Jane Wodening

Filmed April 12, 2003 at a benefit concert held at and for The Anthology Film Archives, the international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of avant-garde and independent cinema. In addition to screening films for the public, AFA houses a film museum, research library and art gallery. The event, which raised money for the Archives and celebrated the life and work of avant-garde film maker Stan Brakhage, featured Sonic Youth providing an improvised instrumental collaboration with silent Brakhage’s films. The band performed with drummer/percussionist Tim Barnes (Essex Green, Jukeboxer, Silver Jews).

노년의 요나스 메카스는 홈 비디오같은 사적 자료들을 통해 자신의 삶을 다시 돌아본다. 내밀하고 친밀한 분위기의 영상들은 때로 예상 외의 혼란과 낯선 기운을 포착하기도 한다. 스탠 브래키지, 알렌 긴스버그, 홀리스 프램튼, 백남준 등 동료 예술가들의 모습을 보는 것도 작은 재미를 준다.

BRAKHAGE explores the depth and breadth of the filmmaker’s genius, the exquisite splendor of his films, his magic personal charm, his aesthetic fellow travelers, and the influence his work has had on generations of other creators. While touching on significant moments in Brakhage’s biography, the film celebrates Brakhage’s visionary genius, and explores the extraordinary artistic possibilities of cinema, a medium mostly known only for its commercial applications in the form of narratives, cartoons, documentaries, and advertising. BRAKHAGE combines excerpts from Brakhage’s films and films of other avant-garde filmmakers (eg, George Kuchar, Jonas Mekas, Willie Varela, Bruce Elder, and others); interviews with Brakhage, his friends, family, colleagues, and critics; archival footage of Brakhage spanning the past thirty-five years; and location shooting in Boulder, Colorado and New York.

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.

Someone said to me, of this film, that it was really about light; but Jane (who takes it as a portrait – i. e., sees herself in it) said: You gave me the moon and seven stars... and I signed this film, simply, Stan.

The culmination of a series of autobiographical films that Brakhage made about his family (collectively known as The Book of Family), Tortured Dust was shot as the filmmaker's children from his first marriage were beginning to leave the house, and edited during Brakhage and his first wife Jane's impending separation. The first half concentrates on Brakhage's teenage sons as they move around the cabin that has been their home for almost 20 years, and the second half turns towards the filmmaker's three daughters.

A poignant portrait of Stan and Jane Brakhage visiting Juarez.

Thot-Fal’N is a typical piece of Stan Brakhage montage: 9 minutes of completely silent close-ups, shots blurred to incoherence, and occasional clips of American streets or people. Among the identifiable humans there’s a brief sequence with William Burroughs and a balloon, and also shots of Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky.

"I picked up Stan and Jane Brakhage at the airport and drove them to San Francisco State College where Stan spoke about his films to the student body. I was fascinated with Jane. She was so interested in the world around her while Stan seemed caught up only in his ideas. She picked seed pods from trees and plants and told me she had written a lexicon of dog language. She was so much more complex than Stan's portrayal of her in Window Water Baby Moving (1958) that I decided to make a documentary about her for my graduate project." — Barbara Hammer 16mm film, Color/Sound

We move back and forth between scenes of a family at home and thoughts about the stars and creation. Children hold chickens while an adult clips their wings; we see a forest; a narrator talks about stars and light and eternity. A dog joins the hens and the family, while the narrator explains the heavens. We see a bee up close. The narrator suggests metaphors for heavenly bodies. Scenes fade into a black screen or dim purple; close-ups of family life may be blurry. The words about the heavens, such as "The stars are a flock of hummingbirds," contrast with images and sounds of real children.

This, the third of the Sexual Meditation Series, might also be seen as a triangular portrait of Julia and P. Adams Sitney and Jane Brakhage.

“1950년부터 영상 일기를 찍었어요. 언제나 볼렉스 카메라를 들고 다니며, 내가 만나게 되는 상황이나 친구, 뉴욕의 모습, 계절의 변화 등 즉각적인 현실에 반응하고자 했죠. 어떤 날에는 열 프레임, 어떤 날에는 10초, 또 어떤 날에는 10분 정도 촬영을 했습니다. 물론, 아무것도 찍지 않은 날도 있었어요. 일기를 쓸 때는 ‘회상’이라는 절차가 수반되는데, 보통 책상에 앉아서 그날 하루를 되돌아보며 일기를 써 내려가기 때문이죠. 한편 영상(카메라) 일기의 경우, 어떤 순간에 대한 즉각적인 반응을 포착할 수 있습니다. 특정 대상을 카메라에 제대로 담던 담지 못하는 것과 관계없이, 순간의 반응 자체를 카메라가 기록합니다. 어떤 상황에 다시 돌아가 촬영을 재개한다면, 그것은 재연된 영상이 되어버리죠. 이는 사건이나 감정이 수반될 수밖에 없습니다. 일어나는 일을 있는 그대로 포착하려면, 내가 사용하고 있는 도구(여기에서의 도구는 볼렉스 카메라를 말한다)에 대한 온전한 이해가 필수적입니다. 내가 반응을 보이는 현실뿐만 아니라 내가 반응함과 동시에 내 감정의 상태(와 모든 기억)까지 포착할 수 있어야 하기 때문이죠. 다시 말해, 카메라를 들고 촬영이 이루어지는 바로 그 장소에서 영상의 구조화(편집) 작업까지 끝낼 수 있어야 합니다. 월든에서 여러분이 만나는 모든 영상은 카메라에 담겨있는 영상과 동일합니다. 1964년부터 1968년까지 촬영한 영상을 순차적으로 연결한 것입니다. 사운드트랙의 경우, 목소리, 지하철 소리, 길거리 소음 등 촬영 당시 수집한 사운드에 쇼팽의 음악-난 로맨틱한 사람입니다-과 때때로 의미 있고 또 때때로 의미 없는 사운드를 섞어 제작하였습니다.”

