Mothlight, Stan Brakhage’s Self-cremation: From Poetic Language to Use - Text 1
This section explores the creative process of an experimental artist in order to understand the thoughts which led him to a bricolage method as a way of carrying out a quite precise project. The case study in question concerns the prolific American filmmaker Stan Brakhage and its subject is the making of his film Mothlight. This topic will make it possible to develop the following line of inquiry: how, on the basis of the poetic manner in which Brakhage expresses himself, can one convey this perception in a vocabulary based on technical questions and the devices used in the creation of a film such as Mothlight? The method adopted here consists in beginning with an analysis of Brakhage’s discourse, which will bring out the fact that he discusses his work using terms related more to perception than to technique. In fact he has a kind of idiosyncratic glossary which enables him to translate emotions and perceptions into precise and concrete technical procedures. Here I will employ the concept of “vision”. Next, my method will shift to an analysis of Brakhage’s practices, where I will explore the genesis of Mothlight in order to develop a case study of it. This will make it possible to test the declarations examined in the first part of this analysis, meaning to compare Brakhage’s comments with the genesis of his film.
Stan Brakhage and His Vision
The author of more than 300 films, Stan Brakhage is a major figure in American experimental cinema with films such as Dog Star Man, Window Water Baby Moving, The Dante Quartet and Mothlight. Throughout his career, he innovated by finding new techniques for making his films, for fabricating them. Almost all of his films were self-financed and made in artisanal fashion. In them he foregrounded his preferred medium, celluloid film. Working mostly in 16mm, Brakhage did not just film: he etched, painted and glued onto film. In this sense he was a true bricoleur.
