Mothlight is a silent "collage film" that incorporates "real world elements.

"[4] Brakhage collected moth wings, flower petals, and blades of grass, and pressed them between two strips of 16mm splicing tape.

[7] James Peterson describes Mothlight as belonging "to a new class of films, those that direct attention away from the screen and to the physical object in the projector.

"[8] Darragh O'Donoghue, writing for Senses of Cinema, praised the way Brakhage "evokes the moth not through cartoon mimicry, but by the fragile sensation of its movement, batting against the screen, hurtling in descent.

"[9] Along with Window Water Baby Moving (1959), Mothlight remains one of Brakhage's best-known works,[10] and his most rented.