Hey gang,
So it's Monday night and the NNF forum hasn't exactly been sizzling with discussion about these two films and the articles. So let's get going!
Since we didn't have much time to talk about these films i'm very curious to hear your responses to them.
So obviously the content was at times overwhelming, and the idea of seeing the normally invisible or even of taboo things that we shouldn't think about is interesting but what else?
How about some of the formal strategies employed by Geyerhalter and Brakhage?
How does it feel as an audience member to experience either of these films?
Can you discuss more about Brakhage's active camera vs. Geyerhalter's static camera?
What about proximity? How does that function in the films and effect the viewer?
What do you think of Sicinski's description of Danube hospital as functioning metonymically? What does that even mean?
What do you think about Geyerhalter's non hierarchical approach to documenting a hospital?
How does narrative function in these two films? Is there a narrative arc or has narrativity taken a different form in these works?
Ok. Onwards!
See you Thursday. - Jeff
So it's Monday night and the NNF forum hasn't exactly been sizzling with discussion about these two films and the articles. So let's get going!
Since we didn't have much time to talk about these films i'm very curious to hear your responses to them.
So obviously the content was at times overwhelming, and the idea of seeing the normally invisible or even of taboo things that we shouldn't think about is interesting but what else?
How about some of the formal strategies employed by Geyerhalter and Brakhage?
How does it feel as an audience member to experience either of these films?
Can you discuss more about Brakhage's active camera vs. Geyerhalter's static camera?
What about proximity? How does that function in the films and effect the viewer?
What do you think of Sicinski's description of Danube hospital as functioning metonymically? What does that even mean?
What do you think about Geyerhalter's non hierarchical approach to documenting a hospital?
How does narrative function in these two films? Is there a narrative arc or has narrativity taken a different form in these works?
Ok. Onwards!
See you Thursday. - Jeff
Technical stuff first:
ReplyDeleteI can't seem to figure out how to create a post-- I can only post comments on other people's posts. Which means I have to wait for someone to say something in order to say anything... how is it done?
The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes was quite disturbing and something of an eye-opener. I really freaked myself out the next day while sitting on a crowded orange line train, starting to think about how everyone around me was full of so much stuff, and how, just the night before, I had seen all this stuff through the close-focused lens of a camera. I think the most affecting aspect of Brakhage's film was his way of returning to the start of the process, shifting from the bloody and visceral back to sallow skin and white sheets. The reading makes the point that this was Brakhage's method of breaking up the film into segments, revealing and re-clothing. But that stuff was, to me, much more disturbing than all the abstract guts by nature of being external and familiar, but still so recognizably and undeniably dead.
Geyerhalter's film was by nature much less objectionable, and the autopsy scene in this film could be viewed in the context of the whole well-oiled hospital machine. It was also shot from farther away--and so was simply less, literally "in your face." The film as a whole was even calming to watch.
Both films are observational in nature, but the active, focused camera that Brakhage utilizes makes for a greater level of perceived involvement by the spectator.
interesting. Geyerhalter's film drove me crazy. I got a knot in my stomach as the film went on. The camera was so static and detached from what was going on around it. All I could think of was how much I hated hospitals. I did enjoy the layering, systematic, observation of the "hospital machine". Geyerhalter nicely went from the surgery room of a patient, to the basement mechanics, to the kitchen, etc. I get the feeling that this process happens over and over, and start to think about a single patient's foot print within the bigger hospital system. System of systems. All the surgery shots really disturbed me because, as someone about to go into surgery, I want to think/ know the least amount of information possible.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes. Yes, It was very much in your face, but because the subject matter was so abstract at times it really drew me in. The colors and textures (and dead bodies) came alive through the camera. The reds, blues, and greens that Brakhage was able to capture are amazing. The editing and close up nature of the shots makes Brakhage's film a lot more juicy than Geyerhalter's static , sterile, approach. By the end of Brakhage"s film, I started to get desensitized to the gore of cutting up bodies. Geyerhalters shots of surgery seen on big tv screens never got me to this point. Because the camera (or filmmaker) was so clean and never got its hands dirty I was never able to work through my frustration.
Also, Brakhage lets his emotions come through in the way he handles the camera.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"By the end of Brakhage"s film, I started to get desensitized to the gore of cutting up bodies." Ditto. Act of Seeing was just SO graphic, that at a certain point I was just over it and started getting other things from the imagery. At one point, the way the bodies were so sliced up and splayed, I started thinking about how like butchered cows it looked; certain shots reminded me of cuts of beef. It was a fascinating means of both highlighting how human (mortal) we are and also dehumanizing those dead people... as though, people are made up of body and soul, and this was just all body, lots and lots of body.
