The Wold-Shadow

The Wold-Shadow (1972)

A stand of birches. Sunlight brightens and dims, revealing more or less of the woods. A little grass is on the forest floor. Is there a shape in the shadows? Something green is out of focus. The light flashes, and the screen goes dark from time to time. We look up close at the bark of trees. Is the god of the forest to be seen?

Date of release
1972-01-01
TMDB
5.3 / 10 (41)
Runtime
3m
Director
Stan Brakhage

Interesting facts

The Wold Shadow is an experimental short film by Stan Brakhage, produced in 1972.

Production

The Wold Shadow was inspired when Stan Brakhage, while walking through a forest, had a vision of an anthropomorphic shadow. The experience led him to film a homage to the "god of the forest." The Wold Shadow was produced by placing glass on an easel between his camera and the forest. Between each individual frame, Brakhage painted on the glass, before repeating this process. Production of The Wold Shadow took a full day.

"Wold" because the word refers to "forests" which poets later made "plains" and because the work also contains the rustic sense "to kill" - this then my laboriously painted vision of the god of the forest.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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