Brakhage

Starring:Jane Brakhage, Stan Brakhage, James Tenney, Jerry Aronson, Philip S. Solomon, Marilyn Brakhage
Director: Jim Shedden
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Alferd Packer was the only man in the United States ever convicted of cannibalism--what better hero for fellow Coloradan and future South Park creator Trey Parker to celebrate in music? Blue-eyed and boyish Parker was still in college when he wrote, directed, composed the songs for, and took the starring role as the innocent young Packer in this film, giving a gee- whiz performance as an ambitious pioneer who joins an ill-fated trek west that ends up stranded in the mountains. At times resembling a perverse community theater parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein ("My heart's as full as a baked po-ta-to!"), Parker bounces back and forth between cheery production numbers and goony songs ("Let's build a snowman," sings one starving-mad hiker) and grotesque gore (bloody body parts, festering sores, human hors d'oeuvres). It lacks in style and consistency and the juvenile gags and fart jokes wear thin over the course of a feature film, but Parker's sheer energy and inventiveness carry the overlong picture to a rousing conclusion. Regular Parker collaborators Matt Stone and Dian Bachar costar in this tuneful barbecue. --Sean Axmaker

Description

From the Makers of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, this is the musical that started it all! 3 Hours of bone chilling, flesh eating show-stopping hilarity! With vicious gore, laugh-inducing gags and rousing musical numbers such as "Snowman" and "Shpedoinkle Day," Cannibal! The Musical is the true story of the only person convicted of cannibalism in America - Alfred Packer. The sole survivor of an ill-fated trip to the Colorado Territory, while searching for gold and love, he and his companions lost their way and resorted to unthinkable horrors! Packer and his five wacky mining buddies sing and dance their ways into your heart...and then take a bite out of it! Cannibal! The Musical is Oklahoma meets Bloodsucking Freaks. Brought to you by the Troma Team and Trey Parker - the Rogers and Hammerstein of Horror!

Customer Reviews:

Trey Parker, South Park.......2007-06-27

Hilarious movie if you are a huge South Park fan and Trey Parker/Matt Stone fan like I am. this is the first movie they made after/or during college. It is an independent film so don't expect the highest quality. Very funny/ goofy movie, with Trey Parker and Matt Stone voices that are often heard on South Park episodes!

Cannable: The Musical.......2007-04-05

It has been over a month and I have YET to receive my movie!!!!!!!!!!!!

brilliant goofiness.......2006-10-30

For a film made by film students over their break in studies, this is brilliant. Low-budget effects, and editing notwithstanding, this film shows glimmers of the quick wit and cutting satire for which Matt & Trey are well known. Additionally, it highlights their predilection for a rousing good musical comedy. If you can get past the first scene, the movie is a hoot!

Let's be honest ..........2006-10-09

This is not a good film. I wanted to like it because I love South Park and I think that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are comedic geniuses. While it shows brief glimpses of some of their future brilliance, overall it's just not very funny. I think I laughed twice during the whole film. Watch it to see the South Park guys "before they were stars", but don't expect much.

Low Budget, great writing........2006-09-09

This is definatly a film that you need to enjoy, low budget B movies. the writing is great, you wont see all the jokes the first time. The commentary where the cast gets drunk while watching the movie and giving you inside tidbits is great too!

if you dont like Southpark, or other Trey and Matt movies, or low budget B movies... then this is not for you... if you like the two mentioned above.... youll love this DVD!!!

By Brakhage - Anthology - Criterion Collection

Average customer rating:

in perspective
Only 26 films? C'mon, Criterion, give us all 400....
If you like experimenting and you like Brakhage
Essential experimental films
Beyond superficial.

