye was the way that editing can manipulate what the viewer sees. I thought Brakhage was almost trying to lie to us with his images. He want us to think they are very natural, very true films. But then we see a non-linear video, where time has no bearing. It just goes to show that even the truest of films, when edited at all, aren't true anymore.
2. Class Discussion
For me, the way that physical space is changed with the camera is probably the most interesting thing about these films, seeing as how they were done so early on. The fact that the way it is filmed can change from one location to the next while the character looks as if they have barely moved is interesting.
For Deren's chess film, I like how someone in class mentioned Chess being compared to the game of life, where she is chasing her pawn, but once she gets it she controls her world.
With Deren it was also brought up how she can make emotion by slowing down the camera and doing camera tricks. It is a physical tool that can control human emotion.
As far as Brakhage films, the physicality of all of his films is awesome. The moth wings, the forest images, and the woman giving birth all were very nature-like to me. They are the basic things in the natural world around us that happen everyday.
As far as the birth film, people said it was intrusive and taking away personal things form the lady. That film was non-sequential and really showed how the director can manipulate even what seems like pure natural and true.
3. The Readings
Deren's reading mentioned time and space and space and time. They discuss how photography isn't like any other medium. Nothing is as true as photography. Something, for example, in a painting, could represent an apple, but it is not an apple. The only thing that could correctly portray an apple would be a photo, either still or moving (film).
It also mentions how you can change emotion through how it's filmed, by tricking time and space. You can mess with the viewers head any way you want when you film and edit.
As far as the Brakhage reading, i like the way that he looks at fundamental things such as life and death and looks at them without narration. Being a typical American moviegoer i want everything to have a narrative. He apparently wants to work without it.

Last Year at Marienbad

1. My Reaction
The film was super confusing. For starters, i thought that A couldn't even stand X. I felt that she hated having to deal with him, but he was psychotic. She had do deal with him every so often, because he wouldn't go away, and when she did talk to him, she would say "just wait another year" or "another month". It was her way of being able to avoid him.
There was so much repetition. There was really annoying music that would keep playing very intensely. I couldn't tell what the deja vu feeling was supposed to represent. I was thinking it is X thinking about the situation over and over and over in his mind. Every time he thinks about it, the situation changes slightly. He is just an obsessive weirdo. I felt like i was in a dream and i never reached a conclusion, i just woke up not really sure if i was still dreaming or not.
There was a lot of voice over, and characters talking, but their lips not moving. I think that just showed how X was imagining it and placing the words in everyone's mouths. He was dictating how every scene went in his mind.
2. Class Discussion
I love the idea that the maze represents X's brain. There are so many different ways that his story can turn out, but a lot of them are dead ends. There is only one right way to go, he just hasn't found it yet.
I didn't realize that the camera never really stops moving throughout the whole film. I feel like that represents X's brain and thoughts, because he never stops thinking about the situation. Everything is in constant motion.
The one shot where people have shadows and the trees don't is really interesting. I don't knwo what it represents, but it is impressive for an old film. Maybe its the fact that the people aren't really there at all (at that location) they are somewhere else. Kind of like X's memories that he thinks about. He is putting the people in these locations but they aren't really there. Maybe they never even were.
I liked the reference to "Hotel California". I felt the same way, like we were stuck in this dream and we can't really leave. We are trapped in X's head with him, and can't leave until he is free.
3. "Philosophical Connection" reading
"Solipsistic"- Whatever is in your mind is the only thing that is real. I think this explains the whole story- it probably is all fake, but in X's mind it is real, and that is all the proof he needs. If "X thinks, X is". It might all be fake, but if X thinks it then he brings it into being. We know that X is probably real, and we are in his head with him. We don't know if all of the other characters exist because we aren't in their heads with them. We can't hear if they are thinking or not. Maybe they don't think and don't exist. X thinks for all of the other characters and brings them into his own mind and makes them real? I don't know, that just got really confusing.