Imagine a world alive with incomprehensible objects, and shimmering with an endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of colour. Imagine a world before the 'beginning was the word.'
Stan BrakhageRead
Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of ‘Green?’ How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of pure perception and experience over structured interpretation.
Stan Brakhage's quote highlights how true understanding and appreciation of the world comes from raw perception rather than learned concepts. He suggests that the untrained eye, unbound by societal conventions and definitions, can experience the world in a fundamentally deeper and more authentic way, implying that colors and forms exist beyond the limitations imposed by language and education.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about visual arts to emphasize the importance of personal experience in creativity.
Imagine a world alive with incomprehensible objects, and shimmering with an endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of colour. Imagine a world before the 'beginning was the word.'
How many colours are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'green'? How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye?
It's difficult because nothing's preordained by plan and you can't control it. That's one of those joys and thrills and nerve-racking realities of being an actor. A lot has to do with luck, no matter what your talent or contribution can be.
We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.
My subject matter was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be . . . . I would really think of the bakery counters, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants . . . [it was] always poetic to me.
I think it's insulting to an audience to make them sit and watch a film and then give them a message in one sentence.
All writing is the same: It's just making up lies until it starts to sound like the truth. That's what I do.
You come in off the street, through the doors of the theater. You sit down. The lights go down and the curtain goes up. And you're in another world
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