An
overwhelmingly beautiful hand-painted film by Stan Brakhage. Part of a series of similarly executed shorts
from the last few years of his life.
Like many of Brakhage’s works, it defies description; it is an entirely
visceral experience to which words can never do justice. The themes are simply color and texture. The film is comprised of a rapid succession –
a few frames each – of various brush strokes of mostly light and dark blue paint
applied directly to the film. Form and
the artist’s physical brushstrokes and drips become as meaningful as they are
in a single painting, and this is thousands of tiny paintings that vanish
before you can appreciate any of them adequately. There is change but not movement. Our natural impulse is to contemplate such
painting, and yet Brakhage forces us to endure a visual assault of restless
images; like a violence of beauty, until at last stress gives way to euphoria. In a mere few minutes, he somehow seems to
hurtle us through the history of art – from cave paintings, to stained glass,
to abstract expressionism, to urban graffiti.
I Take These Truths is the
purest kind of film expression; something that bears no agenda except to please
its maker and intrigue its viewers. Brakhage’s oeuvre is a striking reminder that cinema can assumes shapes
not often taken seriously (or comprehended) by the kinds of people who need
everything sensibly categorized; i.e. critics and film school professors. His films are stripped of everything on the
critic/scholar’s checklist; character, story, message, lighting, editing and
even cinematography. What is left? Only the simplest fact of a strip of film
running through a projector.
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