I saw Stan Brakhage's Text of Light at Anthology Film Archives last night as part of their Essential Cinema Series. At 67 minutes long, the film is in its entirety a study of light refracted from an ashtray. Pure color, sparkling, shifting. I saw slight transformations of shapes; rhythms kept and then abandoned; repeating themes and patterns of horizon-like color, star-twinkling, dusk after-images. And after awhile I began to see mimetic imagery---faces both male and female, full bodies in coats, the distinct face of a cat, the sky, cloud cover, smoke (perhaps from a cigarette in the ash tray?) and ash. But I can't say for certain whether these were photographed images or something my mind's eye conjured to dance upon the abstracted light. Light asked to perform feats of aesthetic wonder.

Fred Camper, an expert on Brakhage's films, explains that Brakhage:

discovers metaphors for landscapes in the patterns of reflection and diffraction: rivers, volcanoes, and mountains are suggested by images so delicate they’re worthy of J.M.W. Turner. The film is simultaneously a vision of the world's creation and an inner landscape of spatial and light effects organized almost as if light were music.

For awhile I wondered about the filmmaker's realtionship to light. He asks it to represent shapes and images on to a surface of film and then to replay these again from the film onto a screen (and for the viewers last night watching in the Maya Deren Theater, "the brightest screen available worldwide" according to Anthology). Something all filmmakers do, but for the most part, taking this relationship with light for granted. Brakhage conversed deeply with light, asked it to tell its stories, sing its songs and dance its dances. Brakahge explains:

What I began doing was always holding the camera in hand. For hours. Clicking. Waiting. Seeing what the sun did to the scene. As I saw what was happening in the frame to these little particles of light, changing, I would shoot the camera very slightly. If you want to know how slightly you have to realize I was never photographing in an area bigger than this fourth fingernail.

I was surprised by how vivid the color came across. The reds and yellows, so strong and warm. And the deep divulged by the blues and violets seemed endless. And yet, that is not telling the whole truth---for in creating movement in this film, in making it a film that had rhythm and pacing, that felt like watching a piece of music by Messiaen, he used color depth, too. Not just color selection from the spectrum, or where it originated on the screen, but whether it was a shallow, foggy representation of color, or whether it had the deep vivid feeling that grasped at and jumped into our eyes, our minds and our hearts.

Receiving an email today from Marshall Yaeger, inventor of the Kaleidoplex, I began to think of the imagery in Text of Light as being something akin to a kaleidoscope, but a kaleidoscope in time, more fractured, malfunctioning, more organic. A kaleidoscope where the light itself had a say in what was to be seen.

The musicians of Miles Davis' electric period reminisce in Electric Miles: A Different Kind Of Blue about their leader's quality as a listner. Keith Jarret dubs him the best listening band leader. When these young guys were making sound, creating a mass of rhythms and vibrations they often felt lost, wondering what it was they were doing, where it all was going. And then Miles would play a phrase or melody which would illuminate the chaos, revealing the pieces and pointing the way. And the music made sense; the musicans were once again en ensemble. B.Franklin's autobiography coems to mind again, and for two reasons. One is the virtue of patience. Miles knew what he was doing, he understood the tension in balance between form and free expression. His musicans may have felt lost, perhaps confused, but they had the patience -- and foresight -- to rely on their master musican band leader. He had a vision and direction to pick the pieces of music and give it meaning. The other virtue, and the one that allowed the patience of the musicans, was Miles' keen ability to listen. To not always be talking and playing over everybody, feeling and following a groove far out beyond others' perception. He was interested in working with others as a team, as a band. Miles was open to the ideas and the playing of his younger bandmates; in truth, he relied on them. His music is great because he listened to where everyone was coming from and where they were going. And then he gave them all a vehicle to travel in, one that would accomodate all of their points of departure and all of their destination. Creative improvisation with a strong common voice.

Though made by white men, the 1974 film Space is The Place featuring cosmic jazz man Sun Ra, is not a blaxploitation movie. Ra is working against the stereotype of the downtrodden African American of the 1970s. His is a message of empowerment, enlightenment and a promise of spaceways salvation for black people. The arkestra sounds the call as funky space music, enticing people to follow their lead away from the racism and anger of Earth to Ra's outer space. Sun Ra's music is folk music, and this is featured best in June Tyson's performances. Powerfully sung, but fun songs, she is bridge between the Arkestra's roots in avant space jazz and soul funk as protest music. The message: Get with Ra's groove and get on his space ship for an escape from the oppressions of late 20th century America.

El Topo and Holy Mountain

Jodorowsky, incidentally, is also the guy who writes comics that Moebius illustrates.

About Jodorowsky

Jodorowsky's Web Page

It seems that Humanoïdes Associés could be a title to acquire.