STAN BRAKHAGE - AN ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME II (DVD 1 di 3)
IMDB link (Brakhage): http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0104132/
.: Info :. Regia / Director: Stan Brakhage
Sceneggiatore / written by: Stan Brakhage
Anno / Year: 1955 - 1990
Durata / Runtime: ~147 min.
Genere / Genre: experimental
Color|b/w: both
.: Movies (Disc One) :. (Program 1: 1955–67)
THE WONDER RING - 1955 • 5 minutes, 34 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
THE DEAD - 1960 • 10 minutes, 21 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
TWO: CREELEY/MCCLURE - 1965 • 3 minutes, 11 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
23RD PSALM BRANCH - 1967 • 66 minutes, 47 seconds • 8 mm • Silent
(Program 2: 1967–76)
SCENES FROM UNDER CHILDHOOD, SECTION ONE - 1967 • 23 minutes, 46 seconds • 16 mm • Silent/Monaural
THE MACHINE OF EDEN - 1970 • 10 minutes, 45 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
STAR GARDEN - 1974 • 20 minutes, 58 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
DESERT - 1976 • 10 minutes, 7 seconds • Super 8 mm • Silent
(Extra)
interviews, misc footage
.: Screenshots :.
.: Info (en) :. James Stanley Brakhage (January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003), better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film.
Over the course of five decades, Brakhage created a large and diverse body of work, exploring a variety of formats, approaches and techniques that included handheld camerawork, painting directly onto celluloid, fast cutting, in-camera editing, scratching on film, and the use of multiple exposures. Interested in mythology and inspired by music, poetry, and visual phenomena, Brakhage sought to reveal the universal in the particular, exploring themes of birth, mortality, sexuality, and innocence. Brakhage's films are often noted for their expressiveness and lyricism.
When Brakhage's early films had been exhibited in the 1950s, they had often been met with derision, but in the early 1960s Brakhage began to receive recognition in exhibitions and film publications, including Film Culture, which awarded several of his films, including The Dead, in 1962. The award statement, written by Jonas Mekas, a critic who would later become an influential experimental filmmaker in his own right, cited Brakhage for bringing to cinema "an intelligence and subtlety that is usually the province of the older arts."
From 1961 to 1964, Brakhage worked on a series of 5 films known as the Dog Star Man cycle. The Brakhages moved to Lump Gulch, Colorado in 1964, though Brakhage continued to make regular visits to New York. During one of those visits, the 16mm film equipment he had been using was stolen. Brakhage couldn't afford to replace it, instead opting to buy cheaper 8mm film equipment. He soon began working in the format, producing a 30-part cycle of 8mm films known as the Songs from 1964 to 1969. The Songs include one of Brakhage's most acclaimed films, 23rd Psalm Branch, a response to the Vietnam War and its presentation in the mass media.
Brakhage began teaching film history and aesthetics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1969, commuting from his home in Colorado.
Brakhage explored further approaches to filmmaking in the 1970s. In 1971, he completed a set of three films inspired by public institutions in the city of Pittsburgh. These three films--Eyes, about the city police, Deus Ex, filmed in a hospital, and The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, depicting autopsy—are collectively known as "The Pittsburgh Trilogy." In 1974, Brakhage made the feature-length Text of Light, consisting entirely of images of light refracted in a glass ashtray. In 1979, he experimented with Polavision, a format marketed by Polaroid, making about five 21⁄2 minute films. The whereabouts of these films are now unknown. He continued his visual explorations of landscape and the nature of light and thought process, and through the late 70's and early 80's produced filmic equivalents of what he termed "moving visual thinking" in several series of photographic abstractions known as the Roman, Arabic, and Egyptian series.
In 1981 Brakhage began teaching at the University of Colorado in Boulder. In 1986, Brakhage separated from Jane, and in 1989 he married his second wife, Marilyn. The two would have two children together. In the late 1980s, Brakhage returned to making sound films, with the four-part Faustfilm cycle, and also completed the hand-painted film, The Dante Quartet.
Brakhage remained extremely productive through the last two decades of his life, sometimes working in collaboration with other filmmakers, including his University of Colorado colleague Phil Solomon. Several more sound films were completed, including "Passage Through: A Ritual," edited to the music of Philip Corner, and "Christ Mass Sex Dance" and "Ellipsis No. 5," both with music by James Tenney. He also produced the major meditations on childhood, adolescence, aging and mortality collectively known as the "Vancouver Island Quartet," as well as numerous hand-painted works.
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, aged 70. The last footage Brakhage shot has been made available under the title Work in Progress. At the time of his death, Brakhage was also working the Chinese Series, made by scratching directly on to film.
(from wikipedia.org)
.: Info (ita) :. Stan Brakhage (14 gennaio 1933 – 9 marzo 2003) è stato un regista statunitense, considerato uno dei maggiori e più influenti filmmakers sperimentali del XX secolo.
