Recommended:
Desistfilm (1954), The
Dead (1960), Dog Star Man (1964), Scenes from
Under Childhood (1970), Arabic Series (1981), Passage Through: A
Ritual (1990), I... (1995)
Worth a Look: Centuries of June (1955)
[co-directed by Joseph Cornell],
Anticipation of the Night (1958), Cat's Cradle (1959), Wedlock House: An
Intercourse (1959), Sirius Remembered (1959), Thigh Line Lyre Triangular
(1961), Mothlight (1963), The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971),
I... Dreaming (1988), Rage Net (1988), A Child's Garden and the Serious
Sea (1991), Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse (1991),
Commingled Containers (1997), The Dark
Tower (1999)
1,000
Greatest Films:
Mothlight (1963), The Art of Vision (1964),
Dog Star Man (1964)
"At
some point in the future, when authoritative histories of
twentieth century art begin to be written with the wise judgment
that only distance from the present time can confer, I believe
that Stan Brakhage will loom not only as one of the very
greatest of filmmakers but as one of the major figures in all
the arts. The sheer virtuosity of his work, the sensual beauty
of his films' shapes and colors and textures, his creation of a
unique and complex kind of visual music (most of his films are
silent because the music comes from the screen), his appeal to
the viewer as individual rather than as a member of a crowd, the
ecstatic unpredictability of his spaces and rhythms, all assure
the monumental importance of his close to 400 films, both
individually and as a body of work.
" -
Fred Camper (Stan Brakhage on the Web)
"Among
the most influential figures of the American avant-garde, he is
a technical innovator and outspoken social observer...His
experimental films, mostly short, have often been concerned with
the manipulation of light...Overcoming limitations of funds and
resources, Brakhage poured out an astonishingly large number of
long and short films in a wide range of themes and style. A poet
with a camera, he consistently endowed his prolific output with
a pathfinder's zeal and innovate personal vision." - (The
MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994)
"The heart of Brakhage's theory is the notion of cinema as the
imitation of the act of seeing, which includes simultaneously
the perpetually scanning eyes, the visual imagination and
memory, and the phosphenes which are most distinct when the eyes
are closed. For him, the act of making a film intensifies and
makes conscious this perpetual process of vision. Any dramatic
representation whatsoever is anathematized by him." -
P. Adams Sitney (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers,
1991)
"His personal life so affects his work that Brakhage sees his
eyes and camera as one. Compelling examinations of people,
places, things, and ideas put him into the forefront of
avant-garde filmmaking.." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)
"We
have the notion that we exist but we have no way to prove it. 'I
am' is the closest foundation we can get." -
Stan Brakhage