A deconstruction of Dog Star Man that takes the four rolls and shows them first combined, then each combination of three rolls, then each combination of two rolls, then each individual roll. The plot is of a man who goes up a mountain with a dog to chop down a tree but has some unspecified transcendental experience while he is there.

A deconstruction of Dog Star Man that takes the four rolls and shows them first combined, then each combination of three rolls, then each combination of two rolls, then each individual roll. The plot is of a man who goes up a mountain with a dog to chop down a tree but has some unspecified transcendental experience while he is there.

Experimental film following a cycle of seasons as well as the stretch of a single day as a man and his dog slowly ascend a mountain.

A man is supine on a mountain side. Images rush past of nature and a stained glass saint. An infant is born. We see a lactating nipple. Images include a mountain peak, farm buildings, a tree stump, a fire, a crawling baby, and the sun. The man falls and rolls. Then, later, he swings his ax.

Sexual intimacy. Three kinds of images race past, superimposed on each other sometimes: two bodies, a man and a woman's, close up, nude - patches of skin, wisps of hair, glimpses of a face and genitalia; strips of celluloid with lines and squiggles scratched on them; and, close-up shots of what appear to be the insides of living bodies - a heart beating, muscle and sinew and tissue wet with fluids. The exterior and interior of desire.

SONG 1: Portrait of a lady (the Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969).

SONG 5: A childbirth song (the Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969).

From a murky landscape, a wooded mountain emerges. We watch the sun. We see a bearded man climbing up the mountain through the snow. He carries an ax, and he's accompanied by a dog. His labors continue. There is no soundtrack. Images rush past - water, trees, and surfaces too close up to distinguish. He struggles. A fire burns. Nature, in long shots and magnified, is formidable and silent. It's tough going; he carries on. In a capillary, blood flows.

A creation myth realized in light, patterns, images superimposed, rapid cutting, and silence. A black screen, then streaks of light, then an explosion of color and squiggles and happenstance. Next, images of small circles emerge then of the Sun. Images of our Earth appear, woods, a part of a body, a nude woman perhaps giving birth. Imagery evokes movement across time. Part of the Dog Star Man series of experimental films.

Birth footage of one of Brakhage's children.

On a winter's day, a woman stretches near a window then sits in a bathtub of water. She's happy. Her lover is nearby; there are close ups of her face, her pregnant belly, and his hands caressing her. She gives birth: we see the crowning of the baby's head, then the birth itself; we watch a pair of hands tie off and cut the umbilical cord. With the help of the attending hands, the mother expels the placenta. The infant, a baby girl, nurses. We return from time to time to the bath scene. By the end, dad's excited; mother and daughter rest.

We see a film negative of a nude couple embracing in bed. Then, back in regular black and white images, we see them alone and together, clothed, at home. It's night, she sees his reflection in the window, she closes the drapes. After sex, again in a black and white negative, they sit, smoke, have coffee. They kiss, she smiles. They light candles. The images are often quick, the camera angles occasionally are off kilter; the room is sometimes dark and sometimes lit, as if lit by the rotating of a searchlight. The images again appear in negative when they return to bed.

We see a film negative of a nude couple embracing in bed. Then, back in regular black and white images, we see them alone and together, clothed, at home. It's night, she sees his reflection in the window, she closes the drapes. After sex, again in a black and white negative, they sit, smoke, have coffee. They kiss, she smiles. They light candles. The images are often quick, the camera angles occasionally are off kilter; the room is sometimes dark and sometimes lit, as if lit by the rotating of a searchlight. The images again appear in negative when they return to bed.

Images of two women, two men, and a gray cat form a montage of rapid bits of movement. A woman is in a bedroom, another wears an apron: they work with their hands, occasionally looking up. A man enters a room, a woman smiles. He sits, another man sits and smokes. The cat stretches. There are close-ups of each. The light is dim; a filter accentuates red. A bare foot stands on a satin sheet. A woman disrobes. She pets the cat.