Stan Brakhage's "The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes"

March 12, 2025 6:14 PM

The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes is a grueling, fascinating experience only made bearable by our sense of the real human being gripping the camera for dear life. There’s a moment when Brakhage brings the camera around to take in the newly emptied cranium of one of the autopsied corpses, peering down into the gaping skull, where I felt that he and I were experiencing exactly the same great and horrible feeling of dumbstruck awe at what had become of a human life. It’s enervating but surprisingly humanist in its aspirations -- if it’s ultimately despairing, it remains clearly the work of a master exploring the human condition in every facet. - Bryant Frazer (h/t: languagehat)
posted by Lemkin (9 comments total)

"the newly emptied cranium of one of the autopsied corpses, peering down into the gaping skull" sure is not an image I needed in my head, wow. Not a film I think I ever want to see.
posted by egypturnash at 6:45 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]

i hit “add to watchlist” so hard that now my hand hurts
posted by crime online at 6:56 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]

Thank you, I've not heard of the filmmaker before. I just watched a poor rendition of Mothlight on YouTube, and now I'm filled with yearning to see it on film, in the light of a projector, with the sound of the reel. Man, art is good, you guys.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 8:06 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]

ironically, the first recorded "autopsy" was conducted for political reasons.
posted by clavdivs at 9:27 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]

I watched this in film school at like 10AM two decades ago, so it's fitting that I see this on Metafilter at like 8AM. It was a lot to take in and there are images from this, Window Water Baby Moving and Mothlight that still linger with me.

While I've become less of a pretentious film buff since then and I think it's great that this is just readily available to view at convenience, seeing experimental films like this projected onto a screen is a different experience than watching it on youtube at home and I strongly recommend the experience where possible.

When it's a dark room with a big screen, the immersion is a large part of the experience; textures and colour within the image become as important as the overall image itself and the absence of sound puts you in your own head and emotions about what you are witnessing. Watching it with an audience, there's an additional palpable tension in the silence of the room.

Having made my share of small, terrible, experimental films, I can tell you that it's very difficult to do well and in a compelling way. Brakhage has such an eye for visuals and editing. For a less intense viewing experience, I would recommend Mothlight.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:38 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]

We recently screened Eyes -- it is one of his rarer films, it's not available on the Brackhage dvd collections -- in which he followed around police through their day, which ranges from hanging out in the precinct to uncensored photos of a very dead and bloody corpse lying in the street. One of the viewers afterwards asked us how the filmmaker was able to stage this with the police, not realizing this was literally real, not simulated.

In trying to track down a good copy -- it's literally only available as a 16mm film, there is no digital copy as far as I can tell -- I had the pleasure of corresponding with Brackhage's widow, who is in charge of rights to his works, who was very nice and when the first print we got was bad offered me a free showing in the future. As I understand it, he taught film in Colorado for the last part of his life and was a great resource for his students.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:04 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]

Oh -- another in the uncensored view of human life -- Brackhage filmed his own daughter's birth as Window Water Baby Moving.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:37 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]

I remember seeing in this in a University of Alberta class nearly 30 years ago. It was compelling, especially sitting in a dark theatre. Definitely stuck with me.

I also enjoyed Dog Star Man, especially after my instructor undercut pretentious analysis by pointing out that it was just a movie about A Dog. A Star. and A Man.
posted by Dalekdad at 7:55 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

I watched this before bed the other day, and I thought it was fascinating, and it also gave me some extremely bizarre dreams.

While stylistically it's not that similar, the feeling it gives me is similar to that I get from Jörg Buttgereit's films, especially maybe "Der Todesking", just a sort of melancholia for physical existence and its inevitable end.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:42 PM on March 14