Stan Brakhage Movies

Heading through Colorado Territory in search of gold and women, Alferd Packer and his group of bemused companions find themselves lost, starving and...

At a morgue, forensic pathologists conduct autopsies of the corpses assigned.

A creation myth realized in light, patterns, images superimposed, rapid cutting, and silence. A black screen, then streaks of light, then an...

An epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s.

Seemingly at random, the wings and other bits of moths and insects move rapidly across the screen. Most are brown or sepia; up close, we can see...

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely...

On a winter's day, a woman stretches near a window then sits in a bathtub of water. She's happy. Her lover is nearby; there are close ups of her...

In this haunting but lyrical meditation on war, Brakhage intercuts 8-mm footage of Colorado with imagery from WWII newsreels. He responds to the...

Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.

This hand-painted, step-printed film begins with streaks of light and vibrantly colored forms. There appears, frame center, the tapered shape of a...

Experimental film following a cycle of seasons as well as the stretch of a single day as a man and his dog slowly ascend a mountain.

We move back and forth between scenes of a family at home and thoughts about the stars and creation. Children hold chickens while an adult clips...

After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid...

Part of Three Hand-Painted Films, Night Music (originally painted on IMAX) attempts to capture the beauty of sadness, as the eyes have it when closed...

Images of two women, two men, and a gray cat form a montage of rapid bits of movement. A woman is in a bedroom, another wears an apron: they work...

Inspired by a bad fall on a patch of black ice (that ultimately resulted in Brakhage's need for eye surgery), the filmmaker gives us something of a...

This is a hand-painted film which has been photographically step-printed to achieve various effects of brief fades and fluidity-of-motion, and makes...

A stand of birches. Sunlight brightens and dims, revealing more or less of the woods. A little grass is on the forest floor. Is there a shape in the...

Another of Brakhage’s works of “moving visual thinking,” Rage Net reminds one of the vibrant pioneering experiments of European...

A visual representation, in four parts, of one man's internalization of "The Divine Comedy." Hell is a series of multicolored brush strokes against a...