Mock Up On Mu

MOCK UP ON MU (Baldwin, 2008)

Other Cinema, DVD, Release Date Nov 23, 2010

Review by Christopher S. Long

(Here's the thing. I absolutely loved "Mock Up On Mu" when I first wrote about it back in 2010, but more than five years later, I re-read my review and can't help but wonder if I really got it right or was hallucinating part of the experience. That's one of the many joys of a Craig Baldwin movie. And now that I am hip deep in the middle of reading "Gravity's Rainbow" it's impossible for me not to conflate my memories of the Baldwin science-sex-occult film with Pynchon's science-sex-occult book and, well, that's kinda groovy. In any case, "Mock Up On Mu" is awesome and here's my take on it.)

In one of the hundreds (thousands?) of old film clips that comprise the bulk of “Mock Up on Mu” (2008), we see a skull peeled to expose a brain for experimentation by a B-movie mad scientist. It’s an apt metaphor for San Francisco-based director Craig Baldwin’s ongoing project. He plucks brief movie clips (often from low budget sci-fi/horror films or educational movies) from their original context and, through image and sound editing, creates new neural connections among these previously disparate elements, rejiggering them all into the plastic cortical maps that comprise his “collage-narrative” model of filmmaking.

In a Baldwin film, we can leap from a Flash Gordon serial to the crop plane in “North by Northwest,” to a Department of Energy promotional film, to Sal Mineo as Gene Krupa, and then to an audio clip from Las Vegas’s “Star Trek: The Experience” without ever being taken out of the narrative because they are the narrative. Newly filmed footage is integrated seamlessly (or not, it doesn't matter) with archival clips, and his contemporary actors freely switch places with classic Hollywood stars within a single scene, all of them “collaborating” across decades to form a single conglomerate character. Baldwin’s films are about osmosis: the past flows into the present (and vice-versa), science fact into science fiction, paranoia into politics (OK, these two aren’t exactly opposites.)

“Mock up on Mu” tells the curious story of a trio of three historical figures whose paths crossed in 1940s Southern California. Jack Parsons (played here by Kalman Spelletich) was a rocket scientist who helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and also became obsessed with the occult writings of Aleister Crowley. He saw no conflict in spending one part of his life designing sophisticated engines and the other part trying to summon goddesses in dark rituals. During his occult practices he met actress/writer/author Marjorie Cameron who became his Scarlet Woman, his wife, and later one of the matriarchs of the modern New Age movement. I don’t mention the actress who plays Cameron for reasons that will be made obvious in the film.

Parsons and Cameron may be unknown to you, but you certainly recognize the name of a third person their lives intersected with, science-fiction author turned religious founding father L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard, Parsons and Cameron immersed themselves in Crowley’s “sex magick” and their intertwining story gets too complicated to recount here, but not complicated enough for the purposes of the delightfully complicated Baldwin who layers his own original narrative on top of this more-or-less-true one.

The Year is 2019 and L. Ron Hubbard, still alive as he has been since he defeated Xenu and “seeded the world with science!”, has founded the Empire of Mu on the moon. It’s sort of a theme park, and L. Ron (as he is always referred to) needs to drum up more business so he sends the brainwashed Agent C (Michelle Silva) to seduce a military industrial stooge with the appropriate name of Lockheed Martin (Stoney Burke.) With Hubbard pulling the strings and literally twisting the dials in the background, Agent C also finds Jack Parsons who, unlike in real life, apparently didn’t die in an explosion. In fact, he secretly became Hollywood star Richard Carlson. Later they find Aleister Crowley in a cave. Then things get weird. The film, divided into a lucky thirteen parts, plays out like an adventure serial. It’s a shame it doesn’t come with its own decoder ring.

Hubbard, the Ming the Merciless-style evil mastermind of the film, is played by Damon Packard, a gifted filmmaker in his own right (his uncategorizable “Reflections of Evil” remains can be tracked down on a Tube of some kind if you can't find it on DVD.) Packard rants and gesticulates to great effect, and wears that cool Commander’s outfit better than L. Ron ever did. There is no synch sound in the film, so all voices are dubbed in later and Baldwin seldom tries to match dialogue with lip movement. Sometimes characters are heard speaking while their lips aren’t moving at all. It would seem to be a disorienting effect but in the fever-dream world of “Mock Up on Mu,” it just feels like the right stylistic choice for the material.

