![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/77/96/00229677_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/77/96/00229677.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001)
2xDVD9 | ISO | NTSC 4:3 | Cover + Booklet | 243 mins | 7,27 Gb + 6,61 Gb
Audio: English AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitless: None | Color, Black and White
Genre: Art-house | The Criterion Collection #184
2xDVD9 | ISO | NTSC 4:3 | Cover + Booklet | 243 mins | 7,27 Gb + 6,61 Gb
Audio: English AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitless: None | Color, Black and White
Genre: Art-house | The Criterion Collection #184
Working completely outside the mainstream, the wildly prolific, visionary Stan Brakhage made more than 350 films over a half century. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” he has turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even 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, as he pioneered the art of making images directly on film, by drawing, painting, and scratching. Criterion is proud to present twenty-six masterworks by Stan Brakhage.
Disc One:
Desistfilm (6:43) — This crude 1954 black and white short is one of the few in this collection to attempt either a linear narrative or a soundtrack. For this fairly dull study of teenage ennui and hormonal sociopathy, Brakhage's visual style suggests a cameraman struck by epilepsy (perhaps induced by listening to the screeching, aggravating score). While the film itself has very little to offer, it's easy to see that Brakhage, from an early age, was either uninterested in or incapable of a traditional approach to filmmaking, and it also sets the standard for his tendency to belabor specific visuals or effects long after the viewer may have grown tired of it.
Wedlock House: An Intercourse (10:48) — A disjointed contemplation of marriage, Wedlock House is full of typically elusive imagery and cryptic suggestions, but offers little to hold onto. Some fairly graphic, if distorted, sexual content surely raised eyebrows in 1959, no doubt adding to Brakhage's cred as an artist.
Dog Star Man (74:48) — Brakhage's masterwork and most likely his only truly penetrating source of cachet as an influential filmmaker, this avant garde epic is also the most watchable of his films, despite being the longest (this assessment probably does not apply to his four-hour version of the same, not included in this collection). Told in five parts, Dog Star Man might have something to say about work, man, nature, sex, birth and life in general, but is more successful as an intoxicatingly psychedelic freak-out, the kind which would best be utilized as the backdrop for 75-minute-long improvised art rock jam session performed in front of a peyote convention. Nowhere else in this collection is Brakhage's skill at layering and juxtaposing images as apparent or as effective, and yet the auteur is so enamored of his uniquely arresting collection of images (including some stunning solar photography) that the project runs perhaps five times longer than necessary. Although it may be rejected as rank apocrypha by Brakhage purists (Brakhage insists that his films are best watched sans audio), we recommend that this silent epic is too obscure to watch without aural stimulation. Select 75 minutes of your trippiest faves, cue up, turn on, and drop out, man.
The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (31:50) — Perhaps the most straightforward of Brakhage's work here, a half-hour of real, color autopsy footage may be difficult to stomach for most. This is gruesome stuff and doesn't hold back on detail. A must for necrophiliacs.
Disc Two:
Cat's Cradle (6:26) — One of the least interesting pieces in the collection, Brakhage describes the short as "Sexual witchcraft involving two couples and a 'medium' cat," which oversells this sexless and impenetrable montage.
Window Water Baby Moving (12:13) — The most emotionally felt of Brakhage's short films, this affectionate and awe-filled mediation on pregnancy contains some moments of pure beauty despite its fascination with the more clinical details of childbirth. Interestingly, while Brakhage usually obscures the naked body with visual effects or superimpositions, he offers no such mask for the pregnant body, approaching it with a sense of delicacy rare to his work.
Mothlight (3:14) — A neat visual experiment. Brakhage made this film by pasting the wings (and sometimes bodies) of moths to his film, creating a high-speed, flickering entomology show. One of the benefits of this DVD set is the ability to step through this brief film frame-by-frame for a closer look at its unique craft.
Eye Myth (0:09) — Stan Brakhage gets it right (even if his description of this film sounds like prefab intellectual bullshit): take an intriguing visual concept, make it happen, and then let it end, naturally. At only nine seconds, this is the shortest film in the collection and, therefore, one of the best, as Brakhage never allows himself a chance to ruin it.
