BRAKHAGE MEETS REGGIO
Originally printed in Cinemad #4
For one program, the 2000 Telluride
Film Festival presented three new short films by Stan Brakhage preceding Chris
Marker's video documentary on the last days of Andrei Tarkovsky, ONE DAY IN THE
LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH. Just the catalog page induced avant-orgasms across
town.
The
three Brakhage shorts were from his Persian film series. In the Q&A he
noted what he works from: "Every kid rubs his or her eyes to make the
multiple feedback - hypnogogic, it's called. That’s my starting point for
painting." Brakhage was known only as a legendary filmmaker but fans know
he was also one of the most prolific and fascinating painters of our time.
After the screening Brakhage and
KOYAANISQATSI (1982) director Godfrey Reggio spoke to a group of high school
students whose trip was sponsored by the festival.
Brakhage
was strict like a teacher, well spoken and loud. Reggio is also well spoken and
concise, but much more quiet.
"A lot of wonderful things have
born here," Brakhage said. "Tarkovsky's last film was born here in
his rage at an American woman's soap opera-ish depiction of the end of the
world. I don’t remember her name or the film, nobody else does either, even
though it had kind of a popular run for a while. He took it in a form, 'I wish
I could have such a sentimental view of the end of the world.' And then he went
on at some length that convinced me that that was the seed being planted for
THE SACRIFICE (1986)."
Brakhage
loved the historical finds that Telluride has every year. While Brakhage knows
and teaches films by the relatively unknown filmmaker Dimitri Kirsanoff, this
year the festival had a feature-length film by Kirsanoff (RAPT, 1934) that
Brakhage had never seen nor heard of. (After seeing it he declared it a
masterpiece.)
When
asked for his influences, Brakhage explained his latest came from a lifetime
involvement in Persian art, with Farsi and with the associated calligraphic
ways. He looks for a way to reciprocate in his films things he has experienced.
Godfrey
Reggio, director of KOYAANISQATSI, its sequel POWAQQATSI (1988) and ANIMA MUNDI
(1992)*, thought his path to filmmaking was not as clear as Brakhage's: "I
must say that Stan has an enormous breadth of knowledge about what's in cinema,
in image and art. He's not only a practitioner, he's also an extremely
knowledgeable person."
Reggio
explained how he came from a completely different direction. He was a monk for
14 years and then worked with street gangs for another 14 years.
"What motivated me was this
intensity of trying to understand the world in which I lived in," Reggio
said. "After working with street gangs for so long I felt that these gangs
were fine, it was the world they lived in that was upside down. So I wanted an opportunity,
much like a person who say is an indigenous person - their life depends on
understanding the world they live in. If you live in the desert you must
understand the earth, the sky, the water, the light. I feel that we live in a
world that we are almost incapable of seeing because it is so close to us. I
see the synthetic world that we live in as a prison, that we're all rushing to
get inside of."
Trying to understand the world is
Reggio's motivation. Reggio brings up the fact that he has only made 4 films
while Brakhage has made over 300.
Brakhage's films range from 9
seconds long to 4 1/2 hours. "I'm obsessed," Brakhage said, "and
I wouldn’t recommend that as a life for anybody (laughs)."
Reggio described his films being
about the beauty of the beast: "Those things that America is known all
over the world for as the materialistic capital of the universe. Everyone wants
to come here because of the so-called freedoms that we have. But maybe it's for
the perception of the commodities and the way of life that we live." As
opposed to films about the obvious depravation of war, hunger and poverty,
which "you would have to be not human to not understand."
In his films, which consist of
imagery and orchestral music only, Reggio leaves the thinking up to the viewer.
"I believe it is inappropriate to give answers in mediums as powerful as
film because we don’t even understand what the image does to us. I think the
power of cinema is that it can open within the viewer much like a tarot card,
if you want use an example. It can open within your own mind your own answers
to things."
Reggio related this idea to
Brakhage's work.
"What does it mean?"
Reggio asked. "Who knows. I'm never going to get into his mind. So I don’t
know what he means. But his work, like art, produces a meaningful response in
my life, much like a piece of music."