Baldwin certainly mocks (up) Hubbard’s crass exercise in myth-creation-as-capitalist-opportunism, but talk of Thetans and ancient warlords pales in comparison to the absurdity and the genuine horror of the “New Global Capital Regime” spearheaded by the likes of Lockheed Martin (the character, not the company, of course - the names are a total coincidence.) Science supporting the occult is deeply disturbing, but science used to design and manufacture weapons capable of destroying humanity a thousand times over is a genuine perversion. False prophets or fat profits. Take your pick as to which you find more grotesque.

Baldwin’s pastiche is powered by paranoia, but this mocked-up conspiracy theory isn’t meant to be sold as the truth - unless you think L. Ron has been hiding on the moon all these years working on the director’s cut of “Battlefield Earth.” The film’s alternate history is delivered tongue-in-cheek which is not to say Baldwin doesn’t have something serious to say about the horrors of the global military industrial complex and Hubbard’s corporate religion. He has a genuine fondness for his oddball historical figures, or at least for Parsons and Cameron whose histories get re-written with a Hollywood ending (sort of) which is only just considering how much Hollywood has unwittingly contributed to the making of “Mock Up.”

The film reminds me of a host of other material: “WR: Mysteries of the Organism,” George Alec Effinger’s “What Entropy Means to Me,” Feuillade’s “Les Vampires,” any random Guy Maddin film, and Infocom’s game “A Mind Forever Voyaging.” I make no claim that any of these sources served as inspiration for the film (except “WR” which must be a Baldwin favorite) but Baldwin’s cinema encourages the viewer to make these kinds of connections. Kenneth Anger is a more obvious source directly referenced in the movie (the real-life Cameron appeared in Anger’s Crowley-inspired “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.”)

“Mock Up on Mu” is a heady experience, an “ultimate trip” that packs in a hard-core lesson in film history along with its ingeniously deranged story of science, sex magick, and corporate crime. It has to be experienced (not just watched) to be understood. And even though Baldwin’s audiovisual bombardment can sometimes overwhelm the senses, the experience is a provocative, rewarding and thoroughly pleasure-filled one.

Video:

The DVD is presented in a full screen transfer. There are literally hundreds of different video sources used in the film, so there’s no way to evaluate the image quality in any traditional sense. Many of the film clips show deep scratches and wear and tear, but this doesn’t exactly detract from the experience of this time and genre hopping collage.

Audio:

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Stereo. No subtitles are offered which becomes a problem when you choose to listen to Baldwin’s commentary track but is otherwise not a significant drawback.

Extras:

The main Extra is a commentary track by Craig Baldwin, recorded from his basement while watching the film on his laptop. He identifies the source of many of the clips in the film which is helpful to those of us with obsessive minds, but he shies away from explaining his intentions too often which demonstrates some good old-fashioned horse sense.

A Behind-the-Scenes feature is really just a four minute clip of Damon Packard reading dialogue in his Hubbard Commander’s uniform. The DVD also includes a Trailer and Preview of the upcoming Other Cinema release of “The Damon Packard Collection.”

Final Thoughts:

Craig Baldwin was making mash-ups before YouTube made them ubiquitous. “Tribulation 99” (1992) was an eye-opener (or a mind expander, if you prefer) and his “Specters of the Spectrum” (1999) is, in my sometimes humble opinion, a hell of a great movie. I haven’t been fortunate enough to see “Sonic Outlaws” (1995) yet but, to borrow a phrase, I’ve heard good things.

His collage style may seem a bit more familiar now, but his films are still both idiosyncratic and radical. “Mock Up on Mu” is Baldwin’s first feature in nearly a decade and it is most definitely worth the wait. It has an organic, frenetic energy that few movies do.

“Mock Up on Mu” is distributed by Baldwin’s Other Cinema label.

The Revenant

THE REVENANT (Inarritu, 2015)

In Theaters

Review by Christopher S. Long

I did not like “The Revenant” much at all, but I find myself agreeing with some of the film's boosters. The film's alleged “thin plot” is a virtue, not a vice, and the same is true of its alleged lack of characterization. Its shortcomings lie elsewhere.