The Wold Shadow (2:28) — While this mixture of nature footage and painting foreshadows the reliance on painting for most of Brakhage's later work, the director's audio comments preceding this film offer more insight into his particular craft than any of his films. Inadvertently exposing the aura of pretentiousness attached to his career, he explains his process thus: "You think you're doing this, it turns out you're doing that and, really, but on the other hand, you were doing what you originally thought you were doing, except it's not at all what you thought you were doing." If this is true, and Brakhage's work is really (as it seems) unplanned execution of a creative aesthetic impulse, then all of the painstakingly unconvincing textual analyses by the artist himself and his admirers is betrayed as the mental masturbation it sounds like. Further, when asked if the obscurity of his symbolism is lost on audiences, Brakhage, a student of Freud, makes a telling admission already obvious to the cynic: "I don't need an audience at all."
Garden of Earthly Delights (1:27) — Similar to Mothlight, Garden uses vegetation glued to the film for its admirable effect, as is as well worthy of frame-by-frame enjoyment.
The Stars are Beautiful (18:32) — Brakhage breaks his silence by narrating this uninspired juxtaposition of footage of a chicken having its wings clipped and a series of creation myths invented by the director. If the tired and awkward narration is anything like Brakhage's poetry, it's no wonder he describes himself as "a frustrated poet;" it's dire, juvenile and his voice is sleep-inducing and this one seems to go on forever.
Kindering (2:52) — Although Brakhage's tendency toward silent movies may wear on viewers with antsy senses craving some aural interaction, 1987's Kindering is a prime example of why his work is often better off mute. This distorted footage of his grandchildren at play is accompanied by the obvious and sophomoric juxtaposition of discordant music and the sounds of childhood recreation. Odd that an "experimental" film would mimic a gimmick already employed by The Amityville Horror.
I… Dreaming (6:36) — Mainstream depictions of dream life often stumble upon the same pratfalls of pretentious symbolism that experimental films already deal with on a scene-by-scene basis. It's difficult, then, to imagine what about dream life could be particularly inspiring to an avant garde director like Brakhage. Nevertheless, this uninteresting montage does feature some of his better photography (though most of it is still, like the rest of his straightforward camera work, largely flat and undistinguished). Includes a soundtrack of disjointed Stephen Foster music.
The Dante Quartet (6:05) — The first of Brakhage's hand-painted films in this collection, Dante, like the others, features some standout frames, but plays like a superfast montage of abstract paintings, which gets a bit dull after 30 seconds. To be fair, however, the better moments in this four-part series come toward the end. Still.
Nightmusic (:32) — Another hand-painted film; this one is only two seconds too long.
Rage Net (:52) — More hand-painting.
Glaze of Cathexis (2:59) — More hand-painting; this time with an obscure Freudian pretext that fails to distinguish it from the others in this genre of Brakhage's oeuvre.
Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse (8:19) — Despite sporting the best title of all the films in this collection, it is saddled with this cumbersome description by Brakhage: "Four superimposed rolls of hand-painted and bi-packed television negative imagery are edited so as to approximate the hypnagogic process whereby the optic nerves resist grotesque infusions of luminescent light." Well, duh.
Untitled (For Marilyn) (10:34) — Brakhage describes this hand-painted film as "thanks and praise to God." Unless, that is, if God fell asleep during The Stars are Beautiful.
Black Ice (2:05) — Yet another hand-painted film with an explanation that fails to make it look any different from the others.
Study in Color and Black and White (1:37) — Nothing of the sort. Again, hand-painted.
Stellar (2:20) — One of the better hand-painted films, mostly due to its different visual approach.
Crack Glass Eulogy (6:06) — A break from the string of hand-painted films that precede it, but not as interesting visually with its dull manipulations of city photography.
The Dark Tower (2:21) — Grandiosely listed as "An homage to all the dark towers in literary history," there must be one or two dark towers unfairly left out of this severe hand-painted montage, amongst his more bracing work in this arena.
Commingled Containers (2:42) — A few photographic tricks with light and water played over and over and over again. It's Brakhage's lack of building rhythm in his editing that kills some of these shorter films.
Love Song (10:49) — "A hand painted visualization of sex in the mind's eye." Unlikely to give your mind's eye a boner, but some of the colors are nice; although not nice enough for 10 fricking minutes of yet another montage of abstract paintings. Brakhage is coasting.
