Brakhage on Film (1965) Arnold Gassan

Still photographer Arnold Gassan made this sensitive portrait of Stan Brakhage not long after the avant-garde icon completed his seminal DOG STAR MAN cycle. The film finds Brakhage mellowed but still busy in rural Colorado, working on films in an open family house. Brakhage holds forth on his particular conception of documentary, the ritualistic nature of Hollywood movies and the tyranny of Renaissance perspective. The film also shows the master at work, poring over images on a flatbed editor and taking to the woods to practice his camera movements. Devotees will be delighted at some of the details Gassan chose to preserve (including a camera tour of Brakhage’s bookshelf).