Brakhage nasce come Robert Sanders in un orfanotrofio di Kansas City, Missouri. Il 4 febbraio viene adottato da Ludwig e Clara Brakhage che lo chiamano James Stanley Brakhage.
Dopo la separazione dei genitori, all’età di sei anni, Stan e la madre si trasferiscono a Denver, Colorado. Da ragazzo cantava come piccolo soprano, esibendosi anche alla radio. Si iscrisse alla South High School di Denver, la sua principale ambizione era quella di diventare poeta. A scuola vide l’”Orfeo” di Jean Cocteau, che lo aiutò a comprendere che fare film poteva essere considerata un’arte tanto quanto la poesia. Dopo la scuola, si iscrisse al Dartmouth College che però abbandono dopo soli due mesi a causa di un esaurimento nervoso. Tornò in Colorado a trovare il padre, il quale acconsentì a dargli i soldi destinati agli studi universitari per acquistare la sua prima cinepresa. Il suo primo film, Interim, è del 1952. In questo periodo Stan è stilisticamente influenzato soprattutto dagli scritti di Ejzenštejn, dai film di Jean Cocteau e dal neorealismo italiano.
Gradualmente, i suoi film si discostano sempre più dal racconto tradizionale (cruciale in tal senso è il suo primo film non sonoro, Wonder Ring, del 1955). Anticipation of the Night (1958) costituisce sicuramente la sua prima grande incursione nella “visione soggettiva”: le immagini dense di lirismo rappresentano lo sguardo in prima persona di un uomo che riusciamo a vedere solo come ombra.
Dopo alcuni periodi trascorsi a New York e a San Francisco, Brakhage sposa nel 1957 Jane Collom e si trasferisce a Princeton, New Jersey. Due anni dopo ritornano in Colorado, fra le montagne. La loro vita familiare, con i loro figli, costituisce il principale argomento di molti dei suoi film realizzati negli anni ’60 e ’70. A questi affianca film completamente astratti come lo studio sull’acqua di Song 22 (1966) e Text of Light (1974), realizzato filmando le rifrazioni luminose di un posacenere di cristallo.
La maggior parte dei suoi lavori sono in pellicola 8mm o 16mm e spesso egli ha dipinto la pellicola a mano o graffiato direttamente l’emulsione e, qualche volta, ha anche usato tecniche di collage. Per Mothlight (1963), ad esempio, ha incollato direttamente sulla pellicola ali di insetti, foglie e rametti.
In totale, Brakhage ha realizzato quasi quattrocento film nell’arco di cinquant’anni circa di carriera. Tra i più importanti, oltre i già citati, ricordiamo: Window Water Baby Moving (1959), incentrato sulla nascita del primo figlio; 23rd Psalm Branch (1966-67), una meditazione sulla guerra con filmati dei luoghi in cui viveva in Colorado intervallati a immagini di repertorio della Seconda guerra mondiale e Dog Star Man (1961-64), probabilmente il suo film più celebre.
Brakhage è stato anche un grande appassionato delle altre arti. Profondamente influenzato dalla poesia di Gertrude Stein e Robert Duncan come anche da molti pittori e compositori di musica classica. Era anche molto appassionato di storia e un cinefilo che non disdegnava la visione dei prodotti hollywoodiani pur non considerandoli arte.
Importante ricordare che Brakhage ha scritto anche alcuni libri tra i quali ricordiamo Metaphors on Vision (1963) (pubblicato anche in Italia da Feltrinelli ma da lungo tempo fuori catalogo) e Telling Time: Essays of a Visionary Filmmaker (2003), uscito postumo.
Dal 1969 ha insegnato Storia ed Estetica del Cinema presso l’Art Institute of Chicago e dal 1981 presso l’Università del Colorado.
Nel 2002 si trasferisce in Canada con la nuova moglie Marilyn, sposata nel 1989, e i due figli più giovani. Muore a Victoria, British Columbia per un cancro alla vescica probabilmente causato dalle tinte utilizzate per colorare le pellicole.
.: Plot & Review :. In Criterion’s first volume of the anthology By Brakhage, we brought twenty-six astonishing works by the avant-garde film pioneer Stan Brakhage to home video for the first time. Now, in this second installment, we are proud to present thirty more of Brakhage’s visionary creations, from 1950s films to his final work, from 2003, curated by his wife, Marilyn Brakhage. Highlights of this collection include the war meditation 23rd Psalm Branch; hand-painted films from Persian Series; The Wonder Ring, made for a commission by Joseph Cornell; the autobiographical Scenes from Under Childhood, Section One; and the found-footage film Murder Psalm.
(from criterion.com)
.: Mediainfo (partial) report:. [email protected]:~$ mediainfo /DATI/Torrent2/BY_BRAKHAGE_V_2_DISC_1-3/VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB
General
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