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In Reply to: Stan Brakhage, 70, filmmaker who redefined the avant-garde posted by clarkjohnsen on March 12, 2003 at 08:16:01:
I thought he had beaten the cancer. Ahhhhhhh...this is sad news.Back in the 70's, I took Stan Brakhage's film history course for four semesters at the Art Institue of Chicago. Whatever one thinks of his films, Brakhage was a wonderful, inspiring teacher, whose classes were very popular and frequently audited by students from UofC and other universities. Brakhage required no term papers in these courses. He demanded only that students attend each class and stay for the entire lecture. (Which, of course, always included one or more films.) Show up and pay attention. That was it. In return, Brakhage tried to expand our perception and fan whatever sparks of creativity lay within.
I find it quite astonishing now that one of America's great filmmakers would fly into Chicago every week for 12 years to teach a *single* class. (In hindsight, I suppose Brakhage needed the money.) Yet there he would be, apparently eager and ready, if not rested, to face us each Monday morning. He showed every imaginable type of film his courses, from Charlie Chaplin to Kenneth Anger, and spoke easily and eloquently about them all. The Art Institute film library was vast, but occassionally, Brakhage would arrive with reels of something unusual for us to explore, either from his personal library or from another artist's collection. It was a film junkie's dream.
"Don't hide at the back of the auditorium" he'd chide us. "Come down and sit closer to the front, become involved in what you're seeing. Let the screen fill your field of vision!"
Brakhage urged us to think about film *as* "film": pieces of celluloid, which, when projected in front of a beam of light, produce texture and shadow...a medium whose surface could be directly manipulated...painted or drawn upon, marked, scratched, redefined. He opened our minds to expressive possiblities outside narrative: he revealed film as a portal into a state of mind or being. (An idea, in the early to mid seventies, that many of us were, ahem, eager to embrace.)
I remember well Brakhage talking about conventional, narrative films being like novels, whereas his own films were like poems. (An apt analogy.) We students saw a few of Brakhage's films in each semester, although he was rather reticent about tooting his own horn. I don't think he regarded his own work as specifically "avante garde" or something "outside" the canon, but simply as a very personal exploration and expression of his inner voice. He disliked anyone refering to his films as "abstract". They were very specifically "about" something to him. Non narratives yes, abstractions, no. Interestingly, George Balanchine, another personal hero of mine, said much the same of his ballets: he preferred to call them "plotless", and he bristled at the term "abstract" when used to describe to his dances.
Brakhage's films resided then (as now) in commercial oblivion. He seemed little perturbed by this state of affairs (at least to us), since the works were so clearly uncompromising, so obviously not intended for the marketplace. Yet, like any artist, he surely wished more people had access to his work. Although he was highly regarded in some circles, Brakhage must have been disappointed at his marginalisation by other critics and film scholars. The resultant difficulty in funding his projects must have been frustrating, especially while other, less gifted, talents were acclaimed.
Nevertheless, if Brakhage found lack of recognition discouraging or a cause for bitterness, we, his students, never heard about it from him.
What I remember best about Brakhage's classes is his unbounded enthusiasm for films and filmmakers. The man *loved* movies. He was an immensely knowledgable and insightful scholar of "traditional" filmmaking. Every lecture was a voyage of discovery, whether it was Keaton, Eisenstein, Dreyer, Lang, Goddard, or Hitchcock. And Brakhage was never derrogatory, dismissive, or condescending toward other filmmakers or genres, unlike many academics of the day. If he thought something was crap, you simply didn't see it in his classes. There was too much great stuff to explore to waste time on mediocrity.
Thanks for posting this excellent obituary. Stan Brakhage was a great teacher and an American original. He indelibly shaped the way I think about film, and changed the way I look at life and art. Although it will probably be of little interest to other inmates, I will be thrilled to get the Criterion Collection of his films. For the first time ever, Brakhage's life's work will be readily accessible. I hope this fact was a comfort to Stan and his family.
BTW, to this day, I never sit in the back of a movie theater. Ever.
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Follow Ups
- Stan Brakhage was my guide to a brave new world. (A Tribute)) - Harmonia 16:07:18 03/13/03 (0)
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