"Among the most influential figures of the American avant-garde, he is a technical innovator and outspoken social observer...His experimental films, mostly short, have often been concerned with the manipulation of light...Overcoming limitations of funds and resources, Brakhage poured out an astonishingly large number of long and short films in a wide range of themes and style. A poet with a camera, he consistently endowed his prolific output with a pathfinder's zeal and innovate personal vision."
"He took light as his great subject, and his interest in light itself was tied to his interest in recovering that which he acknowledged no adult could ever recover, the pre-linguistic seeing of children ("How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?" he famously asked), an interest which transmuted itself into a desire to free objects and light from structures based on language."
His work can be divided into two main phases. The first centered on psychodramas like Dog Star Man (1961-1964,see left) and the second on the direct manipulation of the celluloid.
Window, Water, Baby, Moving (1959) 12 min 16mm
Mothlight 1963
This film was made without a camera by placing leaves, blades of grass and insect parts, moth wings in particular, on a strip the same width as a 16mm film. Although these objects form a single surface or continuous organic texture, once printed on celluloid the projector divides or breaks this down into film frames. For Brakhage, such fragmentation acts as a metaphor for our determination to classify and subdivide nature and it's species.
The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981) 2.5 min 16mm
Rage Net (1988) 30 sec 16mm
The Dark Tower (1999)
The Great Tower is death. The play of light and colour, the strong attraction this is capable of exerting. Some lines by Byron provided the metaphor. A delicate work of post production in the optical printer, the fantastic glimmers that play a part in teh movie.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7956356648214765805&q=the+dark+tower%2B1999
Water for Maya (2000)
Diane
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