"Good for Him" Four Films by Stan Brakhage
Laurel Gildersleeve
March 20, 2008
In the throes of the post-war avant-garde movement in America, a new group of experimental filmmakers emerged. With models to build on from European surrealists, notably Bunuel and Cocteau, these men and women experimented with abstract uses of narrative, light, camera movements, and the physical film matter, asserting that film itself (or in itself) was a valid medium for making art. (Rees 70)
Prevalent in the experimental film movement was the narrative stylistic poetic film. These films relied on timing and rhythms that sought an evocation from their audience similar to the evocation elicited from music or poetry. Because of the emphasis on the movement of the images, the films were often screened without a soundtrack in favor of the steady chirping of a projector. Author and film critic Parker Tyler addresses the importance of the silent screening process when viewing such pieces stating that the film poem should be viewed as analogous to a dream or hallucination (Tyler 83).
With the lack of distribution and mass audience for underground and experimental films, the filmmakers were allotted a great deal of personal freedom to express themselves through movement and styles in their camera work (or absence of camera work). The results of this liberation were films that explored very personal, private issues, taking the forms of confessionals or "diary films."
One American filmmaker who embraced and made practice of the physical and narrative experimentation was Stan Brakhage. A student of painting and poetry in the fine arts (he would cite as direct influences Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound), he molded his films in the style of moving poems, often painting and scratching directly on the filmstrip to create literal texture and movement on top of, and sometimes independent of, his filmed images. Fearless in his execution of new and unexplored techniques in shooting and editing, his films were manifestations of self that captured his deepest subconscious.
An emotional fingerprint can be recognized in most of Brakhage´s films. Four in particular that span his cannon of major works, Desistfilm (54), Wedlock house: An Intercourse (59), Window Water Baby Moving (62), and I, Dreaming (88), are explicit reflections on love and his relationships with others and are personal films in the truest sense. They move and read like poetic diary entries, exposing Brakhage´s joys, fears, and sadness. Film historian and author David James remarks, "In the blankest rejection of the history of the medium, he (Brakhage) made home movies the essential practice of film." (Peterson 32).
Made in 1954 at the age of 19, Desistfilm was Brakhage´s first foray into the avant-garde. Influenced by French surrealism and Italian neo-realism, Brakhage sought out to find a style that blended the two, similar to the style of Fellini. He explained the film´s title as "de-existentialism", worse than existentialism, complete and utter desistence. Desistfilm was his personal poem of desistence (Brakhage DVD Interview 1).
The film follows the events of an erratic party full of dancing, smoking, wine guzzling, and navel gazing, shot in a hand-held, shaky, out of focus style. The soundtrack of the film is provided by loud, distorted music from a radio, moving chaotically with the quick cutting of the images.
In the midst of revelry, the partygoers flee, leaving one man (Brakhage) and one woman behind. The couple slowly dance, kiss, and hold each other. The sequence is shot partly through the glass of a large, empty wine jug, distorting the dreamy image of voyeurism. The film ends abruptly as the partygoers appear outside, peering maniacally through the windows at the frightened couple. The men outside the house have remained arrested at their infantile state while the couple has grown, separated themselves from the world of youthful revelry. They are now alone, leaning on each other in mutual love. Brakhage described the couple as "survivors" of desistence, aching to reach out to one another in a meaningful way (Interview 1). Desistfilm establishes Brakhage´s growth from a young boy into a man. In discovering film, he had discovered himself, and his coming of age had begun.
Wedlock House: An Intercourse is an abstract narrative that documents the struggle of marriage between Brakhage and his new wife Jane. Brakhage describes his character as a young man, abandoned by women (mothers), rendering him oblivious on the subjects of women and lovemaking. The piece is very much autobiographical, Brakhage was abandoned by his own mother and was adopted as a baby.
