Film

Blow Up

by Andy Spletzer

So I was listening to KEXP and found out that the UW's summer arts festival will include a Stan Brakhage retrospective. I couldn't be happier. Brakhage is perhaps the biggest name in American avant-garde cinema, having made over 400 films in the course of 50 years. When he died this past March, organizations around the country held tributes and retrospectives and showed selections of his work. It's exactly the kind of thing I would expect to pass Seattle by, so imagine my delight when I found out that assistant professor Jennifer Bean has curated a selection of some of his notable films. You'll have not one but TWO chances to see them in the HUB Auditorium (Thurs July 17 at 3:15 pm; Sat July 19 at 12:30 pm), followed by a short lecture/discussion. She'll also be showing Jim Shedden's documentary Brakhage (Fri-Sat July 18-19 at 3:15 pm), which is a nice introduction to his work.

Brakhage was interested in (some would say obsessed by) how people see, and how art could simulate/capture that. In one of his books, he famously asked the reader to imagine how many different colors a child would see in a field of grass if that child had never heard of the concept of "green." His early films would mimic the movement of the human eye, or document his family life (Window Water Baby Moving is essentially a document of his wife giving birth), but soon his films began engaging the audience's eye in new and innovative ways (Mothlight was his first cameraless film, where he taped moth wings, bug parts, and plants onto a strip of film and projected the fascinating results). His later films are hand-painted and beautiful and show a remarkable visual editing style. Those who fall in love with the films, or who have to miss the screenings, can go to Scarecrow and purchase the new Brakhage DVD, By Brakhage: An Anthology, which is supposed to be the next best thing to seeing the films projected.

Speaking of seeing things in their entirety, the Mercer Island Community Center and Mensa of Western Washington are sponsoring a lecture with video clips called Nudism in Film vs. Nudism in Reality (Sat July 19) hosted by Mark Storey, an editor for Nude and Natural magazine.

Over at Consolidated Works on Thursday, July 17, IFP/Seattle will be announcing the winner of its first ever "Spotlight Award" (which is like WigglyWorld's "Start to Finish" grant, except it's for short film and fully funds them), and they're making an event of it. On the same day, adventurous folk will want to travel down to the Jem Studio Workshop in Georgetown to catch the video installation and short works of Portland's Bill Daniel and Vanessa Renwick for their Lucky Bum Film Tour. And finally, though there's plenty more happening in town this week, allow me to direct your attention to even more visiting filmmakers. On Tuesday, July 22, the Gadabout Traveling Film Festival brings its movies and music to the Rendezvous. Let's be good hosts, why don't we?

andy@thestranger.com