While
the two filmmakers are both very unique and off the mainstream, Brakhage
believes his area of painting on film is similar in the long run to Reggio's
images of real landscapes and people. "Because what I'm trying to do is
reveal to people or inspire people to be aware of their moving visual thinking.
I feel this is the new way to think. Not to discard the old ways…. That can be
added to symbols, numbers, words, and pictures in the normal sense. It can add
to the streaming of our emotional consciousness and how it is affected by
simple forms like Persian motifs or naked bodies."
Brakhage
then moved on to how he is affected by current 'independent' film distribution:
"I can say and I've said for many years I've tried very hard to get over into Canada.** Because as an American patriot
I feel it is a shame and a disgrace if I can't die in exile. All my
contemporaries are dead or worse. Except for six or seven, out of 75 to 150. They
weren't taken out and shot like what happens in Russia or sent out to starve.
They were killed in the American way: the independent film movement."
Brakhage said he has been totally
ignored by the public broadcast system, almost the entire educational system
and almost all of the museums. When Brakhage finishes a film, he estimates only
five venues for it: The Museum of Modern Art and the Millenium Film Workshop in
NYC, the Walker Art museum in Minneapolis, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley
and the Telluride fest.
One student asked Brakhage how he
made his recent painted films. He paints primarily on clear leader,
occasionally on scratched black leader, filling up the scratches with color. He
paints in public in order to 'stay sane' around relatively normal people
talking about real estate, children, etc. Commonly, he uses dental and
engraving tools.
Brakhage
then takes the footage and reshoots it through a step printer owned by a former
student of his. [Other former Brakhage students include the creators of South Park: "I think Stanley is an
homage to me. Because he's the one that doesn't cuss so much, he has a weak
stomach and throws up. They're teasing me. And I'm very proud of that."]
While Brakhage has to use a paint
that adheres, he warned against the use of coal tar dyes. His exposure to it
over years resulted in the filmmaker's failing health.
Asked about his background, Reggio,
who programmed some of the short films at Telluride, added, "I am very
happy I never went to film school. Having looked at now, a couple of thousand
film entries from film schools, I find remarkably that they all have the same
thumbprint on them. Meaning they are all trying to do this story that can get
them into Hollywood some way.”
"I worked with street gangs
for many years, " Reggio continued. "During the time working with
them I saw this fantastic film called LOS OLVIDADOS (1950) by Luis Bunuel. I
certainly wasn't entertained by Bunuel's film. Quite the contrary, I had a
spiritual experience. I felt that if I could be moved so deeply by something
that touching, then it was something that I wanted to check out. I had burnt
out working with street gangs. I had spent 90% of the time fighting police. I
felt that was counter-productive. To try and keep defending young people against
authority was ridiculous.
"It motivated me into choosing
film because I learned years ago as a teacher that people learn in terms of
what they already know. I found that people are obsessively attracted to the
image."
When
explaining the title of his first film, the Hopi word KOYAANISQATSI, Reggio
said he was not a white man trying to be an Indian, a la the university
department subjectively analyzing indigenous people. Reggio would rather take a
subjective category of a Native American and apply that to the current culture
and technology.
"The
films I've made are really to be performed with live orchestras," Reggio
continued. "The reason I do that is while it limits the number of people
that can see them I know that since it is a film the ubiquitous medium
unfortunately is an electronic medium of television. It reduces everything.
"But if it is possible to be
seen at the complete other end, with an orchestra in a cultural palace as it
were, then it raises the way the senses can perceive the event. You can feel
the soundtrack. Although I don’t use language that soundtrack is the narration.
As music indicates a direct communion to the soul rather than through words.
The films aren't for everybody but those open to them they can touch you
directly.
"I'm not trying to tell you
something specific. That doesn't mean that I don't have specific in mind but I
don’t believe in giving people messages. I believe in presenting the context of
a situation and let people discover their own truth in it."
*Reggio completed his trilogy after this article, with the
film NAQOYQATSI in 2002.
**Brakhage did move to Victoria, BC, Canada, in 2002, where
he passed away the following year.