By Brakhage - Anthology - Criterion Collection
Starring: 2 Discs 26 Films , and Color & Black & White
Manufacturer: Criterion
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

Maya Deren: Experimental Films
Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 1
The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer
Unseen Cinema - Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941

ASIN: B000087EYF
Release Date: 2003-06-10

Amazon.com

While you go out to see most other kinds of movies, you must go inward to see the extraordinary avant-garde films of Stan Brakhage. Foremost among American experimental film artists, Brakhage influenced the evolution of the moving image for nearly 50 years (his impact is readily seen on MTV), and this meticulously prepared Criterion Collection anthology represents a virtual goldmine of Brakhage's finest, most challenging work. Challenging because--as observed by Brakhage film scholar Fred Camper in the accompanying booklet--these 26 carefully selected films require the viewer to be fully receptive to "the act of seeing with one's own eyes" (to quote the title of one film, consisting entirely of autopsy footage), which is to say, open to the perceptual and psychological responses that are provoked by Brakhage's non-narrative shorts, ranging here from nine seconds to 31 minutes in length. While "Dog Star Man" (1961-64) is regarded as Brakhage's masterpiece, what emerges from this superb collection is the creative coherence of Brakhage's total vision. Through multilayered textures (often painted or scratched directly on film) and infinite combinations of imagery and rhythmic cutting, these films (most of them soundless) represent the most daring and purely artistic fulfillment of Criterion's ongoing goal to preserve important films on DVD. --Jeff Shannon

Description

Working completely outside the mainstream, Stan Brakhage has made nearly 400 films over the past half century. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of "birth, sex, death, and the search for God," Brakhage has turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even actual autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were made without using a camera at all. Instead, Brakhage has pioneered the art of making images directly on film itself--starting with clear leader or exposed film, then drawing, painting, and scratching it by hand. Treating each frame as a miniature canvas, Brakhage can produce only a quarter- to a half-second of film a day, but his visionary style of image-making has changed everything from cartoons and television commercials to MTV music videos and the work of such mainstream moviemakers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, and Oliver Stone.

Criterion is proud to present 26 masterworks by Stan Brakhage in high-definition digital transfers made from newly minted film elements. For the first time on DVD, viewers will be able to look at Brakhage's meticulously crafted frames one by one.

Customer Reviews:

in perspective.......2006-06-18

well, i did not see this dvd, but i just saw the companion dvd documentary "brakhage" because that is all they had at the library. i have seen dogstar man and others in the past though, the 'brakhage' dvd does have many clips of his films but not full films. it does have some of the ones missing from this 'by brakhage' dvd, such as 'anticipation of the night' which i was looking forward to seeing based on the clip of it playing on a web page where it is for sale on video (re:voir). the clips on the companion dvd are maybe more spread out chronologically in his career.

i'm not a big brakhage fan yet. but i do have to say that, on seeing him talk in these documentaries, he is FAR less pretensious than i expected. his periodic analogy of 'seeing as a child sees', seeing color spectrums before knowing the finite colors of 'green', 'red' etc. and seeing the self-inflicted light spots that children induce by rubbing their eyes, is vital and interesting to me. also, it took me a long time to put my finger on it, but his physical voice is very similar to neil young's.

the companion dvd put brakhage in context a little bit when one critic described american 'psycho drama'. initially, the whole logic and manner of this critic immediately pissed me off as highly impure and un-authoritative (as did brakhage himself in another documentary when he said that our society is the most hostile toward art in the history of civilization). but when i heard them out and entertained their perspectives, it was meaningful. basically he compared brakhage to other american artists, and other american avant garde filmmakers in particular, who typically start out at a young age, with anxieties and tensions, and with their films/art perform a self-reflective and explorative confrontation with them selves. i didn't explain it sufficiently, but this idea draws attention to a certain 'damaged' quality of the artist. maybe he is a damaged soul. ...there is a rather disciplined primitivism and also a fearfulness and fragility in brakhage's films.

the 'brakhage' companion dvd also mentions his influence and precedent for later 'home movie avant gardists' such as george kuchar and jonas mekas, both of whome made films which are probably more palatable to those of the reviewers here who seem to want to be inspired by brakhage, but are just not convinced. i think a majority of jonas mekas's films actually are home movies, but they are very dynamic and insightful.

in my opinion there is a lack of clarity and little sign of sophisticated concepts or aesthetics in brakhage's films. however, this is consistent with his adamently innocent/natural practice. his unique sense of rythm is revered and i'm sure some of his admirers disagree with these last comments.

