The Hypnagogic Visionary
Anticipation of the Night
Reflections on Black
Window Water Baby Moving
Dog Star Man
Songs 1-14
Arabic Numeral Series 1-11
The Dante Quartet
Persian Series 1-18
Cricket Requiem
For over 50 years the venerable American avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage has made over 300 of the most distinctive films ever made. But his films aren't easy to find on film or VHS and for years have only been seen at experimental forums, in film festivals, museums, university film clubs and a few private homes.
But now, thanks to a collaboration between Brakhage, his wife Marilyn, Western Cine Lab and The Criterion Collection, a discriminating yet concise two DVD disc set of 26 Brakhage films, titled ‘By Brakhage’, has been put together for all to enjoy.
Brakhage has attempted – with much success – to free cinema from predictable narrative structures and refined photography and bring it into a more natural mode of personal expression. He has done this in a variety of ways through editing, camera movement, optical printing, superimposition, as well as physically altering the film by scratching, painting or warping the actual surface of the celluloid.
Film critic Fred Camper, who supervised some of the transfers and has written extensively on Brakhage, says that, “his great subject is the discovery of interiority in all its varieties; closed eye vision, mental images, metaphors for thinking as well as actual images seen through the color of the subjective experience and human emotion.”
As a result, many of Brakhage’s films (especially later films) are silent, abstract expressionist psychodramas that sing to their own syncopated lyrical editing rhythms. But they have evolved over time in a very personal way too and thus have taken on many forms like the birth film ‘Window Water Baby Moving’ (1959), the death film ‘The Act of Seeing with Ones Eyes’ (1971), the mythical epic film ‘Dog Star Man’ (1964), as well as abstract painted films like ‘Dante's Quartet’ (1987) and the non-film film ‘Mothlight’ (1963), which used actual moth wings, flowers and perforated tape.
Since the digital medium cannot truly duplicate the film experience many Brakhage enthusiasts have raised the question if it was even possible to put the films on DVD . One major reason - especially in the case of Brakhage's hand painted and scratched films - is that each and every frame is a work of art and that due to the process of digital compression it has always been believed that some of these frames would be lost.
Criterion Technical Director Lee Kline says that the transfers were indeed a challenge but that nothing was lost in the transfer. He maintains that basically they did the same transfer process that they do with other films. The difference is that they eliminated a step along the way in order to get the best transfers possible.
David Phillips, who does in-house authorizing for Criterion, explained that normally there is a three step process in creating DVD’s, which includes transferring the films directly from film through a Spirit DataCine to an un-compressed D5 HD (High Definition) format in 24P (progressive scan) and then down convert that signal using 3:2 pull down (which is used to transfer from 24 frames of film to 30 frames of video) into a DigiBeta format from which they create an mpeg NTSC stream. But, for the Brakhage transfers, they eliminated the DigiBeta step and instead down converted straight from the D5 HD to the mpeg stream, which cuts the DVD.
Another procedure was the use of filtration which was used sparingly to soften some of the sharp contrasts and high frequency noise produced by the film’s quick editing structures. The most essential procedure, though, was to pay very close attention to detail. Phillips adds, “The Sony [Vizaro] encoder had a tough time locking into a cadence with the films so in many cases we had to go in and change the 3:2 pattern encodes manually.”
Phillips concedes that if you go through the DVD frame by frame there will some artifact but ironically it won’t be as visible as with most regular films. The reason is because most of Brakhage’s films have the same properties as animated films. He explains that; “most of the time compression artifact [is noticeable] in areas of flat [static] color. But there is so much visual detail in [Brakhage’s] frames that the inherent compression artifacts aren’t as noticeable.’
Another reason the DVD picture quality will be enhanced is because most of the Brakhage films they chose were silent thus allowing for more video encoding to take place on the disc. Encoding usually has to be shared with an audio track but in this case there are no audio commentaries or other tracks taking up megabit space.
According to Criterion President Peter Becker even though they struck new inter-positives and fine grain masters for each of the films they wanted to keep the films looking like film without improving the look or restoring them. And the way to insure that was to retain the grainy structure of each and every frame in the transfers. He notes that they were able to learn a lot from the work they did on the Maysels’ brothers films 'Salesman' and 'Gimme Shelter' – where each frame has different grain pattern dancing on the screen.
Camper, who has written instructions in the disc’s liner notes on how to best view the films on TV, understands the skepticism regarding the limitations of the digital medium, but says that the good thing about the DVD is that the average viewer can now see them in the home and have the benefit of multiple viewings. More significantly, his films are designed to create different reactions in each viewer. Consequently, seeing them alone or in a small group is important, unlike Hollywood films, which are meant to be seen in groups.
Brakhage, who died on March 9th, once noted that video is getting good enough that it isn't fair for him to withhold the films from people who have no other way of seeing them. Hopefully, the Criterion Collection DVD is just the first step in preserving the films for easily accessible availability in the future.
Camper says that ultimately he hopes the DVD will be a springboard not only for an appreciation of Brakhage, but one in which the viewer can seek out other Brakhage films. “People shouldn't use [the DVD] as a substitute for seeing the films on film [but] this could be a good preparation for getting to know some aspects of his work better.”
- Matt Langdon
Few filmmakers have pushed the envelope of film form as much as Stan Brakhage. He is a pioneer who has made over 400 of the most personal, colorful, hypnotising features ever made. Watch any one of his films and you'll get a sense that you've never seen anything like it before. Watch a half-a-dozen of his films and you'll be hooked forever. One reason is because he makes impressionistic, silent, philosophical film poems. And due to his editing it's easy to get hooked on his style.
For some reason most of us are closed minded when we go into a movie theatre but completely open minded when we go to an art gallery or a museum. Perhaps this is because familiarity with a type of product makes one less likely to accept something new. Film is meant to be entertaining - Hollywood marketing people tell us - and therefore everyone knows what is defined as entertainment.
Here's my advice: When you see a Stan Brakhage film imagine that you are going into an art gallery to experience something signficant (or at least original and different) as opposed to going into a movie theatre where narrative film has a grasp on our imaginations. It will change your perspective.
The tough part is finding any Brakhage screenings.
On a personal note I met Stan on a couple of occassions and was amazed by the energy and enthusiasm he had not only for his work but the work of others. I too was pleased (but not surprised) to hear that he wasn't a snob when it came to Hollywood movies. He watched numerous mainstream movies and considered them enjoyable. He just couldn't see himself making such a film. But then again he didn't consider his films to be high art. He once said to an audience, in an off handed way, 'well I don't particularly like arty films." That gave the audience a good chuckle. But he was being honest.
