TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Moths are the subject of the film, but also its underlying material. Brakhage and his wife collected numerous fragments of insects so that he could glue them to 16mm film stock. We also see flowers and other pieces of plants incorporated into the film’s materials. This was a choice made by Brakhage to represent the environment of the film’s protagonist (the night moth). The notion of a film-herbarium is also important, because instead of making the project so organic Brakhage could simply have filmed moths using the same visual codes as in most of his other films, involving rapid movements of the camera’s iris to produce a made-to-measure jumpy montage to imitate the perception of his own vision.