hotlove666 wrote:

>....think of all the representatives of the Archons, the rulers
>of the world created as a prison for us by the Demiurge, in....
>
Sorry for the calculated snippage, but that particular director gets
wayyyy too much press, in my view.

But to quote Gabe quoting a question posed to Bela Tarr by a
disconsolate viewer of "Werckmeister Harmonies," "Where is the hope?"
(Tarr's reply was something like, "The hope is that you see the
picture," a more profound artist's defense of art than it first appears).

Actually, I have no problem with bleak films, and some of the bleakest
are some of my favorites.
The real purpose of this post is to toot my horn once again for the
truly Gnostic cinema, some films of the American avant-garde that
counter the view that the created world is a prison with the other side
of Gnosticism, the search for the light, for the divine spark of
divinity within us that can be represented as light.

The most explicit great version the Gnostic scenario I know of is
Christopher Maclaine's vastly underrated, sublime film, "The Man Who
Invented Gold." But the theme suffuses Brakhage's work, in which in many
films objects are presented as traps for light and abstractions using
out of focus and other devices are light freed, and arguably can be
found in some of the films of Bruce Baillie, Larry Jordan (Brakhage's
classmate in high school), and, with a distinctly phallic twist, Kenneth
Anger. Cornell's "Angel" is susceptible to such a reading, as is some of
Harry Smith.

For a good film that realizes the belief of some Gnostics that any kind
of sex was fine as long as it did NOT lead to procreation, see Andy
Warhol's "Couch."

- Fred