Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage

Mothlight is visually stunning. Its subliminal-like images vibrantly flash onto the screen, creating a chaotic display of texture and color. While watching, it is virtually impossible to entirely grasp what is going on but it almost feels like a science experiment, as if we’re looking at various subjects through a microscope. Putting together this film had to have been both tedious and exhausting. I can’t imagine ever pre-visualizing something like this simply because it is so fast and abstract that it must be nearly impossible to completely control.
At times, I felt as if I was watching not just a film but the process of filmmaking. It’s grainy film stock and selected images often call attention to the manipulation of individual frames. In researching about this film I discovered that Brakhage did not use a camera to make it. He collected various moths and what appear to be blades of grass and various other insects and plants and put them on strips of tape which he later printed on film. That is absolutely incredible. I have never heard of anyone being that innovative and artistic with the film medium.
On the Criterion Collection DVD, there is a quote from Brakhage regarding Mothlight which states, “What a moth might see from birth to death if black were white and white were black.” I’m not sure what to make of this statement and how literally I should attempt to connect it to his film. It’s clear that throughout the film there is a certain amount of speed and energy which can be associated with the movement of a moth as it hovers around a light. It’s as if Brakhage uses the intensity and vibrancy of natural images such as grass, plant life, insects and earth to establish the point of view of a moth (or a creature that is extremely aware of and sensitive to it’s surroundings), a perspective that viewers have surely never experienced before. With The Wold Shadow Brakhage creates an intriguing work of art in which his technique is as mysterious as its purpose. What I really loved about this film was it’s manipulation of what at first seems to be a stable and familiar image. Unlike a film like Mothlight in which we are unable to connect with anything, forcing us to free ourselves of comprehension and admire abstraction, The Wold Shadow begins with the comforting and relatively normal image of a wooded landscape. But not too long after the film begins, Brakhage begins to manipulate the subject matter, frantically adjusting the exposure.