Only 26 films? C'mon, Criterion, give us all 400...........2006-04-22

This is a great set. I had never heard of Stan Brakhage before seeing these films. And what wonderful films. I especially like the hand painted ones (Lovesong is my favorite). You can freeze the film and look at each frame individually, and it is unbelievably beautiful. Dog Star Man is fabulous. It is a complex, multi-layered film that grows more strange and beautiful with each viewing. Other great films in this collection are Mothlight, Window Water Baby Moving (a film of the birth of one of Brakhage's children), Untitled (for Marilyn) and The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes. "Eyes" is the most diffcult of the films. It was part of Brakhage's "Pittsburgh" trilogy. It is composed of autopsy footage. It is not easy to watch, but there is something undeniably powerful and even spiritual is how Brakhage's films and what he films. In art, the feeling is most important. There is no criteria on what art is. If you feel it, it's art. That's really it. And these films are art. I feel them. Some have compared Brakhage's films to bad student films, which is grossly unfair. I have seen bad student films (and made a few myself), and these aren't. These are works of art. Brakage made roughly around 400 films, with running times ranging from 9 seconds (Eye Myth, included in this set), to 4 hours (The Art of Vision, not on this set). This is a good set to buy because you need to watch these films over and over again.

If you like experimenting and you like Brakhage.......2006-03-24

I heard someone say that Stan Brakhage was one of the most important people in the history of cinema---and if that is true, them so am I (Steve, that is me...an important figure in cinema just like Stan)
I like looking at Stan Brakhage stuff but it is way out there---not even close to anything that even looks at all normal or mainstream.
I went to a documentary about Brakhage at the Sundance Film Festival---the screening room was half empty----every single screening I have ever seen at Sundance in the last 15 years has been sold out----the Brakhage screening was half empty.
If the Sundance Film Festival can not fill a room to watch Stan you know it is out there.
O.K. that said--I love Stan Brakhage and the idea of Stan Brakhage.
I'm very very happy with "Brakhage-Anthology-Criterion Collection"---it is an important part of my film collection. I love to look at "Moth Light," "Garden of Earthly Delights" love the idea of "Dog Star Man," The best title ever--still can't get through that one. I love the interviews with Stan---a professor in Colorado at the time--again the most important experimental filmmaker ever had to teach college to pay the bills---did I say how much I love watching his hand painted films.This DVD is very important for anyone interested in experimental cinema.
The little book that comes with it is nice and the transfers are great.
Steve Olpin
Filmmaker

Essential experimental films.......2005-10-28

I rented this and watched it carefully over a period of days. Now I'm going to buy it from one place or another. It's one of the few DVDs I'd call essential, for me at least.
To answer the one-star reviewers who thought these films are just "pretentous," "boring," or "huh?," I have this to say. "Meh." If this isn't your type of thing at all, then who cares what you think? I won't bother to read your reviews of Xenakis CDs either. Go back to watching "An Officer and a Gentleman" or something.
One reviewer who had something intelligent to say was miffed at the lack of mid-period Brackage films. That's a good point. I didn't get much of a sense of what he was trying to do in the 70's. There's just two from that decade in the set and it's not enough.
But I disagree with this guy about the value of the later films, which do dominate the second disc. I think that they're all very different and intensely fascinating in different ways. I wouldn't recommend watching more than 5 or 6 in one sitting. But if you watch a few in a dark, completely silent setting (I like my noise-blocking headphones), I think you might find that these are some of the most interesting films you could hope to see. These aren't just random paintings on film strung together. There are specific patterns, colors, shapes and movements that dominate each film, as well as the underlying images on the film, all of which give a definite identity to each one. Looking at some of them a second time after a few days I found myself saying, "Oh yeah, that one!" That wouldn't happen if there wasn't some shape or character to the films.
Dog Star Man, the main item on disc 1, is a great film, and lots of people have thought so, for lots of reasons, for a long while. Not much more to say about that.
In the interviews and comments on the disc, Brakhage can sometimes come across as overly arty, referential, and yes, pretentious. But his films aren't at all. Because in the films Brakhage was putting his considerable talent, insight and energy into what he really knew how to do, making something he hadn't seen before, but wanted to see. That's just real explicative-deleted-by-Amazon art, folks.

