Thursday, March 10, 2016

The Cosmic Cinema of Jordan Belson

In contrast to last week’s reading, I felt Youngblood’s take on Belson was much more complimentary and inspiring. Sitney was much more focused on Youngblood’s role in the history of film and seemed to be more critical of Belson’s views, such as his belief that he could align his inner vision with his outer work. Youngblood on the other hand is more complimentary. Of course, this essay is solely on Belson rather than a survey of the development of film, so naturally it offers a deeper perspective of Belson’s personality and his work.


However, whereas Sitney seemed skeptical of the artist’s vision of spiritual ascension, Youngblood seems to encourage it, or at least offers it a platform by highlighting Belson and his films. After feeling somewhat discouraged by the previous reading and its skepticism of spiritual-artistic clarity, I was refreshed to read a different perspective of Belson and his achievements. For me at least, my aim as an artist is to get the point where I can “relate external experience to internal experience,” where like Belson felt in Samadhi, he “reached the point where [he] was able to produce externally, with the equipment, what [he] was seeing internally.” 

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