Stan Brakhage (1933-2003)

Stan Brakhage (January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American non-narrative filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the most important experimental filmmakers of the 20th century. He worked with various kinds of celluloid: 16mm, 8mm, 35mm, and IMAX, and was a practitioner of what he referred to as pure cinema. Image File history File links Brakhage. ... Image File history File links Brakhage. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 2003 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 14th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... is the 68th day of the year (69th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 2003 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... Experimental film, or experimental cinema, is a term that describes a range of filmmaking styles that are generally quite different from, and often opposed to, the practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... IMAX theatre at the Melbourne Museum complex, Australia BFI London IMAX by night IMAX dome in Guayaquil, Ecuador IMAX Theater in SM Mall of Asia, Philippines IMAX (short for Image Maximum) is a film format created by Canadas IMAX Corporation that has the capacity to display images of far... Pure cinema is the film theory that a moviemaker can create a more emotionally intense experience through using autonomous film techniques, as opposed to using stories, characters, or actors. ...

Brakhage was born as Robert Sanders in an orphanage in Kansas City, Missouri. Three weeks after his birth, he was adopted by Ludwig and Clara Brakhage, and he was given the name James Stanley Brakhage. Nickname: Location in Jackson, Clay, Platte, and Cass Counties in the state of Missouri. ...

As a child, he appeared on radio as a boy soprano before going to high school in Denver, Colorado and then dropping out of Dartmouth College after several months to make films. He was influenced by the writings of Sergei Eisenstein and the films of Jean Cocteau as well as the Italian neorealism movement. His first film, Interim (1952), was in the neo-realist style and had music by James Tenney. Look up soprano in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Nickname: Location of Denver in Colorado Location of Colorado in the United States Coordinates: , Country United States State Colorado City-County Denver (coextensive) Founded [1] November 22, 1858 Incorporated November 7, 1861 Government  - Type Strong Mayor/Weak Council  - Mayor John Hickenlooper (D) Area [1]  - City & County  154. ... Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, Latvian: Sergejs EizenÅ¡teins) (January 23, 1898 – February 11, 1948) was a revolutionary Soviet film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Oktober. ... Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (July 5, 1889 – October 11, 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker. ... Italian neorealism is a film movement often considered to have started in 1943 with Ossessione and ended in 1952 with Umberto D. The movement is characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed in long takes on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors for secondary and sometimes primary... James Tenney (August 10, 1934 in Silver City, NM) is an American composer and influential music theorist. ...

In 1953, Brakhage moved to San Francisco where he associated with poets such as Robert Duncan and Kenneth Rexroth. In late 1954, he moved to New York City where he associated with a number of contemporary artists, among them Maya Deren, Marie Menken, Joseph Cornell, and John Cage. New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Maya Deren Maya Deren (April 29, 1917 – October 13, 1961), born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s. ... Marie Menken (1909-1970) was an experimental filmmaker, actress, painter, and New York socialite who appeared in several Andy Warhol films. ... A photograph of Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell, (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972), was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. ... For Mortal Kombat character, see Johnny Cage. ...

Brakhage's films are usually silent and lack a story, being more analogous to visual poetry than to prose story-telling. He often referred to them as "visual music" or "moving visual thinking." His films range in length from just a few seconds to several hours, but most last between two or three minutes and one hour. He frequently hand-painted the film or scratched the image directly into the film emulsion, and sometimes used collage techniques. For Mothlight (1963), for example, he taped moth wings, twigs, and leaves onto clear film and made prints from it. In the 1960s and 1970s especially, his life with his first wife Jane and their five children was frequently shown, though in a fragmented and interior way rather than as documentation. A collage composed of magazine articles and pictures Collage (From the French: , to stick) is regarded as a work of visual arts made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ... A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly. ...

Brakhage's work covers a variety of subjects and techniques. Window Water Baby Moving (1959) is a record of the birth of his first child, while 23rd Psalm Branch (1966-67) is a meditation on war that intercuts footage of Colorado, where he lived, with shots of World War II. Dog Star Man (1961-64), perhaps his most famous work, features a man climbing a mountain, shots of stellar objects and more footage of his wife giving birth. It is usually read as addressing the unity of creation. The same footage was also made into a much longer film, The Art of Vision. Works from his later periods include the four-part "Faust Series" (1987-89), the four-part "Visions in Meditation" (1989-90), "Passage Through: A Ritual" (1991), and "The Vancouver Island Quartet" (1991-2002). One of his last works was the thirty minute hand-painted film, "Panels For the Walls of Heaven", the last of the four Vancouver Island films. He also completed several more collaborations with musicians, including two more works with music by James Tenney, "Christ Mass Sex Dance" (1991), and "Ellipses #5" (1998). Window Water Baby Moving is a short film by Stan Brakhage created in 1959 which documents, in a very loose and poetic but also frank way, the birth of his first child. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Dog Star Man is a series of short dramatic films, all directed by Stan Brakhage: Prelude: Dog Star Man {1961) Dog Star Man: Part I (1962) Dog Star Man: Part II (1963) Dog Star Man: Part III (1964) (listed in the National Film Registry) Dog Star Man: Part IV (1964... sajhkdsajk ...