Beyond superficial........2005-09-27

It's very easy to pan something as "pretentious" as a knee-jerk reaction to what isn't readily accessible. What amazon patron critics fail to recognize is Brakhage's lack of pretense. These films are not entertaining by any conventional definition. They weren't meant to be. What they are, often literally, is similar to paint on a canvas, only Brakhage painted his film. Most of the films are silent, many are difficult to watch due to the camera work, it's as if the viewer is a fly buzzing around a crazy party, but the films never lack any emotional depth. Some reviewers believe that there is some sort of "model" art film, that all art films are "supposed" to be like. What they again fail to take into account, is that once we believe art is "supposed" to do anything other than what it is doing, we can no longer recognize art. The problem with mainstream is that it demands mindless entertainment, and ignores the vast multitude of possibilities that Brakhage decided to explore. True, these films are not the best, but in their innovation and fearlessness, they rank higher than any of this year's oscar nominees.

Average customer rating:

the queen of avant garde film
A virtuous documentary on Maya Deren
Huh?
A Creative Woman's Sense of Biological Time
Since Nothing Was Written Here...

In the Mirror of Maya Deren
Starring: Graeme Ferguson , Chao Li Chi , Alexander Hammid , Maya Deren , and Amos Vogel
Director: Martina Kudlácek
Manufacturer: Zeitgeist Films
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

Maya Deren: Experimental Films
Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
Brakhage
By Brakhage - Anthology - Criterion Collection
Unseen Cinema - Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941

ASIN: B0002B55VG
Release Date: 2004-07-27

Description

Deemed "Fellini and Bergman wrapped in one gloriously possessed body," Maya Deren is arguably the most important and innovative avant-garde filmmaker in the history of American cinema. Using locations from the Hollywood hills to Haiti in the 1940s and '50s, Deren made such mesmerizing films as AT LAND, RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME, and her masterpiece, MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, which won a prestigious international experimental filmmaking prize at the 1947 Cannes Film Festival. Starting with excerpts from these films, IN THE MIRROR seamlessly and effectively interweaves archival footage and observances from acolytes and contemporaries such as Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas with an original score by experimental jazz legend John Zorn. Documentarian Martina Kudlácek has fashioned not only a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking and influential artist, but a pitch-perfect introduction to her strikingly beautiful and poetic body of work. This Edition features the extremely Maya Deren "fragments" WITCH'S CRADLE (1943), starring Marcel Duchamp, and ENSEMBLE FOR SOMNAMBULISTS (1951).

Customer Reviews:

the queen of avant garde film.......2007-05-25

this is an excellent span of maya's career with so many greats taking time to speak about her!the score by john zorn is just as amazing as the documentary itself(you can purchase it off zorn's tzadik website.)

A virtuous documentary on Maya Deren.......2005-12-04

Maya Deren's life has been turned into a legend since her early death in 1961. An ambitious four-volume `docu-biography' (after a decade of Deren's neglect) begun in the mid- 1970's by Catrina Neiman, Millicent Hodson, Francine Bailey and Ve Ve Clark, receiving the cryptic title: The Legend of Maya Deren . Anthology Film Archives and their now defunct periodical Film Culture backed the project. Up until today only two volumes have been released and the others still await publication funds. Based on interviews with Deren's colleagues, and documentary material from the Boston Archives, the final volumes were intended to treat Deren's work in Voudoun and to include testimonies from her colleagues after her death.

In the meantime, Martina Kudlácek has assembled the pieces of Deren's biography brilliantly, interviewing artists such as dancer Rita Christiana, the "bride" in Ritual in Transfigured Time , editor Miriam Arsham, Chao-Li Chi who performed in Meditation on Violence (1948) , choreographer Katherine Dunham who did field studies in Haiti on ritual dance and apprenticed Deren within her repertoire, and Jean-Léon Destiné who taught at Dunham's dance studios in New York. Her film rectifies discrepancies in previous personal testimony from contemporaries and creates a compelling and credible documentary in almost every sense. "In the Mirror of Maya Deren" demonstrates how Deren's immersion into the principles of Voudoun deepened her understanding of dance in reverence to deity and broadened her artistic repertoire. It moreover provides a holistic insight into the many aspects of her work.

