Jeweled Balm
A while ago I told Wesley Harris, a known Eraserhead aficionado, I would post a film list like the book list. Wesley and I have just published articles on V for Vendetta with The Declaration (illustrated by Michael Hagos, another talented former student), which I’ve posted on kthread in the text section. Writing about James McTeigue’s blurry vision made me realize afresh why I think about one film ten times as often as any other—Seasons, the 2002 collaboration between Stan Brakhage and Phil Solomon, was the happy medium that showed me the message.
The 2003 “Money”-themed Virginia Film Festival included a panel with Solomon titled “Pour Down like Silver,” and when, after much discourse about his individual projects Solomon screened Seasons, I forgot the lumpy Vinegar Hill Theatre seat and felt thick colors wash over me. A silent short, the film’s fifteen minutes scraped the gunk off my eyes and left my ears ringing. Solomon told how he would meet Brakhage in bars, where the Master would sit etching the film cells that, for this collaboration, he would later paint and Solomon would edit. In this genre of film, scratching and eroding the cells produces the final art; the explicit manipulation embedded in the processing of Seasons corresponds to Solomon’s assertion that he yoked bundles of Brakhage’s painted loops into “phrases” from Brakhage’s 900 or so cuts to create a four part narrative.* Mesmerized by the slippage between seasons onscreen, I felt that instead of staring up at the projected reel in much the same way I have gazed at cathedral windows, I was pressed up against stained glass, only to realize film is valuable for the lights and patterns I can see and the invisible intersections of colors and negative space I cannot.
post title is an allusion to Ada Louise Huxtable’s quotation “… and the right kind of day is jeweled balm to the battered spirit.”
Leave a Reply
Posted Sunday, April 16th, 2006, 1:29 pm | Filed in Film. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 16th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Well done articles! Smart students Kris!
April 16th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Since a film list does not seem to be forthcoming from this blog *cough*, I’ll get the ball rolling with one of my own. I keep a running list of every film I have seen, so I ran through that and copied the 50 that jumped out at me the most at the time. I don’t mean to say these are the “best” or even my favorites. A day or even an hour later, I’m sure it would be 50 completely different films. I try not to play favorites. So here they are, in alphabetical order.
8 1/2
After Hours
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Blue Velvet
Brazil
Breathless
A Christmas Story
Close-Up
The Conformist
La Dolce Vita
Dr. Strangelove
Eraserhead
F for Fake
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Gates of Heaven
George Washington
Hiroshima mon amour
I Am Cuba
Ikiru
In the Mood for Love
Jules and Jim
Kill Bill
The Last Laugh
Lost Highway
M
Mean Streets
The Meaning of Life
Mulholland Dr.
The Mystery of Kasper Hauser
Naked
Night of the Living Dead
Ossessione
Paris, Texas
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Primer
Pulp Fiction
Rashômon
Repo Man
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rome, Open City
Saboteur
Seven Samurai
The Straight Story
Sunset Blvd.
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One
Taxi Driver
Tomatos Another Day
El Topo
Two-Lane Blacktop
Vertigo