Stan Brakhage Movies

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.

An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's...

Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov traces the course of experimental film in America, taking the very personal point of view of someone who grew up...

This hand-painted, step-printed film begins with streaks of light and vibrantly colored forms. There appears, frame center, the tapered shape of a...

“Faust Part 2” reveals the modern Faust in a romantic interlude, an idyll (from the Greek idein, "to see"); also, a journey of the id. A...

This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and...

Two portraits in relation to each other, the first of Robert Creeley, the second of Michael McClure. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

Short B/W film about the textures of the human skin and household objects, showing Brakhage in the morning as reality distorts around him. Revised in...

Inspired in part by a dream he had of murdering his mother, Brakhage here gives us one of his profoundest meditations on human aggression.

First shown on January 30, 1967, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR was an open-call, collective statement from American independent filmmakers disparate in...

A woman and two men talking, seen one by one, in a montage of three movements that make up a fast-slow-fast cycle. The second movement is composed of...

In “Mr. Tompkins Learns the Facts of Life”, Mr. Tompkins learns about biology. In a wild and entertaining dream, his creator, author...

An epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s.

In this experimental short film, Kristian Day collected artwork created by the public. He found the majority of the pieces at "Sharpie marker...

This begins the fourth chapter of The Book of Film and entertains directly the considerations of chapter two (THE WEIR-FALCON SAGA, THE MACHINE OF...

Two short films, the first NOT about purity itself, whatever that might be, but rather an equivalent of the process of searching for purity in the...

The Extraordinary Child applies his developing style to broad slapstick. His friends from the previous films and the director himself play out a...

This hand-painted step-printed film begins with "explosions" of white, yellow, orange (deepening into reds), vermillion, and darker red flame shapes....

Multiple thrusts and then retractions of oranges, reds, blues, and the flickering, almost black, textural dissolves suggesting an amalgam approaching...

Dark, fast-paced symmetry in mixed weave of tones moving from oranges & yellows to blue-greens, then retreating (dissolves of zooming away) to both...