Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) was a film poet, someone whose work burst with expressive creativity, a filmmaker rightly regarded as one of the most important in the history of cinema. I often go back to his films just to recall their freedom and intuition, and to come into contact with their sensuous richness one more time.
Born Robert Sanders, his adoptive parents changed his name to James Stanley Brakhage. He made almost four hundred avant-garde films (most of them hand-painted), wrote books, and was a distinguished professor of film studies at the University of Colorado. Brakhage was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1996 and underwent an apparently successful surgery. The disease was caused by the coal-tar dyes that he used to paint and it eventually returned to take his life.
Three posts with Brakhage’s words and some frames from Trilogy (1995) will follow. I thank in advance to Marilyn Brakhage and Fred Camper for their support and authorisation.