The film opens with a negative image of Jane lying naked on a bed, Brakhage, also naked, moves on top of her in initiation of sex, establishing his need to dominate and assert. The two move together, rolling beside the camera, exposing quick, close shots of their mingling bodies. The film moves into a meditation on the loss of personal identity that comes with marriage. The two wander separately, examining their reflections in windowpanes and mirrors, dipping in and out of light and darkness. The hazy dark lighting consists of dimming and swinging lights, and soft illumination from candles, adding to the feeling of confusion and loss of self.
Brakhage shows little reservation in portraying himself as an antagonist in his marriage. He scowls across a table at Jane who fidgets nervously with her wedding band while he brings his left hand to his face to reveal a bare finger. He is a strong, brute force, pushing and testing his boundaries in his newly established identity. The tone of the film, with its strong and forceful movements and energy, reflects this attitude, and the effect it has on the couple´s relationship.
Window Water Baby Moving reveals a more mellow and mature Stan and Jane. A documentary record of the birth of the Brakhage couple´s first child, the film was an ultimate taboo buster. At the time, expecting fathers were not allowed to view the births of their children. Brakhage had a huge fear of the birthing process and felt the only way to overcome it would be to view it through the medium with which he felt most comfortable, his camera (Interview 9). To do this, he and his wife had to arrange for a doctor and nurse to come to their house for the birth. Brakhage credits Window Water Baby Moving with starting the trend for at home, natural births, and allowing fathers into the labor room (armed with a camera if they wish). (Interview 9).
Shot in color, with no soundtrack, the film opens with a montage of Jane´s swollen face and belly as she lowers herself into a bathtub. Her stomach fills the screen; the camera lingers on her protruding belly button and Stan´s hand gently bringing handfuls of water over it. During labor, images of Jane´s face, contorted and twisted in silent pain are juxtaposed with the couple smiling, kissing and laughing, strengthening the bond they have created from the turmoil of early marriage documented in Wedlock. The warm sexuality of Wedlock is stripped away with graphic close-ups of Jane´s bloody, splitting vagina.
The film´s imagery, although incredibly graphic, flows beautifully like an underwater poem. It was likely never intended for mass viewing, but rather a record for the Brakhage family. A strong affirmation of life and love that they could revisit anytime they wished as a culmination of the love cultivated and explored in the other films.
I, Dreaming, made at the still young age of 58 when Brakhage was undergoing treatment for cancer, is a self-examination of a life lived and resonates with an atmosphere of sad finality. Here, the camera reveals a resignation, an acceptance of old age and death. The musical score by filmmaker and musician Joel Haertling, based on a melancholy "collage" of Stephen Foster phrases is the center muse of the piece. The images move with the soft, sad flow of the accompanying operatic music. Using his scratch technique, Brakhage writes Foster´s poetic phrases over his images of loneliness. "Life is the dark void" is superimposed on footage of a darkened ceiling. The words "Cold" and "untouched" cover images of Brakhage´s sprawled legs on a carpeted floor. Separated from his longtime partner Jane, Brakhage shoots himself in bits and pieces as if no longer whole. Small, minimalist images reveal a leg lying as if dead, a wrinkled arm, a concave chest, a grandfatherly beard. The photography in I, Dreaming is a departure from the other three self-reflection films. Here, Brakhage uses a steady, mounted camera to shoot himself climbing alone onto a sparse cot, walking naked through a kitchen, and passively sitting in a large armchair while his grandchildren tumble and play on the floor in front of him. The entire film elicits a melancholy and cold emptiness, revealing the change from the enthusiastic vitality that Brakhage once tapped, to the inevitable reflection that is reached with the age of a life lived.
Brakhage dedicated himself to an art that, for him, turned virtually no profit and yet he refused to compromise his artistic compulsion in the interest of money or fame. These were films that he created because he felt he had to. The diplomacy and dedication that most true artists strive to achieve was a way of life for him and, as revealed in I, Dreaming, it´s a lifestyle that can wear a person down.