ReplyDeleteAlso, regarding Brakhage's "emotional" handling of the camera, that makes me think of how as viewers, in the "act of seeing with our own eyes," we were just seeing with our eyes, through the lens, which allowed us to become desensitized in a way, because we're still removed in a way. I can only imagine desensitization doesn't occur in 30 minutes if you're also subjected to the sounds of skulls being sawed open, the smell of blood and flesh, and even that it must be kept cool in there. It's interesting to consider if Brakhage's decision to have no sound was to bring us further into the visual experience or out of the total experience.
Danube Hospital was just such a totally opposite approach to dehumanizing something we deal with on a very human level. Starting and ending with the actual machines running through the hospital (like blood through veins... that's a bad metaphor, right?), the whole thing is just mechanical. The article noted that every department of the hospital is presented in the same sterile way, with no acknowledgement of a hierarchy. That contributes to the general atmosphere devoid of individuality. Everyone, everything, every day is the same; that isn't your baby being born or your grandma dying... it's just another body. A fascinating perspective, especially paired with the Brakhage film, and also compared to The Belovs and No Lies from last week.
For me, Brakhage’s Act of Seeing and Geyrhalter’s Danube Hospital echo and juxtapose each other very interestingly. In some ways, they share a similar atmosphere, as the camera silently observes these systems of medical culture and the handling of bodies. Both refuse to give the audience a “readable” narrative arc or identifiable characters, which puts emphasis on the processes that are being “observed” by audiences. But Brakhage and Geyrhalter have key differences in their moral/philosophical intentions and visual “interpretive frames,” with which they craft their films, making their representations of such systems very different for viewers.
ReplyDeleteSituated as an invisible onlooker in the hospital, one reads Brakhage’s environment as being an efficient and purposeful system (automatic as the interludes of cart-machines)—where each scene of surgery, no matter how gory, was still tolerable because of our culturally ingrained trust in the “authority” of such medical institutions. Even though I sat in some kind of awe during the eye surgery scene, I would have felt less capable of watching it if the surgery was not shown on the smaller screen within the shot (which the doctor himself was watching—making me wonder: does he feel the same, in some way?). I was amazed by all the medical technology in most scenes, and was able to be distracted by this. I remember watching Geyrhalter’s hospital morgue scene, and not understanding at first what the two doctors were talking about as they flopped around someone’s pile of guts. When I realized what it was they were handling and analyzing, I was a little…grossed-out(?), but almost laughed for the abstraction and morbid absurdity of the image. I was not scarred by the realization, because I felt sort of comforted that people with “authority” were deducing “scientific facts” about the life and death of a person from their guts- for the benefit of the whole of society, of course.
In Brakhages “Seeing,” however, there is no sound to cue, no subtitle or language to buffer, no visual explanation, story, and hardly any faces—but there is a stark, horrific universal truth being displayed (The heart of documentary, right--to seek and bring the audience to “The Truth?”). The way it is filmed and constructed is really philosophically intentional, (eye, camera and body intertwined- especially shown through his shooting) and it gives us no rest from experiencing/confronting images of bodies, like our own, being put through an entirely different-toned “observation” of the same system. But, unlike the “procedural” scenes in the Hospital that (with nonchalance from the docs and dazzlingly efficient machines) promise cure and life, Brakhage’s corpses make us bluntly confront our mortality. We are made to continually “see” the inevitable process that most of us will likely go through, but none of us will ever consciously experience. Since cinema is historically a media of distraction from the hardships of life (/to evade the truth of our deaths *coughHeidegger) and is made to be and entertaining escape, Brakhage intentionally crushes those conventional cinematic expectations, and engages the viewers with shock upon shock of Seeing the only thing we all have in common.
I agree with Renee on her comment about becoming desensitized. In the beginning of the film, Brakhage has already forced us to view the innards of a body. He immediately shows us the hidden and most gruesome aspect of life. During the opening scenes, I kept thinking that the imagery might change and we might be able to take a breath. However, that was not the case. The film is about the gore. And because it is structured in such a way, this gore becomes comfortable as the film progresses.
ReplyDeleteThe morgue, a place where your strong and lively body becomes ripped open, and everything contained inside this capsule of flesh is deliberately mutilated, brings forth the question of what will happen to us after death. Is this what we will go through? Is it even possible to now imagine a peaceful, solemn funeral setting?
The morgue also reminds us of our own existence. This is our body and these are our organs. This film allows you to feel your chest moving up and down when you breathe, the saliva forming in your mouth, the blood flowing through your veins. The machinery inside us becomes visual.
Not unlike some of the other comments that have been expressed, I enjoyed The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eye's more than the Geyerhalter film. For me, I don't like static or numbing films, they make me feel extremely uncomfortable largely due to the lack of sensation the film evokes. We discussed that when viewing a Documentary film we expect a level of real-ness to be expressed through the film- to me the lack of feeling not only of the camera but also of the doctors and the sterile environment felt artificial to me. There wasn't anything I could personally grab onto which made the film feel layered in an odd way.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't just the camera being in between the audience and the characters or the environment expressed through the camera; but it began to feel as though these people you were viewing had something distancing themselves from the camera, creating another layer of detachment.