As supporters note, director/writer Alejandro G. Inarritu and co-screenwriter Mark L. Smith strive for a brand of “pure cinema,” a film that immerses the viewer fully in a palpable experience, all cold winds swirling and treacherous mud grabbing at your tattered boots, and the stripped-down treatment of narrative and character are essential to that pursuit. Nineteenth century frontier scout Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is almost killed by a bear, abandoned to die in the snowy woods by the duplicitous fur trader Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), and rises from his makeshift grave to seek revenge. Intricate subplots and so-called character development would only provide a distraction from this simplest of goal-oriented premises. Indeed, the script's most questionable aspect is the addition (from the novel by Michael Punke on which the film is “based in part”) of Glass's half-Pawnee son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), intended to flesh out Glass and provide audiences a hook to sympathize with the protagonist. Because apparently they wouldn't care about him almost being killed by a bear and then buried alive by a lowdown dirty coward.

The content is just fine, it's the style that undermines the quest for pure experience. An early battle sequence in which Native Americans attack a group of mud-crusted, ragtag fur traders is quite an attention-grabber. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and his crew send the camera pirouetting through the muck in a lengthy unbroken shot in which dozens of flawlessly choreographed bodies stumble into frame just in time to be stabbed, shot down by arrows, or to grapple futilely with the next foe who rotates into the shot at just the right time. It's the first of several impressive stunts, including a harrowing escape on horseback that ends with a cliff dive into the abyss, so intricately staged it's... Did I mention flawless? How about perfect? Immaculate? And therein lies part of the problem.

In interviews, Inarritu has spoken at length about the arduous shooting on remote locations in Alberta, Canada and in southern Argentina, playing up the logistical difficulties in an effort to situate his film alongside famously gonzo productions like Werner Herzog's “Fitzcarraldo” (1982) and Francis Ford Coppola's “Apocalypse Now” (1979). Inarritu's cast and crew have every reason to be proud of their battle with the elements; the problem is that they won the battle so decisively. Where “Fitzcarraldo” functions as a documentary of its own daredevil making, constantly threatening to collapse under the weight of its reckless lunacy, “The Revenant” bears witness to a production team that tamed the wilderness, that bent nature's fury to the needs of a carefully controlled shoot that prizes polish and precision over chaos. Can a scene that takes months to block out and rehearse really engender the sense of feral immediacy Inarritu is after? I guess the answer is that it could, but here it just feels blocked out and rehearsed. The film is often muddy, but never messy.

The cartoon bear doesn't help. One of the many drawbacks to increasingly photorealistic CGI is that filmmakers feel the need (or perhaps the market-driven obligation) to fully showcase their digital critters. No need to oblique or suggestive (i.e. creative) when you've got such awesome FX; you just go full ursine, baby. In the film's pivotal attack, the bear lumbers through the snow with her cubs, stomps poor Hugh Glass into the muck, thrashes him about repeatedly, then wanders off and returns for seconds, its very realistic fur rippling and saliva dripping from its big ol' cartoon bear tongue as it mashes its big ol' cartoon bear claws right on top of Leo's crunchable skull. It is yet another impeccably choreographed sequence which might make the viewer ask “Wow, how'd they do that?” but does precisely nothing to pull the viewer into the world, to immerse one in the experience of the moment. In a recent “Film Comment” interview, Inarittu notes how important it is for this scene to look like a documentary, to make you feel that “You are there. You are being attacked.” This groovy video game cutscene misses that mark by a mile.

The cartoon bear isn't a deal-breaker, but merely another symptom of the underlying weakness. The self-conscious, stunt-oriented shooting style and the handful of heavy CGI scenes (a digital bison herd is another groaner) contribute to the weightless feel of “The Revenant.” Even as a very game and committed DiCaprio grunts and drags his broken body through the blood-stained snow, the film lacks anything resembling a visceral quality – you can all but hear “OK, Leo, action!” at the start of some shots. The much-publicized struggles on hostile locations have produced a film that, aside from some gorgeous nature panoramas, feels for all the world like it could have been shot in a studio. Calling it phony might be unfair, but authentic it sure ain't.