The unfortunate impedance for many filmmakers is the notion that film should be produced solely for a consumer market. As products of the Hollywood mentality we are conditioned to expect to be entertained, and if a filmmaker fails to fulfill this expectation, then they´ve got some explaining to do. The avant-garde and experimental film movements sought to break down these barriers and expectations, to open up new forms of expression and free their medium from formalism and mass consumption. This granted artists like Brakhage to explore film without inhibition, to make truly personal pieces.
Jonas Mekas, an avid defender of Brakhage´s films in Film Culture and The Village Voice, described the new American film poet as "Not giving a damn about Hollywood or anybody" (Rees 65). As a film poet, Brakhage penned his "diary" films for personal catharsis, with the added hope that they might be enjoyed by and be beneficial to others. Should these works be judged by the same standards as a canon of films that are produced solely for entertainment? Should Brakhage be faulted for failing to entertain in a traditional manner?
During a retrospective of his films in Montreal in 2001, Brakhage articulated a humbling hope for what his canon of works could achieve in the future:
Maybe my film will not last but it might inspire a poet to write something. In several hundred years I believe we can do away with war. Mad as that sounds. And I believe art is the only way to do away with it. I don't think it'll be done by people sitting around saying, "I hate war." Or, "war is awful." Well forget that, you might as well go into a rain dance to get the rain. You have to lodge something in the deepest human consciousness to make certain things unthinkable, like the rape of children. But it certainly isn't now. So some of the films you saw tonight are hopefully in that direction, not because they are my films but part of the whole process of affecting other artists, other people in general. We have to have something long-lasting enough to make the horrible unthinkable. That is my social task. It is on the 400-year plan. (Offscreen).
RFERENCES
Kracaucer, Siegfried. Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Parker, Tyler et. al. Underground Film: A Critical History. New York: De Capo Press, 1969.
Peterson, James. Dreams of Chaos, Visions of Order: Understanding the American Avant-garde Cinema. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994.
Rees, A.L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. London: British Film Institute, 1999.
by Brakhage: An Anthology. Films directed by Stan Brakhage. DVD. The Criterion Collection, 2004. Interviews by Colin Still.
Brakhage, Stan. Trans. Totaro, Donato. "I Would Rather Take a Chance on Hell than go to Disneyland." www.offscreen.com Febuary 28, 2003. Accessed 05/05/2007.
Prevalent in the experimental film movement was the narrative stylistic poetic film. These films relied on timing and rhythms that sought an evocation from their audience similar to the evocation elicited from music or poetry. Because of the emphasis on the movement of the images, the films were often screened without a soundtrack in favor of the steady chirping of a projector. Author and film critic Parker Tyler addresses the importance of the silent screening process when viewing such pieces stating that the film poem should be viewed as analogous to a dream or hallucination (Tyler 83).
With the lack of distribution and mass audience for underground and experimental films, the filmmakers were allotted a great deal of personal freedom to express themselves through movement and styles in their camera work (or absence of camera work). The results of this liberation were films that explored very personal, private issues, taking the forms of confessionals or "diary films."
One American filmmaker who embraced and made practice of the physical and narrative experimentation was Stan Brakhage. A student of painting and poetry in the fine arts (he would cite as direct influences Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound), he molded his films in the style of moving poems, often painting and scratching directly on the filmstrip to create literal texture and movement on top of, and sometimes independent of, his filmed images. Fearless in his execution of new and unexplored techniques in shooting and editing, his films were manifestations of self that captured his deepest subconscious.
An emotional fingerprint can be recognized in most of Brakhage´s films. Four in particular that span his cannon of major works, Desistfilm (54), Wedlock house: An Intercourse (59), Window Water Baby Moving (62), and I, Dreaming (88), are explicit reflections on love and his relationships with others and are personal films in the truest sense. They move and read like poetic diary entries, exposing Brakhage´s joys, fears, and sadness. Film historian and author David James remarks, "In the blankest rejection of the history of the medium, he (Brakhage) made home movies the essential practice of film." (Peterson 32).
