Essential Brakhage: Selected Writings on Film-Making - Softcover

Stan Brakhage; Bruce R. McPherson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 092970164X ISBN 13: 9780929701646

Publisher: McPherson, 2001

Synopsis

In the course of making nearly 400 films over the past 50 years, Stan Brakhage became synonymous with independent American filmmaking, particularly its avant-garde component. This major collection of writings draws primarily upon two long out-of-print books--Metaphors on Vision and Brakhage Scrapbook. Brakhage examines filmmaking in relation to social and professional contexts, the nature of influence and collaboration, the aesthetics of personal experience, and the conditions under which various films were made. Brakhage discusses his predecessors and contemporaries, relates film to dance and poetry, and in A Moving Picture Giving and Taking Book provides a manual for the novice filmmaker. Lectures, interviews, essays, and manifestos document Brakhage's personal vision and public persona.

About this title

About the Author

Stan Brakhage was one of the most influential of independent American filmmakers. From 1952 to 2003 he issued nearly 400 original films, ranging in length from a few seconds to several hours. Among his best known film works are 'Dog Star Man,' 'The Act of Seeing with one's own eyes' and 'The Dante Quartet.' His many books on film include Metaphors on Vision (Anthology Film Archives, 1963), Film Biographies (Turtle Island, 1977) and Brakhage Scrapbook: Collected Writings, 1964 - 1980 (Documentext, 1982). The recipient of many awards and prizes, including the 1986 Maya Deren Award from the American Film Institute and the 1989 MacDowell Colony Medal, Brakhage was also a professor of film studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. An artist of prodigous energy and unflagging genius, Stan Brakhage died on March 9, 2003.

From Publishers Weekly

Two important but long unavailable books by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage Metaphors on Vision and Brakhage Scrapbook are restored to print in this welcome reissue. Part of the great post-WWII generation of Americans who revolutionized every area of artistic activity, Brakhage was arguably as important to his medium as John Cage or Jackson Pollock were to theirs, and has never received his full due. This is at least partly because his work has been hard to actually see outside of a few places, and there is a lot to see 340 films over 48 years. But anyone who has seen even a minute or two of a film like Dog Star Man with its scratches and painted frames, its stunning juxtaposition of abstraction and materiality immediately recognizes not only Brakhage's singular sensibility, but also its enormous influence on our visual culture. To paraphrase David Bowie talking about the Velvet Underground, not a lot of people saw Brakhage's films, but everyone who did became a filmmaker. Luckily, Brakhage's writings convey much of the volcanic intelligence of his films, as well as eloquently extending their thematic concerns. Brakhage writes in a variety of modes, from the concise filmmaking manual of "A Moving Picture Giving and Taking Book" (written as "a short book on film technique which could be read by poets") to such poetically charged texts as "Angels" and "Notes of Anticipation," in which a film's shot list resembles a text by Gertrude Stein. The book also includes a number of interviews, as well as an annotated list of key films and an extensive bibliography. This book would be important even if Brakhage were not such an engaging writer, but the eclectic range and concision of this collection make it an essential addition to the small library of film classics by filmmakers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: McPherson
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 092970164X
• ISBN 13: 9780929701646
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232