I wish to heck “The Revenant” really was “pure cinema” or an immersive experience as its fans claim. I'd have loved that movie. I am desperate for a film that really makes you feel like “you are there.” Instead, it makes you feel like you are in a very comfortable seat watching a very comfortable movie, and I guess that would be kind of OK if only that stupid bear scene was half as convincing as this nonpareil bear attack from an overlooked masterpiece:

Larisa Shepitko: Eclipse Series 11

LARISA SHEPITKO: "WINGS" (1966) and "THE ASCENT" (1977)

Eclipse Series from Criterion, DVD, Release Date Aug 12, 2008

Review by Christopher S. Long

(As Snowmageddon approaches the Northeast, I started thinking about the snowiest films of all-time. Hey, sometimes I go for the obvious. When I think of snow in movies, I always think of “The Shining” but then I had a vivid memory of the battle sequence, described below, in Larisa Shepitko's “The Ascent.” Thanks in part to this Eclipse release, Shepitko's films may be a bit better known today than they were back in 2008, but it's safe to say she still remains criminally underseen by many viewers.

On the off-chance you don't have time to watch “The Ascent” while riding out the storm this weekend, make sure to put it on your list to check out soon. And, oh yeah, “Wings” isn't bad either. Isn't the Eclipse Series groovy?)

You may not have heard of Larisa Shepitko. Though she was a contemporary of Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Parajanov, among others, her films have rarely played outside of the Soviet Union. In part, this is due to the fact that she died in a car accident at the age of 41 with only four feature films to her name as well as a few shorts and a television comedy. Filmmakers like Shepitko exist internationally only in the form of retrospectives at repertory theaters, and it is difficult to make a retrospective out of four films.

“Wings” (1966, 85 min., not to be confused with the silent American film that won the first Best Picture award) is her first post-graduate feature, and it is a marvelously astute character study. Nadezhda Petrukhina (Maya Bulgakova) was an ace jet pilot during the war but as she reaches her forties she struggles to find a sense of purpose in life. She believes strongly in her obligation to serve her country and fellow citizens, but she finds her job as a schoolteacher unsatisfying. It’s not that she isn’t devoted to her charges; she’s so passionate and dedicated that she steps in at the last minute to play a Viatka doll in a stage play. But like an ex-athlete who struggles to adjust to life out of the limelight, Nadezhda can’t make the transition from war to peacetime. What’s the use of being a war hero if you’re a forgotten war hero?

She spends much of the film wandering around town, catching up with old friends or spending time with her daughter Tanya (Zhanna Bolotva) who no longer has time for her. This is yet another challenge for the ex-pilot, adjusting from an identity as a mother to an empty-nester. Her daughter no longer needs her, her military skills are no longer in demand, and she is a single woman approaching middle age. She has slipped through the cracks of Soviet society and tries desperately to gain some purchase on solid ground whether through work or possibly even marriage.

None of the choices are as appealing to her as lingering in the past. In the film’s most lyrical scenes, Nadezhda thinks back to her time in the air. From her pilot’s point of view we see the wide open sky stretching out to the vanishing point, the sort of sublime imagery that Werner Herzog has made a career out of. But as the Stones once sang “Yesterday don’t matter if it’s gone.”

Bulgakova, then only 33, inhabits the role of the restless ex-soldier with an understated ease that generates tremendous empathy without histrionics or even an Oscar-worthy crying jag. Nadezhda is a bundle of insecurity who can hide her anxiety in comfortable settings, but roars like a bull in a china shop when on unfamiliar ground. For a war hero, she’s quite vulnerable and Bulgakova isn’t afraid to risk embarrassment in a few scenes, particularly when Nadezhda finally meets Tonya’s husband.

“The Ascent” (1977, 109 min.) was Shepitko’s final film. Made a decade later, it displays the same unhurried pace and lyrical tone of “Wings” but in the service of more visceral subject matter. Adapted from a novel by Vasil Bykov, the film follows two Byelorussian soldiers on a doomed mission to find help for their beleaguered unit as they try to evade the occupying Nazi force. Cursed from the outset, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) come to terms with their fate in very different ways.

The first half of “The Ascent” is nothing short of brilliant, both as a war film and as a snow film. The snow is everywhere, not just in the trees and on the ground and on the lakes and falling from the sky, but in the soldier’s clothing, encrusting their faces, infiltrating their lungs as they struggle for raspy painful breaths. The list of films in which snow has been employed to equal or greater effect is a short one: “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” “The Shining” and...? 