Made in 1954 at the age of 19, Desistfilm was Brakhage´s first foray into the avant-garde. Influenced by French surrealism and Italian neo-realism, Brakhage sought out to find a style that blended the two, similar to the style of Fellini. He explained the film´s title as "de-existentialism", worse than existentialism, complete and utter desistence. Desistfilm was his personal poem of desistence (Brakhage DVD Interview 1).
The film follows the events of an erratic party full of dancing, smoking, wine guzzling, and navel gazing, shot in a hand-held, shaky, out of focus style. The soundtrack of the film is provided by loud, distorted music from a radio, moving chaotically with the quick cutting of the images.
In the midst of revelry, the partygoers flee, leaving one man (Brakhage) and one woman behind. The couple slowly dance, kiss, and hold each other. The sequence is shot partly through the glass of a large, empty wine jug, distorting the dreamy image of voyeurism. The film ends abruptly as the partygoers appear outside, peering maniacally through the windows at the frightened couple. The men outside the house have remained arrested at their infantile state while the couple has grown, separated themselves from the world of youthful revelry. They are now alone, leaning on each other in mutual love. Brakhage described the couple as "survivors" of desistence, aching to reach out to one another in a meaningful way (Interview 1). Desistfilm establishes Brakhage´s growth from a young boy into a man. In discovering film, he had discovered himself, and his coming of age had begun.
Wedlock House: An Intercourse is an abstract narrative that documents the struggle of marriage between Brakhage and his new wife Jane. Brakhage describes his character as a young man, abandoned by women (mothers), rendering him oblivious on the subjects of women and lovemaking. The piece is very much autobiographical, Brakhage was abandoned by his own mother and was adopted as a baby.
The film opens with a negative image of Jane lying naked on a bed, Brakhage, also naked, moves on top of her in initiation of sex, establishing his need to dominate and assert. The two move together, rolling beside the camera, exposing quick, close shots of their mingling bodies. The film moves into a meditation on the loss of personal identity that comes with marriage. The two wander separately, examining their reflections in windowpanes and mirrors, dipping in and out of light and darkness. The hazy dark lighting consists of dimming and swinging lights, and soft illumination from candles, adding to the feeling of confusion and loss of self.
Brakhage shows little reservation in portraying himself as an antagonist in his marriage. He scowls across a table at Jane who fidgets nervously with her wedding band while he brings his left hand to his face to reveal a bare finger. He is a strong, brute force, pushing and testing his boundaries in his newly established identity. The tone of the film, with its strong and forceful movements and energy, reflects this attitude, and the effect it has on the couple´s relationship.
Window Water Baby Moving reveals a more mellow and mature Stan and Jane. A documentary record of the birth of the Brakhage couple´s first child, the film was an ultimate taboo buster. At the time, expecting fathers were not allowed to view the births of their children. Brakhage had a huge fear of the birthing process and felt the only way to overcome it would be to view it through the medium with which he felt most comfortable, his camera (Interview 9). To do this, he and his wife had to arrange for a doctor and nurse to come to their house for the birth. Brakhage credits Window Water Baby Moving with starting the trend for at home, natural births, and allowing fathers into the labor room (armed with a camera if they wish). (Interview 9).
Shot in color, with no soundtrack, the film opens with a montage of Jane´s swollen face and belly as she lowers herself into a bathtub. Her stomach fills the screen; the camera lingers on her protruding belly button and Stan´s hand gently bringing handfuls of water over it. During labor, images of Jane´s face, contorted and twisted in silent pain are juxtaposed with the couple smiling, kissing and laughing, strengthening the bond they have created from the turmoil of early marriage documented in Wedlock. The warm sexuality of Wedlock is stripped away with graphic close-ups of Jane´s bloody, splitting vagina.
The film´s imagery, although incredibly graphic, flows beautifully like an underwater poem. It was likely never intended for mass viewing, but rather a record for the Brakhage family. A strong affirmation of life and love that they could revisit anytime they wished as a culmination of the love cultivated and explored in the other films.