For research on the documentary, Martina Kudlácek - as others before her - went to Boston, where Deren's papers are housed (Boston University Mugar Library Special Collections) and New York, where her films are stored (Anthology Film Archives). Several shots in the film show Kudlácek's lingering fingers on the primary source material in these archives to prove she was there. One day Martina saw an ad at Anthology Film Archives in New York for someone - preferably a filmmaker - to put the films of Maya Deren in order, some of which were still in Deren's coffee cans. Kudlácek was meticulous about the task. She even discovered a missing student film Deren had directed in Toronto in the 1950's: "Ensemble for Somnambulists" : the blueprint for "The Very Eye of Night".Also included in the DVD as extra material is this priceless film, and the incomplete film "Witch's Cradle" made with Marcel Duchamp at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of this Century Gallery in NYC in 1944.

Huh?.......2005-09-22

Just a note: I can't believe no one has yet reviewed her DVD collection of films. I can't believe this artist, once a key figure to any of us who devoted ourselves to the pre-hippie avant-garde of the US, seems to be fading in people's memories. I'll review it once I've seen the DVD and that should be soon.

Another figure from this period is the early electronic and music collage artist Tod Dockstader. His stuff is on CD and I particularly recommend the two discs from the Starkland label. This is not your usual electronica. I also recommend the indy flick "Carnival of Souls" to get a good sense of the American fringe zeitgeist of that time. Some of the classic original Twilight Zones also capture it.

I have to say it's kind of sad, a lot of cool stuff was created in this country during the postwar period up to the mid-sixties. Much of it had little to do with beatniks or hippies but their contributions (which I personally find over-rated but well-marketed) have kind of overshadowed some otherwise fine lost work.

A Creative Woman's Sense of Biological Time.......2004-11-12

Maya Deren is not greedy. She does not seek to possess the major portion of your days. She is content: "If on those rare occasions, whose truth can be stated only by poetry, you will perhaps recall an image, or even just the aura of one of my films."

Filmmaker Martina Kudlacek, with "In the Mirror of Maya Deren", has created the perfect companion documentary to the Mystic Fire Video DVD release of Maya's work: "Experimental Films". "In the Mirror of Maya Deren" weaves together excerpts from Ms. Deren's surreal films with archival audio recordings of Deren's voice and filmed interviews of her contemporaries: Alexander 'Sasha' Hammid, Katherine Dunham, Chao-Li Chi, Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage. It also features a haunting original score from Tzadik Records founder John Zorn.

This 103-minute work begins at Manhattan's Anthology Film Archives, where some lost containers of Maya's 16mm films have been uncovered. It then continues with the reminiscences of 'Sasha' Hammid, a pioneering Czech experimental filmmaker, who married Ms. Deren in the spring of 1943. Excerpts from and reflections on, "Meshes of the Afternoon", "At Land" and "Ritual in Transfigured Time" all lead into a discussion of Maya's 4 trips to Haiti. She spent 21 months there, between 1947 and 1955, documenting the religious festivals of the Haitian people.

Though much of the Haitian trip was recorded on film, the major fruit from this intense period of study was Maya's book: "Divine Horsemen, The Living Gods in Haiti", which was edited by Joseph Campbell and published in the year 1952. Also in 1952, Maya meets her second husband to be, Teiji Ito, son of the martial arts artist featured in Maya's 1948 film: "Meditation On Violence". They marry at sea in 1960, despite an 18-year age difference between them.

In 1961, Maya Deren dies as the result of a massive brain hemorrhage, at the age of 44. She will long be remembered for working completely outside of the commercial film industry, where she made her own inner experience to be the center of her cinema. "In the Mirror of Maya Deren" tells her uniquely dramatic story in a manner that both excites and perturbs. This compelling documentary should now be considered as essential viewing for all fans of avant-garde film.

