https://offscreen.com/view/brakhage3

“…there is a balance maintained in the films wherein hierarchical dominance between sight and sound is not an issue, and the mind is left to sort it out on its own. This approach to the experience of hearing without the ears is akin also to Brakhage’s desire to explore the concept of seeing without the eyes, often achieved through the exploration of film in the absence of the camera lens via direct treatment of the celluloid.”

Hearing without ears, seeing without eyes. The descriptions of painting directly onto film as bypassing the ‘eye’ to a moving mind, thinking about an audio equivalent to this technique is exciting. Movement as thought. There is also a quote in this particular film towards the end, “existence is song”. An interesting phrase to scrawl into the celluloid of a silent film. It shows that sound is still very much at play by it’s meaningful absence.

My favourite Brakhage interestingly has sound. But not in a normal capacity, this movie caught me perfectly in my teenage doldrums… and I was obsessed with the music and shot composition. The way the American Songbook was cut up is very inkeeping with Brakhage’s ‘moving mind’ idealogy, segments of the music are picked and chosen and cut up in a way that matches the disparate images, like a kind of sound-poem. Making movement out of movement.

This reminds me of Uncle Yanco’s description of painting as a dematerialisation and redemption of matter that I quoted when talking about the moving microphone.