In an amazing sequence that proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Shepitko was a virtuoso filmmaker, the two soldiers stand off against a company of Nazis. The enemy is barely visible through the driving snow. Sotnikov, shot and barely able to move, fires into the whiteness. Has he hit somebody? There’s no way to tell. For a moment it appears to be over, but then a return volley rings out. He fires again at a barely visible silhouette, ready to die rather than be captured by the Huns. Rybak, not nearly as eager to achieve martyrdom, begins to flee through the woods but returns to drag his crippled friend away from the fight.

There are other inspired moments in the film, particularly a scene when the soldiers hideout in a farmhouse, a cliché of “soldier on the run” films that Shepitko stands right on its hand, or perhaps she simply brings a more pragmatic, less gung-ho American perspective to the material. Unfortunately, the second half of the movie doesn’t quite match up to the inspired brilliance of the first. Not that it’s bad, but the film begins to feel rather predictable and overly familiar in its later stages. Tragedy has been inevitable from the start, but it unfolds in a mechanical and self-conscious manner that leeches it of some of its potency. Regardless, “The Ascent” is a success by any standard, and netted Shepitko the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival.

Both films are splendid examples of a gifted filmmaker whose work has fallen unfairly into obscurity. The same fate has befallen hundreds of directors, of course, but it seems particularly unjust considering Shepitko’s tragic demise, leaving so few films behind and so much promise unfulfilled.

Video:

Both films are presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and both were filmed n in black and white. Both transfers are picture-boxed meaning some viewers will see black bars on the left and right of the screen. These aren’t fully restored transfers like the regular Criterion line. The whole point of the Eclipse series is simply to get as many lesser-seen films out on the market as possible, quickly and in an affordable format. “Wings” shows its share of wear and tear, but is still more than presentable. “The Ascent” actually looks quite strong for an unrestored transfer, and I have no substantive complaints about it. Black-and-white contrast on “The Ascent” is particularly sharp which is a good thing considering how washed-out some of the snowy scenes might have looked otherwise.

Audio:

The films are presented in Dolby Digital Mono. Optional English subtitles support the Russian audio.

Extras:

Like all Eclipse releases from Criterion, there are no extras although the inside sleeve of each DVD features very informative essay about Shepitko and each film.

Each DVD is stores in its own keep case. The two keep cases are housed in a slim cardboard slip cover.

Final Thoughts:

Both “Wings” and “The Ascent” achieve greatness at times, and even their weak points are stronger than most films. Larisa Shepitko’s films deserve to be seen by a wider audience, and this set from Eclipse provides Region 1 viewers the opportunity to see her best work. I love the Eclipse series. What a great idea and a great service to the cinephile community.

By Brakhage: An Anthology

BY BRAKHAGE: AN ANTHOLOGY (Stan Brakhage)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date May 5, 2010

Review by Christopher S. Long

(Stan Brakhage was born on Jan 14, 1933. To celebrate the anniversary of his birth, I'm posting a revised version of my 2010 review of Criterion's sprawling two-volume "By Brakhage" release. I've been wathing Stan Brakhage films for about 15 years now and my feelings about his work change constantly. Which is why I keep watching them.)

Stan Brakhage’s hermetic lifelong cinematic mission has always been tinged with a mystical aura, sometimes to its detriment. Brakhage encouraged this impression at times by speaking of a Muse in literal terms, claiming to serve as a conduit to a force that “gave” him his films. For those of us grounded in an empirical worldview, this talk of revelation inspires skepticism, to say the least.

I don’t know whether or not Brakhage (who died in 2003 at age 70) really believed he was inhabited by a spirit or was simply aligning himself with the transcendentalists, but the Gnostic proclamations that surround Brakhage threaten to obscure the intensely physical nature of his work. Few directors were so intimately connected to the process and material of cinema. While even the smallest-budgeted feature films required something known as a “crew” who divvied the filmmaking process into different departments, Brakhage simply picked up his camera (16 mm at first, later 8 mm and super-8) and shot where and when he wanted to, not always alone (he took pains to thank his collaborators) but always on his own terms. He would frequently press his camera so close to his subject, nearly plunging the lens into the water while filming its surface for example, that he called to mind Groucho Marx’s famous line: “If I hold you any closer, I’ll be in back of you.”

