Dog Star Man - Stan Brakhage

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Film Description

One of the key works of the American avant-garde in the 1960s. Consisting of a prelude and four parts, this is Brakhage's allegorical version of creation and his magnum opus. A formidable, layered and richly textured work that you can never get to the end of seeing.

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Review by David Parkinson on 2nd February 2004

In an age in which visual effects are invariably achieved by computers, it's staggering to consider the dedication and dexterity that went into the production of Stan Brakhage's exhilarating masterpiece, let alone the artistic vision that inspired it. Comprising a prelude and four parts (which represent the seasons), the film employs natural, cosmological, sexual and biological symbols to build up an increasingly complicated picture of humanity's place in the universe. The multi-layered superimpositions are fascinating, if disconcerting, but it's the hand-applied additions to the celluloid that made this so unique in 1964 and so compelling now.

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Review by James Clarke on 10th December 2003

Regarded as his magnum opus, Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man is an ecstatic, mesmerising, arresting seventy five minute immersion in the sun, the stars, the earth. A fascinating visual poem, the film is a silent piece that cascades with solar flares, bursts of colour, artificial light and vibrant scratches across film. It is as far from a linear narrative as you could get and as such is very liberating. Maybe this is the most real kind of film you could find.

Made between 1961 and 1964 Dog Star Man has not dated and its fractured form and dazzling range of textures feels very contemporary. A silent film, the images are without distraction. There is something of Walt Whitman’s exultant poetry in Brakhage’s movie rhymes and patterns.

The film is broken into a Prelude and four subsequent parts and visualises ideas of family and humans against the immensity of nature. The film is elemental with the images and structure as expansive as the skies and landscapes that unfold. Through it all an apocalyptic sheen prevails.

Dog Star Man is a very American film, with Brakhage depicting himself at parts as a woodsman and attempting to climb a mountain. The need to conquer the landscape and the natural world as a way of defining oneself is an especially American compulsion and Dogstar Man is a hymn to the overwhelming power of natural forces.
Brakhage produced the film in a longer, four hour iteration entitled The Art of Vision.

Throughout his career Brakhage produced a wealth of short film pieces. A leading figure on the American avant garde scene, Brakhage has had his work collected at numerous museums and universities worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York. He died in March 2003 in Victoria, British Columbia. Not long before his death, Brakhage simply said that through his work ‘I wanted to give them God.’

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Collections & Lists

This film is part of the following Film Collections

Experimental Animation

Including: A Scanner Darkly, Berthold Bartosch - L Idee, Dog Star Man - Stan Brakhage, Fluxus - Fluxfilm Anthology, Harry Smith - Early Abstractions, Len Lye - Rhythms, Norman McLaren - The Masters Edition, Oskar Fischinger - Volume 1, Oskar Fischinger - Volume 2, Phil Mulloy - Extreme Animation.

Re:Voir - Superb Art Films

Including: Barbara Hammer - Sanctus, Berthold Bartosch - L Idee, Bill Morrison - 8 Films, Boris Lehman - A La Recherche du Lieu de ma Naissance, Boris Lehman - Lecon De Vie, Cinema Dada, Divine Horsemen: Living Gods Of Haiti, Dog Star Man - Stan Brakhage, Experimental Films - Deren, Fluxus - Fluxfilm Anthology.

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