I, Dreaming, made at the still young age of 58 when Brakhage was undergoing treatment for cancer, is a self-examination of a life lived and resonates with an atmosphere of sad finality. Here, the camera reveals a resignation, an acceptance of old age and death. The musical score by filmmaker and musician Joel Haertling, based on a melancholy "collage" of Stephen Foster phrases is the center muse of the piece. The images move with the soft, sad flow of the accompanying operatic music. Using his scratch technique, Brakhage writes Foster´s poetic phrases over his images of loneliness. "Life is the dark void" is superimposed on footage of a darkened ceiling. The words "Cold" and "untouched" cover images of Brakhage´s sprawled legs on a carpeted floor. Separated from his longtime partner Jane, Brakhage shoots himself in bits and pieces as if no longer whole. Small, minimalist images reveal a leg lying as if dead, a wrinkled arm, a concave chest, a grandfatherly beard. The photography in I, Dreaming is a departure from the other three self-reflection films. Here, Brakhage uses a steady, mounted camera to shoot himself climbing alone onto a sparse cot, walking naked through a kitchen, and passively sitting in a large armchair while his grandchildren tumble and play on the floor in front of him. The entire film elicits a melancholy and cold emptiness, revealing the change from the enthusiastic vitality that Brakhage once tapped, to the inevitable reflection that is reached with the age of a life lived.
Brakhage dedicated himself to an art that, for him, turned virtually no profit and yet he refused to compromise his artistic compulsion in the interest of money or fame. These were films that he created because he felt he had to. The diplomacy and dedication that most true artists strive to achieve was a way of life for him and, as revealed in I, Dreaming, it´s a lifestyle that can wear a person down.
The unfortunate impedance for many filmmakers is the notion that film should be produced solely for a consumer market. As products of the Hollywood mentality we are conditioned to expect to be entertained, and if a filmmaker fails to fulfill this expectation, then they´ve got some explaining to do. The avant-garde and experimental film movements sought to break down these barriers and expectations, to open up new forms of expression and free their medium from formalism and mass consumption. This granted artists like Brakhage to explore film without inhibition, to make truly personal pieces.
Jonas Mekas, an avid defender of Brakhage´s films in Film Culture and The Village Voice, described the new American film poet as "Not giving a damn about Hollywood or anybody" (Rees 65). As a film poet, Brakhage penned his "diary" films for personal catharsis, with the added hope that they might be enjoyed by and be beneficial to others. Should these works be judged by the same standards as a canon of films that are produced solely for entertainment? Should Brakhage be faulted for failing to entertain in a traditional manner?
During a retrospective of his films in Montreal in 2001, Brakhage articulated a humbling hope for what his canon of works could achieve in the future:
Maybe my film will not last but it might inspire a poet to write something. In several hundred years I believe we can do away with war. Mad as that sounds. And I believe art is the only way to do away with it. I don't think it'll be done by people sitting around saying, "I hate war." Or, "war is awful." Well forget that, you might as well go into a rain dance to get the rain. You have to lodge something in the deepest human consciousness to make certain things unthinkable, like the rape of children. But it certainly isn't now. So some of the films you saw tonight are hopefully in that direction, not because they are my films but part of the whole process of affecting other artists, other people in general. We have to have something long-lasting enough to make the horrible unthinkable. That is my social task. It is on the 400-year plan. (Offscreen).
RFERENCES
Kracaucer, Siegfried. Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Parker, Tyler et. al. Underground Film: A Critical History. New York: De Capo Press, 1969.
Peterson, James. Dreams of Chaos, Visions of Order: Understanding the American Avant-garde Cinema. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994.
Rees, A.L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. London: British Film Institute, 1999.
by Brakhage: An Anthology. Films directed by Stan Brakhage. DVD. The Criterion Collection, 2004. Interviews by Colin Still.
Brakhage, Stan. Trans. Totaro, Donato. "I Would Rather Take a Chance on Hell than go to Disneyland." www.offscreen.com Febuary 28, 2003. Accessed 05/05/2007.
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