And when even the interpolation of the camera lens prevented him from getting close enough, he set it aside and began painting directly onto celluloid, scraping away obsessively at the film strip itself. In the case of “Mothlight” (1963), he pasted blades of grass and moth wings directly onto strips of perforated tape. At times eschewing the use of actors and even the camera, Brakhage’s work proved that there was nothing essential to the definition of cinema except for the act of seeing and if there is any unifying factor in his prodigious and diverse body of work (the 689 minutes of work included in this 2-volume set from Criterion barely scratches the surface, pun intended) it’s the emphasis on vision.

Brakhage’s films share the same sense of purpose as the earliest actualities which celebrated the power of film to enable viewers to see moving images which were an attraction (to use Tom Gunning’s term) unto themselves rather than tools to convey a narrative. As with these actualities, most of Brakhage’s films were made without sound because he found it a distraction from the purity of the image and the viewer’s ability to perceive it. But unlike the early cinema of attractions, many of Brakhage’s films (at least those that were actually photographed) are heavily edited with some shots lasting no more than a few frames, his handheld camera moves freely intended, in some cases, to imitate the physical act of vision, the way that our eyes scan an object in a manner not much like the smooth pans and tilts of classical cinema.

In this respect, Brakhage’s movies, worshipped by his cult followers, feature some of the elements often derided as “MTV style” or, more recently, “ADHD style” filmmaking. I admit to finding some of his work frustrating for this very reason. The instant a beautiful image sparks into vision, it is gone, or at least distorted, which, to my sensibility, doesn’t always facilitate the “act of seeing” or the kind of contemplative mood that his work induces for many viewers.

But what his films do accomplish for me, and what I believe was one of his primary goals, is to encourage, no make that “require,” a whole new way of seeing, a naïve one like that of the imprisoned man-child in Werner Herzog’s “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser” (1974) who literally sees the world for the first time and can only process it in bits and pieces, unsure which aspects to emphasize over others or what the “proper” perspective should be. It’s a pre-linguistic form of seeing, one not filtered by labels and acculturated filters; in other words, pure. This is most aptly manifested in one of Brakhage's central works, “Scenes from Under Childhood” (a four-part film, only the first section of which is presented in this collection) in which he imagines first what a fetus might see or hear, and later tries to see the world through a baby’s eyes. What do colors look like when you don’t know what a color is? Does the infant see everything from a flat, objective perspective where all elements in the field of vision are given equal emphasis? 

As you can imagine, Brakhage’s film are difficult to digest in a single viewing which means that home audiences are afforded an opportunity that prior audiences, watching his films projected in campus auditoriums or at repertory theaters, seldom had. The short length of much of his work (some only a few seconds long, many in the 3-10 minute range) also facilitates multiple viewings of these richly textured films. At 689 minutes and spanning approximately fifty years, the set is not intended to be taken in at a single viewing or even over just a few days but to be gradually processed over time, and then revisited years later.

Recognizing this, the producers of Volume Two of “by Brakhage” (Brakhage’s second wife Marilyn being one of the primary shapers of the collection) have organized the films into six separate programs, loosely organized by chronology though there is plenty of overlap: Program Two, for instance, covers 1967-1976 while Program 3 doubles back to cover 1972-1982. The flexibility of the Blu-ray enables viewers to choose their own path through Brakhage’s maze, and the films can be watched simply by timeline (everything on each disc packed into one “program”) or individually. Volume One, previously released by Criterion in 2003, is not organized by program and was also roughly organized in chronological order.

The Blu-Ray collection consists of three discs, one for Volume One, two for Volume Two. The films included are:

