A Body of Vision: Representations of the Body in Recent Film and Poetry

The Body as the Universe in Stan Brakhage's Early Films

Emshwiller's Mixed Mode of Cinema 137 The dancers' gauze bags sometimes appear superimposed one over the other so that they seem to form a fused group. So these, too, are images that derive their structure from the theme ofthe individual's struggle tomaintain his or her separation against the lure of merger. The struggle's tragic nature becomes more evident in this sequence. It becomes clear that we long for individuation, but that it comes at the cost of separation and the loneliness and isolation attendant thereto; and that we long for merger, but merger comes at a cost of our losing our individuality.Emshwiller and Nikolais suggest this notion by creating dance action that alternates between the formation and the breakup of fused groups. In the next passage we see the dancers all in a pile under gauze. Here the idea of merger has its most forceful presentation, but Emshwiller's use of red flashes associates the idea with feelings of menace. Occasionally an individual limb emerges from the pile—a single, separated arm or leg that appears like a severed body fragment. This likeness becomes increasingly more forceful as the sequence progresses. It becomes evident that a thematic that concerns the costs of merger informs the sequence of profilmic events and the manner of their being filmed. The sequence illustrates the idea that merger comes at the cost of selfhood and that since selfhood maintains the integrity of the individual,the cost of merger is therefore the loss of the individual's wholeness. So individual body parts appear as severed body fragments, for the fantasy that underlies feelings of the body's loss of unity depicts the body as a corps morcele. At this point, the speed of the editing increases until it becomes quite rapid. The fragmentation of the film mirrors the fragmentation of the body. The sound also becomes more intense and there are more undraped figures, whose nakedness suggests the vulnerability ofthe flesh—a vulnerability that could lead to the body being broken into pieces. The next passage again presents an image whose structure derives from the idea of merging. The dancers wear sparkling material and are lit in such a manner that their bodily forms disappear entirely and we see only shimmering light. This suggests the ecstasy one feels at the loss of self, rather than its cost, and the lureof the drive that exacts so high atoll. The film next presents a procession ofdancers. While this procession suggests individuals joiningin a group, this collection does not negate the individuality of the dancers as the unit forged in the previous passage did. However, occasionally a larger figure appears, superimposed over a smaller; these superimpositions evoke the threat of the loss of separateness and the formation of an undifferentiated, all-consumingunity. The following section shows the dancers leaping over one another. It includes images of a female 138 A Body of Vision dancer with blotches of red light projected onto her. Because the light obscures some parts of her anatomy and reveals others, this image, even more than any previous, suggests the corps morcele. A male dancer joins the female and,after they have formed a pair, they engage in actions that resemble those of intercourse. Here, as in the previous scene, splashes of red light are projected onto the performers, reinforcing the feeling that their bodies are threatened by mutilation. Thus Emshwillerand Nikolais one again associate the notion of merger (this time, through intercourse) with the ideaof the body in pieces. These images are followed by a dense superimposition ofabstract forms— tangles of circles, ellipses, and other curvilinear forms. These abstract, mostly geometric shapes are projected onto the forms of dancers, whose outline forms we cannot clearly discern. These images illustrate the ideaof the self comingpart and breaking into pieces (and so the ritual act of sparagmos )—here, somewhere behind this tangle of abstract forms, we see a larger torso, and there we glimpse several dancers walking with red blotches projected onto them. This passage, too, provides an example of how Emshwiller used specifically cinematicdevices to illustrate the same ideas as those upon which Nikolais based his choreography. While the film might seem to be presentational, and to use film only to serve the choreography, it is really a collaboration between the two that reworks Nikolais's original ideas using cinematic means. This reworking makes it a work that belongs primarily to the cinema of illustration. A new passage begins: the dancers in...