Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Visions on substance

"Early Abstractions" seems to be a cinematic representation of an LSD trip. Upon reading a little history on Harry Smith it seems his artistic path began upon meeting San Francisco bohemians and smoking pot at a Woody Guthrie concert. It seems appropriate that in his early work there is a looming feeling of drug induced visions. The use of layering is prominent throughout the different styles of abstraction. HIs films incorporate surrealist images as well as basic collage of colors. It is a beautiful piece. I find it interesting that he seems to play with the word "end." He uses it often to end an image while the soundtrack continues which I suppose suggests the soundtrack was added in later. It fit well, but as was said in class, it distracts a little bit too much from the images.

1 comment:

jeanli said...

HI Lindsay, Yes well the Harry Smith pages from Sitney's Visionary Film do attest to his experiments in a variety of mind-altering substances to induce visions-- but part of what is interesting about his checklist is how superemely organized it is, as though it is another kind of pattern , the linkage of specific substances to specific kinds of visuals, shape or motion. Each is quite specific, no?