Features: DVD
Working completely outside the mainstream, Stan Brakhage has made nearly 400 films over the past half century. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” Brakhage has turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even actual autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were made without using a camera at all. Instead, Brakhage has pioneered the art of making images directly on film itself––starting with clear leader or exposed film, then drawing, painting, and scratching it by hand. Treating each frame as a miniature canvas, Brakhage can produce only a quarter- to a half-second of film a day, but his visionary style of image-making has changed everything from cartoons and television commercials to MTV music videos and the work of such mainstream moviemakers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, and Oliver Stone.
Criterion is proud to present 26 masterworks by Stan Brakhage in high-definition digital transfers made from newly minted film elements. For the first time on DVD, viewers will be able to look at Brakhage’s meticulously crafted frames one by one.
About the Transfer
The films in this collection were transferred from newly minted interpositives and fine-grain masters manufactured exclusively for this edition by Stan Brakhage’s lifelong collaborator John Newall of Western Cine in Denver, Colorado. For each film, the new elements were struck in the film gauge of the original printing negative. The high- definition transfers were made on a Spirit Datacine under the supervision of scholar Fred Camper, who was selected by Stan Brakhage to ensure the accuracy of the recorded images. Although most of the films have no soundtrack, the five sound films in this collection were mastered at 24-bit from 16mm optical soundtracks. No filtering, noise reduction, or other restoration tools have been applied to any of the picture or sound elements.
Editor's Note
Stan Brakhage revolutionized cinema while never having his films play in mainstream movie houses or multiplexes. The avant-garde artist rarely used any sort of narrative. His films, rather, contain imagery ranging from nature studies to child birth to simply scratches on film. His pioneering technique includes a painstaking process marking film by hand rather than shooting film with a camera, a method that rarely enables the filmmaker to produce more than a half-second of film per day. This collection includes 26 shorts from the legendary Brakhage including his most famous work, DOG STAR MAN (1961-1964). Other selections include DESISTFILM (1954), MOTHLIGHT (1963), THE ACT OF SEEING WITH ONE'S OWN EYES (1971), I...DREAMING (1988), and BLACK ICE (1994).
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