Films are popular entertainment, big business, technological landmarks, social occurrences and more, but first and foremost, they are art. And the best art does more than just sit passively on a canvas and wait to be admired. It often encourages, if not forces, its audiences to see things in new and different ways. Modern art has tried to expand the consciousness and alter the perceptions of people since the end of the 19th century when Claude Monet first began turning realistic paintings into impressions of light and color.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/81/96/00229681_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
Not everyone appreciated Monet at the time…another common quality of good art is that it sometimes has to endure while waiting for society to catch up to it and learn to appreciate it. I don’t know if we’re at a point now where all of mankind is ready to give filmmaker Stan Brakhage his due, but I expect that with Criterion’s new carefully cultivated collection By Brakhage: An Anthology, the litmus paper has been put out.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/82/96/00229682_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
Brakhage began making films in the 1950s and continued on up into the new millennium. His body of work encompassed nearly 400 movies ranging from 9 seconds to 4 hours in length. His works deliberately defied conventional narrative, opting for experiments that pulled other forms of art into his pictures while challenging his viewers by constantly making them aware of the film itself rather than letting them slip into some kind of altered reality, and by using unconventional techniques to toy with optical perception.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/83/96/00229683_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
His influences seem to be Dada, Surrealism and Expressionism…Dada in particular. Think of the works of Marcel Duchamp who would paint a canvas and then glue objects and pieces to it, or jam something right through it. Likewise, Brakhage sometimes dabbed paint onto his actual strips of film. Or scratched them purposely so that the scratches on screen created bizarre and intriguing patterns of nothingness. In cases like “Mothlight” and “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, Brakhage forwent cameras and simply pasted bits of debris and other items directly onto the film!![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/84/96/00229684_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
Think also of how the Dada artists simply juxtaposed unusually arranged objects just to give viewers a different look. A “sculpture” I always remembered fondly was an empty upside down Coke bottle on a small piece of wood entitled “Love”. With film, Brakhage found an art form that allowed almost constant pressure on our perceptions. He might film simple objects in such close shots that you’re not sure what you’re looking at…it may be the surface of the moon, it might be the human skin. Sometimes, as in Dog Star Man, he would combine several photographic layers in a single stretch…up to four at a time…creating a collage of images that become no longer definable until what you see simply is what it is, with no descriptions needed or possible.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/85/96/00229685_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
But his works weren’t always of the playful tongue-in-cheek spirit of Dada. Some of his imagery was powerful and disturbing. In “Desistfilm”, a simple drunken revelry turns into something nightmarish as we get far too close to people who are no longer in control. Their smiling faces don’t reassure. Or in other cases, as with my favorite Brakhage film “Wedlock House: An Intercourse”, we can’t help but read more into what we see than what you’re actually shown. As a couple begins and ends by making love in photo negative images, they bookend a strange series of one-shots between them as the light and shadow plays senselessly across their faces. Is it confrontational? Argumentative? Maybe, maybe not. In some ways, Brakhage may have cultivated the most perfect form of Impressionism conceivable. This is one every film student should take a look at, because it demonstrates how you can make a film creative and visually interesting with minimal resources.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/86/96/00229686_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
Many of the works in this 26 film collection showcase Brakhage’s infatuation with painting on film. Two of my favorites were “Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse”, which was colorful and geometric, and “Black Ice”, which integrated paintings on glass with the camera moving toward them to give the viewer the sensation of falling through abstractions of color.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/87/96/00229687_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
Other grand experiments included Eisenstein-like montage in “Cat’s Cradle”, bizarre lens distortions in “Kindering”, an expression of damnation in “The Dante Quartet”, and an absolutely beautiful look at water in “Commingled Containers”. The final film in the collection, “Love Song”, was made in 2001 and is one of the most textured and complex of Brakhage’s painted works…it’s hard to watch it without feeling it is the work of a man considering his own mortality.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/88/96/00229688_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
But like most artists, Brakhage was interested in more than aesthetics. Themes that were intensely personal to him resonated throughout his works; most notably, birth and death. “Window Water Baby Moving” actually showcases the birth of his first child at home via natural childbirth…it’s both unusually beautiful and decidedly unsettling; this is no ordinary home movie made by a proud father. But the most disturbing of Brakhage’s work was a grisly exploration of death with a detached clinicism in “The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes”, which consisted of 30 minutes of actual autopsies on film. The occasional camera shaking is, I’m convinced, not an artistic choice, but rather the result of Brakhage’s own reaction to the horrifying work. This is no episode of Quincy…in fact, you have to choose to start the program yourself from what I believe to be Criterion’s only warning screen.![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/89/96/00229689_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]]()
It was a sad twist of fate that filmmaker Stan Brakhage, whose career spanned five decades and nearly 400 films, passed away while Criterion’s By Brakhage double disc anthology was completing production. But this set owes a lot to his enthusiasm and participation, and may turn out to be one of the most important offerings from The Criterion Collection as a well timed and loving tribute to the artist and his work.
