The Text of Light
The Text of Light is a 1974 American experimental film directed by Stan Brakhage. Synopsis 
Time-lapse photography of books, paintings, reflections, and light falling on textures, shot entirely through a glass ashtray. Reception 
The film is considered an "epistemological meditation": "This uncommon lens [that is the glass ashtray] generates an equally uncommon image of the world. The density and shape of the glass subtracts linear perspective from the visual field. In this respect, the ash-tray takes up part of the function of rapid camera movements and zooms in other Brakhage films insofar as the ash-tray demolishes perspective. As well, in Text of Light objects lose their individuation, their outlines blurred in masses of light and color." A presentation byJonathan P. Watts for the Tate underlines the influence of Turner on this film: "In The Text of Light Turner’s influence is felt in the experimental use of colour, and is similarly visionary in the way it collapses naturalistic pictorial space." References

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1974 films
Films directed by Stan Brakhage
1970s avant-garde and experimental films
1970s American films