Brakhage wrote a number of books, including Metaphors on Vision (1963), A Moving Picture Giving and Taking Book (1971), and the posthumously published "Telling Time: Essays of a Visionary Filmmaker" (2003). He often gave lectures at universities, museums, galleries, film festivals and so on. From 1969 he taught film history and aesthetics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and from 1981 taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He taught because, despite being the best known American avant-garde filmmaker, he could not make a living from his work. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is a fine arts college located in Chicago, Illinois and is overseen by President Tony Jones. ... The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder, UCB officially[2]; Colorado and CU colloquially) is the flagship university of the University of Colorado System in Boulder, Colorado. ...

Brakhage was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1996, and his bladder was removed. The surgery seemed successful, but the cancer eventually returned. He retired from teaching and moved to Canada in 2002, settling with his second wife Marilyn and their two sons in Victoria, British Columbia. Brakhage died there on March 9, 2003, having made almost four hundred films in all. He believed, and his doctors confirmed, that the coal-tar dyes he used to paint his films prior to 1996 had caused his cancer. In anatomy, the urinary bladder is a hollow, muscular, and distensible (or elastic) organ that sits on the pelvic floor in mammals. ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ... Location of Victoria within the Capital Regional District in British Columbia, Canada Country Canada Province British Columbia Regional District Capital Incorporated 1862[1] Government  - Mayor Alan Lowe (past mayors)  - Governing body Victoria City Council  - MP Denise Savoie  - MLAs Carole James, Rob Fleming Area [2]  - City 19. ...

Brakhage is revered as one of the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, and his work has had some small impact on mainstream cinema. The credits of the film Seven, with their scratched emulsion, rapid cutaways and bursts of light are very much in Brakhage's style. The concluding credits to The Jacket are an homage, the background imitating his Mothlight. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Se7en (also known as Seven) is an American 1995 Oscar and BAFTA nominated crime film directed by David Fincher. ... The Jacket is a 2005 psychological thriller, directed by John Maybury. ...

Among Brakhage's students were the creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and he is featured in their student film Cannibal! The Musical. The work of contemporary film and video artist Raymond Salvatore Harmon is often compared to Brakhage's abstract films. The opening track of Stereolab's album Dots and Loops, "Brakhage", is also named after him. For other uses, see South Park (disambiguation). ... Matthew Richard Stone (born May 26, 1971) is an Emmy-winning American animator, film director, screenwriter, actor and voice actor. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Cannibal! The Musical is a student film directed by the future creator of South Park, Trey Parker, while studying at the University of Colorado at Boulder. ... Raymond Salvatore Harmon Currently based out of Chicago, Raymond Salvatore Harmon is a multimedia artist and filmmaker whose work spans the past century of technological cul de sacs. ... Stereolab are an English-based band whose style, mixing 1950s-1960s pop and lounge music with the motorik beat of krautrock, was one of the first to which the term post-rock was applied. ... Dots and Loops is an album by the band Stereolab, released in 1997. ...

After his death, a DVD including 26 of Brakhage's films, by Brakhage, was released by the Criterion Collection. Size comparison: A 12 cm Sony DVD+RW and a 19 cm Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. ... Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) Stan Brakhage (January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American filmmaker. ... The Criterion Collection is a joint venture between Janus Films and The Voyager Company that was begun in the mid 1980s for the purpose of releasing authoritative consumer versions of classic and important contemporary films on the laserdisc and DVD formats. ...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive is currently working on the restoration of Stan Brakhage's complete film output. Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood, California Founded on May 11, 1927 in California, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures. ...

By Brakhage

By Brakhage is the title of a DVD anthology released by the Criterion Collection in 2003. The set contains the 79 minute "Dog Star Man" plus a selection of shorter works from throughout his 50 years of filmmaking, including several of the late hand-painted pieces. The Criterion Collection is a joint venture between Janus Films and The Voyager Company that was begun in the mid 1980s for the purpose of releasing authoritative consumer versions of classic and important contemporary films on the laserdisc and DVD formats. ...

Desistfilm (1954)

Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959)

Window Water Baby Moving (1959)

Mothlight (1963)

Cat's Cradle (1958)

Dog Star Man (1964)

Eye Myth (1967)

The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971)

The Wold Shadow (1972)

The Stars Are Beautiful (1974)

The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981)

Night Music (1986)

The Dante Quartet (1987)

Kindering (1987)

I...Dreaming (1988)

Rage Net (1988)

Glaze of Cathexis (1990)

Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse (1991)

Crack Glass Eulogy (1992)

For Marilyn (1992)

Stellar (1993)

Study in Color and Black and White (1993)

Black Ice (1994)

Comingled Containers (1996)

The Dark Tower (1999)

Lovesong (2001)

Window Water Baby Moving is a short film by Stan Brakhage created in 1959 which documents, in a very loose and poetic but also frank way, the birth of his first child. ... Dog Star Man is a series of short dramatic films, all directed by Stan Brakhage: Prelude: Dog Star Man {1961) Dog Star Man: Part I (1962) Dog Star Man: Part II (1963) Dog Star Man: Part III (1964) (listed in the National Film Registry) Dog Star Man: Part IV (1964...

External links

• The most accurate current filmography
• IMDB Filmography
• Stan Brakhage bibliography (via UC Berkeley)
• Directory of links to pages about Brakhage
• Descriptions of each of Brakhage's films
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
• Description of Brakhage's work.
• Magic & Images/ Images & Magic This piece is by David Levi-Strauss and was an opening paper for a conference at Princeton University, “Magic and the American Avant-Garde Cinema,” Saturday, March 11, 2006