Since Nothing Was Written Here..........2004-10-31

Since there were no reviews or explanations on this page I thought I'd just cut-and-paste some info from elsewhere...I will say that Maya Deren is a remarkable artist and I am surprised none of her DVDs or videos are on amazon...this was a good documentary that I caught at 3:00am on the Sundance channel.

IN THE MIRROR OF MAYA DEREN

directed by Martina Kudlacek

YEAR
2002

101 MINS, Color

Avant-garde filmmaker, feminist art icon, dancer and voodoo priestess, Maya Deren completed only seven short experimental films between 1943 and 1958, yet she changed cinema history. Czech documentarian Martina Kudlacek presents Deren's story, calling upon commentary from veterans of the early days of American independent cinema, fellow artists and critics, including Stan Brakhage, Amos Vogel, Jonas Mekas and Judith Malina. Also featured are audio recordings of Deren's lectures and rare clips from her unfinished film on Haiti. TV14 (AC, BN) Stereo

SCREENWRITER
Martina Kudlacek

CINEMATOGRAPHER
Wolfgang Lehner

EDITOR
Henry Hills

COMPOSER
John Zorn

CAST
Stan Brakhage
Maya Deren
Jonas Mekas

Average customer rating:

Exclente !!!
See, and See Inside
Filmmaking Inspired by Radical Rhythms and Abstraction

Brakhage
Starring: Marilyn Brakhage , Jane Brakhage , Stan Brakhage , Jerry Aronson , and Philip S. Solomon
Director: Jim Shedden
Manufacturer: Zeitgeist Films
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

In the Mirror of Maya Deren
By Brakhage - Anthology - Criterion Collection
Maya Deren: Experimental Films
Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
Unseen Cinema - Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941

ASIN: B0002B55WU
Release Date: 2004-07-27

Description

From 1952 until his death in 2003, Stan Brakhage created almost 400 films. Working completely outside of the mainstream, he consistently redefined cinematic art with such celebrated pieces as WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING (his first wife giving birth) and MOTHLIGHT (leaves and butterflies taped to celluloid), as well as a host of films hand-painted in shockingly brilliant color including DANTE'S QUARTET and BLACK ICE. Juxtaposing archival footage spanning 35 years, as well as rare film excerpts and vintage and contemporary interviews with Brakhage, his friends, family, colleagues and critics, BRAKHAGE is the perfect complement to the Criterion Collection's BY BRAKHAGE DVD. Executive produced by Ron Mann (GRASS, TWIST), Jim Shedden's stunning, bittersweet portrait explores the depth and breadth of Brakhage's genius and the exquisite splendor of his films.

Customer Reviews:

Exclente !!!.......2006-03-22

It was so great to watch the live and work of such a genius from the film history !!1
I'm so glad

Mauricio Valdes

See, and See Inside.......2006-01-10

To call Stan Brakhage's work an acquired taste is to rather underestimate the challenge, and to say that he was ahead of his time is to apply common language where uncommon language is needed. His films are still ahead of their time, they were outside time, they may well have not had a time, and this documentary is a timely introduction and overview of his life and art for a new generation. I watched it and then immediately purchased the expansive Criterion collection of his work, and any documentary that makes you want to immediately explore the subject further has done its job. This documentary does it job, quite admirably.

Filmmaking Inspired by Radical Rhythms and Abstraction.......2005-01-29

Throughout his entire career, Stan Brakhage has struggled to remain true to his personal vision of filmmaking. Jim Shedden has captured the details of this remarkable journey in his seventy-five minute documentary "Brakhage". It is the captivating story of a filmmaker who goes inward in order to find the existential meaning of his art.

The documentary weaves observations by film critic Bart Testa, filmmaker Phil Solomon and film historian P. Adams Sitney around both recent and historical interviews with Stan Brakhage and his family. It shows just enough of Brakhage's original film art to whet the appetite for the Criterion Collection's "By Brakhage" DVD set. Brakhage originally shot his early works in an economically demanding 16mm film format, but later, also worked extensively with the more frugal 8mm. He wanted to "live with his films" in order to be able to work with and contemplate them as an integral part of his domestic life.