What I enjoyed about Brakhage's piece is something I enjoy about much of his work, which is the way he juxtapositions jump cuts and erratic shots with an eerie serene calm. It's like experiencing a storm. I also enjoyed that these people didn't have identities and that the space also didn't have an identity. It wasn't revealed to us the names of anyone or even where the morgue was. I loved the close ups of the body cavities and the demonstration of still-ness that was expressed, strongest for me, when the fluid in the cavities would move and the light reflecting off of it would shift.
I also noticed that within the Brakhage film he tries to avoid showing a sense of humanity or human emotion, beyond his own when the camera starts to shake erratically. The one time he does, is with the tenderness expressed by the Pathologist when he grabs the hand of one of the dead men. They toss the bodies around, tearing them apart, some might say they place themselves in a situation where they have to force desensitization over time - but that cover drops in that one expression of the Physician holding the hand of the corpse.
And of course, Brakhage did a close up of this shot.
It's seems to me that this thread has turned into a conversation about which of the films is more successful. I think as part of discussing that we should all consider the possible intent behind these films too. I found the Testa articles concept of seeing and showing particularly helpful when considering this. The Danube hospital seems to be a film about showing or revealing the inner workings of this hospital while The Act of Seeing is a visceral experience where the viewer confronts mortality. As discussed in the article and by other bloggers, Brakhages hand held camera work and editing both in and out of the camera create this feeling. The Act of Seeing is a much more poetic film in that way. The fact that Brakhage includes images of these scalped faceless bodies is an interesting moment that reflects the viewers own ability to see. It is very disturbing to see that after death these things are physically cut away from the body. I thought that this was a good point brought up by Testa.
ReplyDeleteThe Sicinski article talks about how Danube hospital functions metonymically. I agree with this because he finds a similar orginization and structure in the hospital that is reinforced with his mostly medium length takes. T is where I have trouble with comparing The Act of Seeing and Danube Hospital; the films seem to be about very different things apart from the use of dead bodies. Sure, Danube hospital does have its moments where mortality are brought up, but the focus of the film is the mechanism of this hospital and all it's intricacies. The Brakhage film has more to do with creating a physical experience. This is why the films dealings with death feel so different.
Watching Brakhage after the Geyrhalter was a very disarming experience. Geyrhalter is very systemic in his way of looking at things. The added systems of sterilization from a hospital to such a way of looking make for a frigid picture of life/death and healing. They become processes, which they are. What was most startling about Geyrhalter's tactics is the way in which he is able to create an even playing field between life and death by looking at them in the same way. The removal of life from the animate is perceived by the treatment of such. Surgery and food being prepared with large machinery is treated visually in a removed way, yet it was still hard for me to forget the camera was there the entire time. With these visual systems/strategies Geyrhalter is able to curtail the animate/inanimate and just look.
ReplyDeleteBrakhage however, brings a warmth into a sterile environment because of the closeness he provides. He gives us glimpses of the space/situation rather than showing the larger picture, as Geyrhalter. By focusing on the body and the close-up actions of the coroners he gives us a completely different view and treatment of the body. Yet, it is still really violent, it is shocking to see how easily the body comes apart and is flung. It is sterilizing in its violence of the body.
See, for me, Geyrhalter's "Danube Hospital" wasn't sterile or numbing at all. If anything, it was methodical, but not in a bad way. The camera was mostly fixed, holding the scenes in its hands, but to me this conveyed a feeling of sentiment and curiosity, like while roaming around a department store when you're a child and ending up in the warehouse in the back. You're lost, but you're not. You're taking everything in at waist level and it's kind of lovely, both aesthetically and emotionally.
ReplyDeleteThe casualness of the hospital workers didn't particularly bother me except in the scene involving the crying baby and the nurse clumsily trying to comfort it. It was just this lumpy, scream little thing to him and it made my skin crawl. But it's not unrealistic. No matter what floor of the hospital you're on, you're there to do your job the best you can and that's all there is to it. If your hospital experience is equivalent to an episode of "House", that's probably not the the hospital you want to be staying at.
The Act of Seeing with Ones Own Eyes, however, tore me up. While I endlessly respect Brahkage's masterful control of the screen and its audience, the content of the film really got to me. We're meat. That's it.
Aesthetically, Brahkage's imagery is stunning and very deliberate, every cut popping like a fireworks display. This is something very consistent with him, but never do I get the feeling of an aversion on his part to showing humanity, whether its his own or that of someone else. His work is perpetual in its viscerality, its honesty and its beauty, even through the horror of seeing yourself, more or less, being unzipped and unstuffed.