1976
1976
Jane Wodening and Stan Brakhage.
Jane Wodening and Stan Brakhage.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B990XC0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i4
1983
(Brakhage examines filmmaking in relation to social and pr...)
Brakhage examines filmmaking in relation to social and professional contexts, the nature of influence and collaboration, the aesthetics of personal experience, and the conditions under which various films were made. Brakhage discusses his predecessors and contemporaries, relates film to dance and poetry, and in A Moving Picture Giving and Taking Book provides a manual for the novice filmmaker. Lectures, interviews, essays, and manifestos document Brakhage's personal vision and public persona.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/092970164X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0
2000
James Stanley Brakhage was born on January 14, 1933 in Kansas City orphanage, Missouri, the United States as Robert Sanders. In a few weeks the boy was adopted by Ludwig and Clara Brakhage and received his new name. At the age of six, Stan's parents separated and the boy together with his mother moved to Denver, Colorado.
Stan Brakhage attended South High School in Denver. During that period he practiced singing as a boy soprano soloist and appeared in that role on radio, at a number of various events, sang in church choirs. Besides, he dreamed of being a poet.
After finishing high school, Stan enrolled at Dartmouth College with a scholarship. However, he studied there only one semester. Brakhage left college to start making films.
Stan Brakhage made his first film Interim at the age of 18 after dropping out of college. In 1954 he traveled to New York City and became involved in the avant-garde scene that was prospering there at the time. Unencumbered by any conventional ideas of filmmaking, Stan tried to produce films that separated visual experience from preconceptions and captured human emotion and thought.
Brakhage usually created movies without sound so as not to interfere with the visual images. Ranging anywhere from a few seconds to hours in length, these films were abstract creations experimenting with light, subject matter, superimposed images, abrupt editing.
The filmmaker's early works were based on Stanley's most intimate experiences. For instance, making love to his bride in Wedlock House: An Intercourse. In the 1960s, Brakhage's views were marked for their poetry. In another 10 years he was working on depicting social issues. Additionally in that period, Brakhage continued with autobiographical material. Brakhage was still making films only a few weeks before his death. Between 1956 and 1964 Stan Brakhage also worked on many commercial film projects, including television commercials and industrial films. When he did film people, he sometimes used members of his family or images of himself.
In the course of making nearly 400 films over the past 50 years, Stan Brakhage became synonymous with independent American filmmaking, particularly its avant-garde component. He has been listed as a noteworthy filmmaker and educator by Marquis Who's Who.
Martin Scorsese has used Brakhage's painted film style in the film Last Temptation of Christ
(Brakhage examines filmmaking in relation to social and pr...)
2000
Quotations:
"Stream of visual consciousness could be nothing less than the pathway of the soul."
"We have the notion that we exist but we have no way to prove it. 'I am' is the closest foundation we can get."
"Art is a sense of magic."
Stan Brakhage is described as an artist of prodigous energy and unflagging genius. When his was young he had wavy medium-length hair and a Walrus moustache.
Teaching art making at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Brakhage expressed skepticism about it saying that true art was not teachable. Nevertheless, he remained an enthusiastic and highly accomplished teacher, and his lectures and salons provided instrumental guidance for a generation of film artists.
Quotes from others about the person
The award statement, written by Jonas Mekas, a critic who would later become an influential experimental filmmaker in his own right, cited Brakhage for bringing to cinema "an intelligence and subtlety that is usually the province of the older arts."
Jonas Mekas, a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, in 1961 described Brakhage as "one of the four or five most authentic film artists working in cinema anywhere, and perhaps the most original filmmaker in America today."
In 1957 Stanley Brakhage married Mary Jane Collom (the future Jane Wodening). There were born five children in their family: Myrrena, Crystal, Neowyn, Bearthm, Rarc. In 1987 Stan and Mary Jane divorced.
In 1989 Brakhage married Marilyn Jull. They gave birth to two children: Anton and Vaughn.
Mary Jane is being featured in Brakhage's short film Window Water Baby Moving giving birth to their first child.
