The Miracle of... I don't know: Deren and Brakhage

Maya Deren's shorts were definitely films that rejected narrative devices and emphasized a visual impact on the audience. I noticed in all of Deren's shorts a spirit of choreography, not only in how characters react to each other, but also in how the films were shot. There is excessive use of repetition, which is key in choreography and in music. It is as though Deren is creating a musical form in her film than just experimenting with film.

Brakhage, with his shorts, went beyond just filming. I've never seen an example of drawing directly onto film celluloid. It does look a bit weird, yet it is a very interesting concept of finding another way to explore art through film. Brakhage's filming of childbirth wasn't as disturbing as I thought it would be. The graphic visual of the birth was not pretty, but it was fascinating to see Brakhage take something so personal and allow the audience to become personal with it. After the film, the class would not let go of discussing it. Brakhage's intent, I believe, was to make the film of birth personal for us, not just for him.

Last Year at Marienbad: F*****g weird

Last Year at Marienbad was a film that was not logical but ambiguous. It had a sort of enigma attached to it. You could only guess and question the theme without coming to a full conclusion. I agree with Sarah (I think that was her name sorry) when she talked about being tricked throughout the whole film. Because of that feeling of being tricked, I couldn't help but notice that I whole movie felt like a dream from the jump cuts and endless repetition of narrative (if it was that) to the character of "A" and "X" and the demeanor of "M". It was very much a dream-like sequence of event and surreal.

The dream-like mentality of the film reminded me of Freud because his theory of the unconscious through dream interpretation. The conversations between "A" and "X" seemed like it was going on in a dream, revealing what "A" wants rather than what is going on in a state of consciousness. That leads me to René Descartes and his philosophical statement "I think, therefore I am". Descartes questioned whether he truly existed and led to the conclusion that if he thought he existed, then hem ust have existed. I believe that question holds true in the film. Do the characters, the rest of the people, the hotel itself exist? Or does it exist in the mind of one individual, going through a state of unconsciousness? That is what I believe should be asked of the film.