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/81/96/00229681.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/82/96/00229682.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/83/96/00229683.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/84/96/00229684.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/85/96/00229685.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/86/96/00229686.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/87/96/00229687.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/88/96/00229688.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/89/96/00229689.jpeg)
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/8a/96/0022968a_medium.jpeg)
By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]
![By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (1954-2001) [The Criterion Collection #184] [ReUp]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/8a/96/0022968a.jpeg)
Special Features:
- New digital transfers of 26 films
- Video encounters with the filmmaker
- Reflections on selected films by Stan Brakhage
- Essay by Brakhage expert Fred Camper
All Credits goes to Original uploader.
No More Mirrors, Please.
928A04ED942DF69DF58FC64EBFB4456F *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part01.rar
5B4CE06DE94C832C9B3252E9F8967C66 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part02.rar
91E86B5F7AA2E3E8EF8E01D27050A04E *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part03.rar
B865175F0208BFE903E4DE6D3F37CB03 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part04.rar
188640B727F3BAED76EAF80986751536 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part05.rar
6CD55775101246CDE884F05767F0AA3A *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part06.rar
9961238FB19D22842C56BB9443FBA0F0 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part07.rar
7FF5FE9CF934384AD1FCD65285C0C9F2 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part08.rar
96A58CFAD3F58BD262DE3476E00BF20A *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part09.rar
E342B6C590353ADB2EF3B5AD09218E8C *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part10.rar
697120DA246DBED743B4FD6E8BAB3E8B *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part11.rar
40C90AA5984D6EE09612F251422924FF *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part12.rar
23E4F2741BF10104CF9868BF908DA4A8 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part13.rar
7F583CF032A8E0A867D136F5695982AA *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part14.rar
0C24E6F589D601D8D92538FBA394183B *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part15.rar
64FA57B20DEB9E16C393F04FD32C9C1C *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part16.rar
54E5DF628E1BB04A7686F2F33E4169D7 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part17.rar
F2B3755BDC460E65B1E2AD7F273F18CB *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part18.rar
10705C632CDE328B94BE53670574AE91 *Crit184.D1.avaxhome.ru.part19.rar
0DF16A734429EB7AB372F1C10C6AD372 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part01.rar
368EA0FED4DD562007B59B1093682F40 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part02.rar
6C9D279DFA278216A304E573B4E17FDC *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part03.rar
D76AA4699F44ED9102EBCBEF730DE29D *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part04.rar
8B2466D0977BF5C5B39DA76FAD0C1A8A *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part05.rar
45BC16D7572BA2B61F38574D9EB9E46D *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part06.rar
41BDFD7FF870F15963EDB010E413ECC0 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part07.rar
E6E3F3CF245AE0C1F06C89E640FAB7EB *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part08.rar
6E3B14B0E2DEFFA5D9E4FDF18B1A2054 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part09.rar
74142D066BDAAE2EA1B2E3B2F9434A89 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part10.rar
255E60D69F07342210FFDBB52477EF67 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part11.rar
82B31E84C4BB9809C95CBED57D0736B1 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part12.rar
F8DC0BB8B52591BBBF00E346BFBF5868 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part13.rar
733D3BC3303B59D073B52C053E2BAB8E *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part14.rar
1D26BA4B45D33D611DA9EDCAC2F7F47D *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part15.rar
3DAC04CB5750121B333B6A730B5221D5 *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part16.rar
55B3E78C6ECE22E818CFE679C575B3BA *Crit184.D2.avaxhome.ru.part17.rar