There are two major arcs to Stan Brakhage's career. The first involves his years of marriage to Jane and the many autobiographical films that were made in the setting of their Colorado mountain home. The second body of work was generated after his second marriage to Marilyn. It involves the hand painting of clear film stock with colored markers and dyes. Many of these films, from both periods, are intended to be viewed in silence in order to help heighten the viewer's sense of sight.

The "Brakhage" documentary does, however, contain an audio score by James Tenney. Tenney is an experimental musician who has done pioneering computer audio research, with Max Mathews at Bell Labs, back in the early 1960's. In this film, Mr. Tenney's sparse sound work infuses an air of bittersweet mystery into both new and archival film footage.

For fans of avant-garde cinema, the experience of encountering "Brakhage" will be one of quiet inspiration, gentle surprise and welcome education. This is an important film to add to any personal library on contemporary art.

Average customer rating:

troublesome for a number of reasons
Wretched and reprehensible
Wow amazing how filmcrew can lead characters
Horrifying Home Movies

Vakvagany
Starring: James Ellroy , Stan Brakhage , Dr. Roy Menninger , Erno Locsei , and Atuska Locsei
Director: András Surányi , and Benjamin Meade
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ASIN: 4565260123
Release Date: 2003-05-01

Customer Reviews:

troublesome for a number of reasons.......2004-05-21

I cannot recommend this documentary, but I'm afraid that, like me, you'll find yourself drawn into it. Watching "Vakvagany" is sort of like rubber-necking when you drive by the scene of an accident; it's human nature to gawk at others' misfortunes. The scenario is truly intriguing: the directors comes across a family's often disconcerting home movies and attempt to track down the children in them. What they find are two badly damaged human beings who belong in a mental institution. We are left to decide if what we see in the home movies wrecked these people. Unfortunately, the directors enlist three "analysts," who spend far too much time trying to figure out the home movies and the children. They state the obvious, ramble, and over-intellectualize. Worst of all is the utter contempt the directors show for the now-adult children, going so far as to break into one's home. Even the music, some kind of neo-Hungarian cabaret, trivializes the daily struggles of Erno, the male child. Had the directors kept their vile attitudes out of the film, it would have been a solid documentary.

Wretched and reprehensible.......2003-12-06

I came across a reference to this film over a year ago on James Ellroy's website; the material sounded fascinating: 'found' home movies which seemed to depict questionable parenting, interpretative commentary provided by three respectable individuals, and follow-up footage of the surviving subjects. On finally viewing this work, I discovered some grainy black and white home movies which the most dramatically exaggerated interpretations could not make interesting, very awkwardly filmed contemporary footage (during which the repeated demands that the filmmakers turn their cameras off are ignored), long, long stretches of untranslated Hungarian, scenes of an obviously mentally disabled man being plied with alcohol to secure his cooperation and the subsequent public urination of said alcohol, and the breaking-and-entering of someone's home on the pretext of "assuring her welfare" and then refusing her repeated demands that they cease filming her and violating her privacy. In short, excruciating dull stretches punctuated by excruciatingly inhumane moments. I look forward to not seeing this movie ever again.

Wow amazing how filmcrew can lead characters.......2003-11-26

I'm hungarian and I understand the hungarian words in the movie. They were a terrible translations. The movie crew lead characters. It's amazing that this movie would ever be published / and shown on tv. I would have expected a much more from a "documentary". Facts instead of made up stories.

Horrifying Home Movies.......2003-05-19

Home movies filmed between 1948 and 1964, it is in grainy B&W. Opening images depict a Hungarian couple, recording one another. It is Europe just post-World War II. There are still buildings laying in ruins. Then it goes on to the couple: he films her and she then films him. Then eventually goes onto their offspring. And some scenes we would deem not appropriate for film. The film veers between the vintage home movies and the video commentary by expert witnesses. Some witness read perhaps too much into what is happening, and only one of them shows any common sense. The movie is underscored with haunting music during the B/W portions. The film maker did go to far, in breaking into the ladies home to film the last reel. While this film is disturbing to watch, it is recommened.