VOLUME ONE

DESISTFILM
1954 • 6 minutes, 48 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
WEDLOCK HOUSE: AN INTERCOURSE
1959 • 10 minutes, 47 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
DOG STAR MAN
1961–64 • 74 minutes, 34 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
THE ACT OF SEEING WITH ONE’S OWN EYES
1971 • 31 minutes, 50 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
CAT’S CRADLE
1959 • 6 minutes, 16 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING
1959 • 12 minutes, 11 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
MOTHLIGHT
1963 • 3 minutes, 13 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
EYE MYTH
1967 • 9 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
THE WOLD-SHADOW
1972 • 2 minutes, 24 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
1981 • 1 minute, 43 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
THE STARS ARE BEAUTIFUL
1974 • 18 minutes, 27 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
KINDERING
1987 • 2 minutes, 51 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
I . . . DREAMING
1988 • 6 minutes, 35 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
THE DANTE QUARTET
1987 • 6 minutes, 3 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
NIGHT MUSIC
1986 • 30 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
RAGE NET
1988 • 35 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
GLAZE OF CATHEXIS
1990 • 35 seconds • 35 mm • Silent
DELICACIES OF MOLTEN HORROR SYNAPSE
1990 • 8 minutes, 16 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
UNTITLED (FOR MARILYN)
1992 • 10 minutes, 27 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
BLACK ICE
1994 • 1 minute, 49 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
STUDY IN COLOR AND BLACK AND WHITE
1993 • 1 minute, 35 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
STELLAR
1993 • 2 minutes, 19 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
CRACK GLASS EULOGY
1991 • 6 minutes, 6 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
THE DARK TOWER
1999 • 2 minutes, 19 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
COMMINGLED CONTAINERS
1996 • 2 minutes, 42 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
LOVESONG
2001 • 10 minutes, 48 seconds • 16 mm • Silent

VOLUME TWO

DISC ONE

Program 1: 1955–67
THE WONDER RING
1955 • 5 minutes, 34 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
THE DEAD
1960 • 10 minutes, 21 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
TWO: CREELEY/MCCLURE
1965 • 3 minutes, 11 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
23RD PSALM BRANCH
1967 • 63 minutes, 47 seconds • 8 mm • Silent

Program 2: 1967–76
SCENES FROM UNDER CHILDHOOD, SECTION ONE
1967 • 23 minutes, 46 seconds • 16 mm • Silent/Monaural
THE MACHINE OF EDEN
1970 • 10 minutes, 45 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
STAR GARDEN
1974 • 20 minutes, 58 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
DESERT
1976 • 10 minutes, 7 seconds • Super 8 mm • Silent

Program 3: 1972–82
THE PROCESS
1972 • 8 minutes, 1 second • 16 mm • Silent
BURIAL PATH
1978 • 8 minutes, 2 seconds • Super 8 mm • Silent
DUPLICITY III
1980 • 22 minutes, 18 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
THE DOMAIN OF THE MOMENT
1977 • 14 minutes, 33 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
MURDER PSALM
1980 • 16 minutes, 24 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
ARABIC 12
1982 • 17 minutes, 1 second • Super 8 mm • Silent

DISC TWO

Program 4: 1989–90
VISIONS IN MEDITATION #1
1989 • 16 minutes, 19 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
VISIONS IN MEDITATION #2 (MESA VERDE)
1989 • 16 minutes, 9 seconds •16 mm • Silent
VISIONS IN MEDITATION #3 (PLATO’S CAVE)
1990 • 16 minutes, 36 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
VISIONS IN MEDITATION #4 (D. H. LAWRENCE)
1990 • 17 minutes, 41 seconds • 16 mm • Silent

Program 5: 1982, 1992, 1994
UNCONSCIOUS LONDON STRATA
1982 • 22 minutes, 15 seconds • Super 8 mm • Silent
BOULDER BLUES AND PEARLS AND . . .
1992 • 22 minutes, 24 seconds • 16 mm • Monaural
THE MAMMALS OF VICTORIA
1994 • 34 minutes, 9 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
FROM: FIRST HYMN TO THE NIGHT—NOVALIS
1994 • 2 minutes, 52 seconds • 16 mm • Silent

Program 6: 1995-2003
I TAKE THESE TRUTHS
1995 • 17 minutes, 44 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
THE CAT OF THE WORM’S GREEN REALM
1997 • 14 minutes, 10 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
YGGDRASILL: WHOSE ROOTS ARE STARS IN THE HUMAN MIND
1997 • 16 minutes, 58 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
“. . .” REEL FIVE
1998 • 14 minutes, 6 seconds • 16 mm • Stereo
PERSIAN SERIES 1–3
1999 • Total run time: 5 minutes, 54 seconds • 16 mm • Silent
CHINESE SERIES
2003 • 2 minutes, 18 seconds • 35 mm • Silent

Video:

When Criterion released “By Brakhage, Vol. 1” in 2003, there was a question as to the wisdom of transferring Brakhage’s medium-specific work into a digital format. It was a move that he initially resisted but embraced for the first DVD release which came just a few months after his death. Transferring this 8 mm and 16 mm work (as well as the “direct” films that were made without a camera) into high-def may raise another set of questions, but the process was approved by Marilyn Brakhage and Criterion has certainly taken any ethical and aesthetic concerns under consideration in producing this package.

