| The Wold Shadow | |
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An image from The Wold Shadow |
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| Directed by | Stan Brakhage |
| Release date(s) | 1972 |
| Running time | 2 ½ minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Wold Shadow is an experimental short film by Stan Brakhage, produced in 1972.
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The Wold Shadow was inspired when Stan Brakhage, while walking through a forest, had a vision of an anthropomorphic shadow.[1] The experience led him to film a homage to the "god of the forest."[1] 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.[1][2] Production of The Wold Shadow took a full day.[1] Brakhage credits the film with reigniting his interest in painting,[3] and described his choice of title as follows:
"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.[4]
Martin Rumsby, writing in Senses of Cinema, cites The Wold Shadow as a rare instance of Brakhage attempting a work of structural cinema.[1] He nevertheless acknowledges that the film is more "romantic" than most structural films, in that Brakhage is "trying to capture or evoke something mysterious and unknowable."[1] P. Adams Sitney considers The Wold Shadow a continuation of themes expressed in the poetry of Ezra Pound.[5]