The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes

Perhaps I'm misattributing my own scientific, atheistic tendencies, but I've found that many of Stan Brakhage's early films seem to argue for Man as an animal, an organic vessel with primitive urges. 'Window Water Baby Moving (1959)' documented the act of parturition in unflinching detail, depicting childbirth, not as the "miracle" suggested in more romantic sources, but as a perfectly natural, albeit remarkable, mammalian event. 'Thigh Line Lyre Triangular (1961)' did something similar, but this time clouded by the subjectivity of human perception. 'Mothlight (1963)' likened humans to moths, attracted to the flickering lights of a cinema screen as an insect is to a lightbulb. No film achieves this aim more effectively than the blunt, cheerless silence of 'The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes (1971).'

The film's title is a literal translation of the Greek word from which "autopsy" is derived. The 32-minute film was photographed at the Allegheny Coroner's Office in Pittsburgh, and documents the routine dissection of cadavers. This isn't for the faint-hearted. Brakhage often zooms in for shaky, unclear close- ups of the patients' bodily organs, removing the viewer's customary frame of reference, and leaving abstract images that are unsettlingly disconnected from our everyday experience. Skin is peeled back from the anonymous faces, organs are removed. The camera occasionally lingers on the patients' genitalia. In life, these were organs of sexual attraction, upon which so much importance was placed; now we see that they are merely insignificant pieces of flesh. Only death, it seems, can bring such things into perspective.

As a zoology student, I've dissected frogs, pigeons, rats. The internal layout of a rat isn't all that different from that of a human (except, most noticeably, for the testicond gonads). At the end of the autopsy procedure, we are left with an empty vessel. Everything that makes us human – emotion, intelligence, culture – is regulated by the brain, and, once that dies, we're just another conglomeration of organic molecules. Indeed, were we ever anything else? 'The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes' was not an easy nor enjoyable film to watch, but it did force me to see the true state of the human condition: that we're animals, nothing more, and that ultimately we're all destined for the operating table.

This film is a truly artistic mastery of the form. Brakhage has succeeded in taking images, that at times can be gruesome, and combined them into a dance of sorts. His mastery of camera movement and editing have created a work that despite it's grotesque imagery, is exciting to look at. The vivid colors, and smooth motion he achieved have a soothing feeling to the viewer, rather than shocking. Through his elegance behind the camera, Brakhage manages to captivate the viewer, not with the images that he shows, rather with the pacing and and style of his work. The choice of no soundtrack either, adds to this trance-like effect experienced from this film. Overall a 10 rating and a masterpiece of Avant-Garde Cinema.

Before I begin this review I must mention that this film is absolutely not for the faint of heart.

---------------------

'The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes' was directed by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage - arguably one of the most creative and original filmmakers of all time.

This film consists entirely of footage of real life autopsies being performed and as a result is extremely graphic, but is nevertheless an interesting look at the human body and how autopsies are performed.

I should also note that the film is completely silent, which I feel only adds to the uneasy feeling while watching.

Overall, I recommend this to anyone interested in this subject matter or film in general who can stomach 31 minutes of corpses having autopsies performed on them.

7/10

I was somewhat disappointed by this film because I expected to see a full autopsy being performed from start to finish. In his interview, Brakhage said that he chose not to use any weird effects with the material he shot because one doesn't need metaphor for something so primal. Yet his way of shooting and editing his footage made me feel like there was a great deal of manipulation involved. This was not an objective look at the human body. What we got was a mishmash of body parts being filmed so close up, and shot and edited with so much motion, one can barely tell what one is looking at. Although I'd seen somewhat similar stuff in "The Re-Animator", I did find the shots of brain autopsies fascinating, especially the way that one's scalp skin is peeled back so much that it covers the entire face, making us look truly alien (one imagines that H.R. Giger saw a few autopsies before creating his aliens). Still, very few shots of the brain, and we see no shots of them being dissected. I consider the human brain to be the most fascinating thing in the universe so I was disappointed. I also resented the shots early in the film of victims who obviously died by violent means. I suppose some viewers like the exterior shots of the autopsies because it makes them try to guess who these people were and how they came to such grisly deaths. But that to me is kind of like the junk one can see in those Mondo Cane type movies. It's sensationalist and exploitive and completely ruins one's sense of objectivity. I preferred the actual shots of the autopsies that simply allowed one to see the glorious pulp that meticulously keeps us functioning every hour of every day. The film excels brilliantly at that level though as I said, there was not any cognitive approach to displaying the organs. One can interpret Brakhage's films in any way they see fit, but I'm guessing that either he wanted to create an impressionist view of life through its ultimate mortality, or he is just another hack who prefers exploitation and sensationalism over reality. I appreciated the film for what it did show, but in my opinion, the inside of us human beings is fascinating enough without dancing lenses and choppy editing obscuring it. Someone should have told Brakhage he can't top God.

I know it is a violation of the terms and conditions to focus on other user-comments but 'The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes' demands an examination that acknowledges reception above all other interpretative modes. I find it fascinating that many of the respondents interpret this film as something more than simply the photographing of a number of autopsies. First, this demonstrates a desire to bestow meaning on anything, whether it is elicited or not. Secondly, it exhibits a desire to deify anything created by an acknowledged artist-in this case avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage-regardless of its true material worth. Ultimately, I think this is the wrong way to approach this film, which is simply the filming of a series of autopsies, nothing more, nothing less. Brakhage has stated that the metaphorical hermeneutic code is endemic in the material. This is true, but the notion that a dead body being stripped of its components says anything significant about the nature of life and humanity is highly contentious. Brakhage invests no artistic design in his film; he simply photographs the morgue workers in operation. Yes, we see imagery that is at turns repulsive and often saddening, but would we imagine anything else. It might be argued that, given the film's title, Brakhage is trying to demystify death. However, films like these are de rigueur in medical classes and therefore this 'scene' is not hidden from the world. People actually deal with it everyday. Those who have no exposure to the dead or the human anatomy will most likely have no interest in the material. So, once again, what is this film's worth? It is not artistic (despite other users trying to consign their own aesthetic design on the film), it is not useful, and it fails as a demystification of death or the human body. Ultimately, 'The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes' is a failure as a film and offers only limited interest as a curio.