Brakhage: The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes

Going into the viewing of this film, I felt that I was prepared to be horrified by the content (that is if you can ‘prepare’ yourself for horror). I have seen a couple Brakhage films in the past and found the visual content a little hard to take, but I fully appreciated the film as an art form. I have a pretty weak stomache, so watching the birth of Brackage’s child in “Window Water Baby Moving” was a little difficult, but I did ultimately enjoy and appreciate the film. I thought that my overall impression of “The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes” would be similar to that of “Window Water Baby Moving”. However, my immediate response (up until last night in tutorial) was quite different. I was really disturbed by the content and very shook up, even angry.
I felt guilty that I had witnessed such a disgusting film (and I mean disgusting in the way that it was disgusting that anyone would make this film, not by the fact that this process actually happens).
I felt angry and disappointed in Brakhage that he would cheapen the human body in such a gruesome way that it almost came off as pornographic. I felt like the entire film was just shot after shot of the goriest images Brakhage could put together. I didn’t think there was any artistic merit to the actual filming and I felt like there could be no acceptable explanation for the purpose of this film. I really felt like there was no purpose at all and that Brakhage was perverse for creating something so wrong.
I have to admit that my response to this film might be a little more extreme than most people because I have recently lost a close family member and so this hit me on a very personal level. I think this is why I also found the most disturbing parts of the film to be the parts when they showed the entire body. I was able to look at the close-up shots of organs, etc because I viewed them in a more medical sense. When I saw an image of the body, it brought back the human element and made the fact that these body parts used to be human all the more real. I think that was the hardest part about this film: when I saw the body parts, I could detach myself from the idea that we were watching an autopsy, but when I saw the weathered body, it forced me to think about these body parts as an actual human. This made the film seem so inappropriate to me because I don’t want to be forced to think of a person as a dead body.
So I realize that this blog entry is a little disorganized, but that’s generally how my thoughts on “The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes” tend to be. I have to say that my thoughts on the film have changed since tutorial last night. My immediate response was extreme and I didn’t even think about the film as anything other than something that shouldn’t have been made. After listening to other people’s perspectives on the film, I realized that it really is an effective film. Brakhage is able to push the viewer to their limits, which forces us to look more deeply at our personal morals and values. I didn’t even realize that this film had affected me so strongly until I realized that I couldn’t even think of the film as anything but disgusting. I wasn’t able to look at the film in any other view and I couldn’t even appreciate any of the visual elements because I was in such a state of shock.
A lot of people mentioned that they became desensitized as the film continued. I feel like Brakhage was able to present the film in a way that made us think we were being desensitized to the images, which was almost as disturbing a concept as the actual film content. I know I was disturbed by the fact that I was becoming desensitized by what was on the screen and I think Brakhage intended to create that effect to push the viewer’s limit and to horrify the viewer even more. Taking a look at the film from a less emotional and immediate viewpoint, I think I have a better understanding of why Brakhage would make this film and I can appreciate it for its expression. Since I was so affected by it, I know I will never watch it again, but the experience wasn’t as terrible as I had first thought it was.