By Brakhage

A significant release, produced with all the meticulous attention to detail one expects from the folks at Criterion Collection, By Brakhage is also a set with limited widespread appeal (and prospective purchasers should be aware that it might well perplex or offend). Stan Brakhage, a professor at the University of Colorado who died this past March at age 70, was a prolific independent filmmaker, creating some 400 works over nearly five decades. Most are quite short, of course, but all are non-narrative, defiantly experimental, and absolutely idiosyncratic, sometimes consisting of frames of celluloid painted or scratched by hand and collages of multiple superimpositions (they also often feature images of an extremely graphic nature--including nudity, sexual activity, autopsies, and childbirth). The aim, as Brakhage explains in the interview excerpts included on the discs, was to invite a “new way of seeing”--to fashion a subjective viewing experience through what film scholar Fred Camper calls, in his adulatory introductory essay, “light-poems.” This collection includes 26 of them, ranging in length from nine seconds to 74 minutes, dating from 1954 to 2001. It represents a remarkable introduction to the work of an avant-garde filmmaker who may be compared both to Jackson Pollock and John Cage, notable figures who also struggled to find new modes of artistic expression in their respective media. Some consider Brakhage's films works of genius; others dismiss them as examples of appalling self-indulgence. In either case, you'll be haunted by the dazzling, often disturbing images--like it or not. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (F. Swietek)