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Director/Producer/Camera/Editor Stan Brakhage Titles 26 films (1954-2001), including Mothlight, Love Song, Desistfilm, Dog Star Man, The Dante Quartet, Cat’s Cradle, Wedlock House: An Intercourse, The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes, Window Water Baby Moving 

DVD USA 2003 Distribution The Criterion Collection Runtime 243 minutes Aspect ratio Academy 1.33:1 Sound mix Dolby Digital Mono 1.0 Extras Interviews with Brakhage. Film notes by Fred Camper.

The recent Criterion release of By Brakhage – an anthology of films by the pioneering American avant garde artist, Stan Brakhage – became something of an unexpected tribute to the late filmmaker, who died in March of this year after a long struggle against cancer. And what a tribute it is: The Criterion Collection has surpassed its already high DVD production standards and values with this unique set of RSDL dual-layer discs.

Featured on the two-disc set is a selection of twenty-six films, ranging from early psychodramas like Desistfilm (1954) to more recent abstract works like Love Song (2001). Many of the films are prefaced by Brakhage’s own remarks and reminiscences; however, there is also the option of watching each film successively with no breaks. In addition to the films, the set contains video interviews with Brakhage and an essay and film notes by Fred Camper, a respected Brakhage scholar. In an ideal world, Criterion would have also included an essay by P. Adams Sitney – the unsurpassed Brakhage expert – and examples of Brakhage’s own theoretical writings, especially “Metaphors on Vision.” But the supplemental materials that are available do provide a helpful introduction to those previously unfamiliar with Brakhage’s body of filmwork.

Certainly, the triumph of this DVD set is Dog Star Man (1961-1964) – Brakhage’s epic masterpiece, consisting of a prelude and four parts with a total running time of over 73 minutes. Speaking as someone who has viewed various prints of this film over the years, the Criterion version finally allows for a full appreciation of the intricate construction of this film: superimpositions and decoupaged shots are crystal clear, colors are defined and powerful. Such a stunning transfer would easily enable any Brakhage researcher to achieve a shot-by-shot dissection of the film – a mammoth undertaking, to be sure, but a worthy project that is long overdue.

Another revelation on this set is The Dante Quartet (1987). Short of viewing Brakhage’s pristine, 70mm format original canvas, this hand-painted film has never looked so vibrant and colorful. The rhythm of this film is felt, the subject matter of hell, purgatory, and heaven intense. Other previously hard-to-see highlights include: Cat’s Cradle (1959), Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959), and The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes (1971). And, of course, there is the jubilant, joint celebration of birth and film: Window Water Baby Moving (1959).

Brakhage purists will perhaps scoff at the digital format. It can feel false to view the works of a filmmaker such as Brakhage, who lived and loved the cinematic medium, and who most likely literally and physically suffered for his art by exposing himself to carcinogenic paints and materials in the pursuit of his muse. Part of the charm of a Brakhage film is the witnessing of the changes that the cinematic apparatus imposes on the film print; the vulnerability and mutability of the medium is a definite concern of Brakhage. But Brakhage was also committed to the democratization of film, to the naturalization of the medium, and to the study of film as texts much like poems and prose. This commitment is evidenced by his work in the 8mm format, following the theft of his 16mm equipment from his car in the 1960s. In an essay entitled “8mm Seeing Vision,” Brakhage writes: “If film got into the homes it would suddenly open up all those possibilities. A man could not only have the film and look at it as many times as he wanted to, which is important, but also­ – perhaps more important – exactly when he wanted to. Maybe at home he could even stop the film and look at an individual frame, or run it at any conceivable speed and move it backwards and forwards to study it.” To this end, he and his first wife, Jane Brakhage (a regarded author in her own right, now known as Jane Wodening), created a mail-order business to disseminate his 8mm songs, to foster and encourage a dialogue of films and filmmakers within personal homes. So the accessibility of the DVD format (and improved image clarity when compared with that of VHS) surely would have appealed to Brakhage and his conception of cinema and its proper place within our lives.

Brakhage was among the most prolific filmmakers working in the medium. Estimates of his total cinematic output vary, but most scholars agree that the number approximates four hundred. Given this, the act of limiting the DVD anthology to twenty-six films is no small feat; indeed, Marilyn Brakhage (Stan’s second wife) and Bruce Kawin are to be congratulated on their efforts to represent such a vast career. But, as with any selection, there is an agenda at work.

Missing are many Brakhage classics, most importantly Anticipation of the Night (1959), the film that defined Brakhage’s aesthetic and established themes of the nature of vision, childhood, and cinematic introspection that would consume him for the next phase of his career. Furthermore, many of the more autobiographical films like The Weir Falcon Saga (1970), the Sincerity series (1973-1980), and Scenes from Under Childhood (1967-1970) have been noticeably left out. There are two possible reasons for these omissions, which are certainly intentional – reasons that Brakhage himself alluded to when I interviewed him in 1999. The first is that many of these films were made during Brakhage’s marriage to Jane, whose influence so permeated his films from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. However, her significance to Brakhage’s life and art is sadly – although not surprisingly – lacking in this compilation. This is quite ironic, given that the title of the Criterion compilation, By Brakhage, references the striking signature Brakhage scratched onto many of these early films. This signature, Brakhage repeatedly asserted, was used to recognize the contributions of all of his family members (at that time, Jane and his first five children) to his cinema and aesthetic. 

A second reason is that Brakhage himself came to resent the relative obscurity of his later films – the privileging of his earlier autobiographical films at the expense of his more challenging and, to his mind, more artistically provocative and rewarding abstract and hand-painted works. This DVD set provided Brakhage with an opportunity to control his cinematic legacy, and stack the deck in favor of his later artistic interests.

And, to be sure, the canon of Brakhage will likely shift due to this Criterion Collection release. Film scholars and professors everywhere will undoubtedly prefer these digital versions of Brakhage’s films that will resist deterioration (for, at least, the next 100 years or so) regardless of the number of viewings – cheaper alternatives to the murkier, muddier, red-shift-riddled 16mm and 8mm film prints that currently circulate from distributors. One can only hope that Criterion and the Brakhage estate will collaborate in future to produce and make accessible more Brakhage films – particularly the earlier ones. But, for now, in the still raw wake of the death of one of the last reel cinema artists (Brakhage, I hope, would appreciate this wordplay), we should be grateful for what does persist, regardless of the format. Indeed, why ask for the moon, when the stars… are beautiful. Truly.

Liza Palmer