Brakhage: The Act of Seeing

-With no sound of course. What this tag should really say: WARNING! Don't eat prior to watching this film for your own safety.

Stan Brakhage's "The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes" was an intense viewing experience, which regularly compelled me to look away from the screen. This response is quite irregular for me. I am not really the squeamish type, but the blood, the cutting, the removal of the organs, and in general the plain gore and to an extent, the brutality of this 'regular' procedure was completely unexpected. Considering I routinely watch documentaries of live surgeries, am not afraid of blood or death and consider myself a well exposed individual, I was genuinely shocked that this film had such a strong and negative effect on me. After a little too much reflection, I realized why I was so profoundly effected: I wasn't simply "watching" the film as I usually do, but rather I was "seeing" it. It felt as though I was actually there in the morgue watching over the coroners shoulder. As Bart Testa puts it, “this film is not about 'showing', but about bringing us very close to actual bodies in a morgue, in other words, this film is rigorously about 'seeing' ".

What separated this viewing experience from others must have been the lack of commentary that usually guides the experience and walks us step-by-step through the entire procedure. The seemingly intellectual, scientific voice between us and the image can be seen as the voice of reason, that constantly reassures us that this is a mere scientific procedure- necessary to find specific results. Voice-overs attach significant meaning to otherwise brutal images, making it seem more justifiable and humane. In the case of this documentary, commentary was not present thus reinforcing the brutality.

I felt as though I was awkwardly witnessing the event first hand, kind of like I was trapped in a room, peering out onto something that I was not supposed to see. This made sense after reading about avant-guard cinema, explaining that films of this genre regularly draw on subject matter that “goes unaccounted by, or seems incomprehensible, mysterious, and forbidden”. It seemed as though I was exploring the unexplored and felt as though I was going somewhere that I otherwise was not allowed. With the exclusion of exposition, explanation, and argument I was solely focusing on the image (on the act of "seeing" rather than the emotions involved, the scientific reasoning, or compelling background story that accompanies the body-simply because nothing of this sort was presented.

For the first time I wasn't in Hollywood-so to speak. There was no happy ending, no magical findings that lead to any answers; the slate was wiped clean and I was forced to put the pieces of the puzzle together. In the end I saw it for what it was, or at least what I thought it was: numerous rogue corpses that held no place or significance in society (no one cared/ or was present to identify their bodies) and no one likewise cared to hear their story. They were shown no dignity in life (as demonstrated by no one disputing their inclusion in the film) and in death where we bear witness to the unforgiving image of scissors and knives ripping the bodies in every which way. Seemingly, no results are needed because there is no one asking for them. In this sense, the surgery seemed purposeless, which reinforced the unnecessary brutality of these images.




-Simply, this photo is my weak attempt to repay you, (professor Reed), for exposing me to those wonderful images- that will of course haunt me for the rest of my life!