Brakhage’s diverse production methods created a unique set of challenges in repackaging his work and I will let Mark Toscano, who writes a short essay in the insert booklet, sum them up: “Unlike with most digital mastering of films for high-quality home release, the goal of this project was not to ‘beautify’ the works by digitally tidying up their flaws. Brakhage’s films are not about surface perfection or cleanliness, and aesthetically they have very little to do with conventional cinema. In fact, no cleanup or image processing of any kind was performed. The most appropriate elements were chosen, and color correction was done in close consultation with representative film prints.”

Audio:

Most of Brakhage’s films are silent. The nine films with sound are presented in Dolby Digital Mono that was “mastered at 24-bit from 16 mm optical and original full-coat magnetic tracks.” In the case of “Scenes Under Childhood, Section One” the film is presented with its original soundtrack as an option though Brakhage later preferred to screen the film, like the rest of the “Childhood” series, without sound.

Extras:

The Volume One Blu-Ray is identical to the Volume One SD released in 2003. The only extras are four “Brakhage on Brakhage” interviews in which the director discusses his work, each clocking in at nine minutes.

Volume Two, Disc One includes three brief excerpts from the director’s salons. Brakhage held regular Sunday salon meetings at the University of Colorado at Boulder in which he would screen his work (sometimes for the first time) and lead a discussion. The three excerpts here run from 2-5 minutes each and were recorded by Phil Solomon.

Disc One also includes a 1990 interview (an excessively fawning one, in my opinion) of Brakhage conducted by critic Marilynne Mason. It runs 37 minutes. Finally, there is an Audio Lecture from that is part of the Beckwith Lecture Series at the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston, given on Oct 7, 1996. It runs 50 minutes.

Volume Two, Disc Two includes two Salons and an Audio Lecture (66 min.) from an English class lecture given by Brakhage on Gertrude Stein’s poem “Stanzas in Meditation” at UC- Boulder on March 20, 1995. There are three more Brakhage on Brakhage interviews, running 6-7 minutes apiece.

Finally, there is the touching “For Stan” (2009, 16 min.), a film “lightly edited” by Marilyn Brakhage from footage of the director at work on his “Visions in Meditation” series in 1988.

The chunky 92-page square-bound insert booklet features essays by Marilyn Brakhage and Brakhage scholar Fred Camper. Short capsules describing each of the films in both volumes are also included, an invaluable aid for anyone navigating this sprawling set. Mark Toscano also contributes a detailed essay about the challenges presented in transferring Brakhage’s films to a digital format.

Final Thoughts:

“By Brakhage” is one the most ambitious Criterion releases to date, matching in scale their epic versions of “The Human Condition” and “Berlin Alexanderplatz.” It’s a far more complicated release than either of those projects, however, covering nearly fifty years of work and compiling films produced in multiple formats. This massive set was made not only with a tremendous amount of research but also an obvious love and respect for perhaps the most admired avant-garde filmmaker America has ever seen. “By Brakhage” doesn’t exactly have a lot of commercial appeal and is unlikely to set any Criterion sales records, yet the amount of work they poured into it is staggering. This is a scholarly contribution of invaluable dimensions.

The 3-disc Blu-Ray set of “By Brakhage” includes Volume One (previously released on SD in 2003) and Volume Two, a total of 689 minutes running time. For those who already have Volume One, Criterion has also made Volume Two available separately on SD though it is not available singly on Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray package currently sells at full retail for the same price as the two SD editions would cost separately. It’s a difficult decision for owners of the original SD release, and it’s hard to advise on whether the Blu-Ray is reason enough to pony up double the money to have the entire BR set instead of just adding the Volume Two SD. Then again, if you’re considering it, you’re probably a Brakhage devotee in which case the Blu-Ray will be awfully tough to resist.