Week 1 Readings

James Broughton views on cinema are very divine and poetic.  James thinks cinema as a true form of art and the real artists are completely independent. “True poets are as anarchic as Jesus and Lao-Tzu. They love revolutions, for revolutions are symbols of freedom from the major enemies of art.”  I find his quote quite interesting because it raises the question of what is the true purpose art. Is the art intended for you or your audience? We can try to please the enemies of our art by trying cater to their interests or we can take our own path and express what our true vision is even if it no one likes it but ourselves. I don’t think there are any “enemies of art” as we each see it differently in our own eyes. There will always be people who dislike your art and sometimes you have to find a balance between what you and your audience wants to see. Art should be produced to the scope of your project. Who is it for? Is it for yourself, a general audience, family, or a cult following? These are questions we should be asking when we make art.

Stan Brakhage must have had a lot fun overthinking the concepts of vision. His poetry behind his art seems to be as equally important as his visual imagery. Most of his metaphors are beyond me but I did find it interesting how he explained perception though an infant’s eye. He explains that when we were crawling babies we were unaware of the classification of things. It is almost like we are spoiled once we see things as a voice in our head instead of the sight of our own eyes. We sometimes get detached from our world and start to ignore the field of grass from our eyes perception because to us it is just another boring “field of grass” that we have seen many times before.