Mr. Tompkins Inside Himself
In “Mr. Tompkins Learns the Facts of Life”, Mr. Tompkins learns about biology. In a wild and entertaining dream, his creator, author George Gamow, sends him through his own blood steam to investigate how his body really functions. Professor Igor Gamow and legendary filmmaker, Stan Brakhage, made the film “Mr. Tompkins Inside Himself” based on George Gamow’s book. The film includes an introduction by George Gamow, himself.
Stan Brakhage
Stan Brakhage
Casts & Crew
Don Weygandt
Robert Benson
Aldine Weygant
Elfriede Gamov
Also Directed by Stan Brakhage
Singly-printed criss-crosses of molten "brush"-(hard-edge)-strokes of black over pebbled yellow, ending finally on an intermix of all intertwined forms with increasing lightness/whiteness.
Singly-printed evolution from a deep blue-blackness of hard-edge twisting and sweeping bars and deep black swirls of dry-cracked and electrically "webbed" blotches, giving way to mixtures of bright blue and deep black sweeps of almost hieroglyphic forms midst swirls of multiple colors played against fleeting blacks evolving into multiple shapes in contrastingly brilliant whites.
The film begins with a series of horizontally running ocean tide waves, sometimes with mountains in the background, hand-painted patterns, sometimes step-printed hand-painting, abstractions composed of distorted (jammed) TV shapes in shades of blue with occasional red, refractions of light within the camera lens, sometimes mixed with reflections of water. Increasingly closer images of water, and of light reflected off water, as well as of bursts of fire, intersperse the long shots, the seascapes and all the other interwoven imagery. Eventually a distant volleyball arcs across the sky: this is closely followed by, and interspersed with, silhouettes of a young man and woman in the sea, which leads to some extremely out-of-focus images from a front car window, an opening between soft-focus trees, a clearing. Carved wooden teeth suddenly sweep across the frame. Then the film ends on some soft-focus horizon lines, foregrounded by ocean.
By painting and scratching directly on celluloid strips and then duplicating each image for two or more frames, Brakhage produced a flickering cycle of abstract shapes that bespeak the restlessness of his own character and sensibility; the titles of the segments (which Brakhage also intended to function as freestanding films) further emphasize his rejection of collective thinking in favor of personal vision. I..., proposes an unstable image of the self with its centerless collisions of diverse imagery. Small black shapes are superimposed over diffuse colors, and each moment seems to consume and obliterate the last in an emotionally charged rush that suggests a consciousness terrified of stasis and perpetually seeking renewal.
Dedicated to Doug Edwards. All titles dominate linguistically; in that sense, any film would be better left unnamed. This little hand-painted work attempts to BE a visual "flowering," and as it is (as Film is) a continuity art, it would seek some visual corollary of the whole growth process (root, stem, leaves, blue sky and the bloody-gold growth of the meat/mind electricity of the filmmaker) - but without mimic of either flower or thought process ... clear through to Film's clear "blossoming" in the passage of light.
Part 2 of Trilogy. Dedicated to Phil Solomon. The "Truths" of this film, which the title prompts, are slightly recognizable patterns of fish and animal biology, plant and flower shapes, and human anatomy which are interwoven with pastel cubes and other geometries - pastels as if "hung" in a white light interwoven with straight and diagonally bent black lines, eventually clear architectural forms. The recognizable patterns are literally etched on black leader (primarily) and interspersed with very organic painted forms on white. There is often an intended sense of hair and mucous membrane amidst these forms and interwoven with the electric "x-ray" sense of bones. The interplay between black-and-white sections and multi-colored sections increases until there is some sense of merging the two toward the end.
Persian Series #16 is an even more exaggerated contrast of color and black-and-white patterning.
Devastation in two parts.
"In his description for A CHILD'S GARDEN, Brakhage quotes from poets Ronald Johnson and Charles Olson (and cites Johnson's poem "Beam 29" as inspiration). But the film also vaguely calls to mind William Blake—more perhaps for his art than his poetry: there is both a sense of darkness and of mystical transport in Brakhage's images. The first film in the loose "Vancouver Island" quartet, Brakhage films locations around the British Columbia locale where his second wife, Marilyn, grew up. He films land, sea, and sky and intercuts frequently between them. Shots are often out-of-focus, to accentuate color and light; they are hand-held, upside down, and fleeting. All of this is no surprise for those who know Brakhage's work: anything and everything is valid, as long as it works." - Cine-File.info
Four superimposed rolls of hand-painted and bi-packed television negative imagery are edited so as to approximate the hypnagogic process whereby the optic nerves resist grotesque infusions of luminescent light.