Stan Brakhage - Preludes # 01

[MattieCooper]

Magic!

[mizofan]

Len Lye and Norman Mclaren were before + better

[pipefx64]

true dat

although brakhage is more so like a punk.

[majorhoop]

i think that in the league that lye, mclaren and brakhage are in the term "better" isnt really operative. all were masters doing different things. mclaren and especially lye may be underappreciated some because they werent american......

[mizofan]

Exactly, cos they weren't American. There are many big claims made for the American avant-garde as anti-Hollywood but all too often the earlier European avant-garde masterpieces are overlooked.

[majorhoop]

i think that the issue is a little more complicated. earlier european avant garde was closely looked at by alternative critics and filmmakers after ww2. brakhage admitted surrealist and italian neo-realist influences. mcclaren got attention. the lack of appreciation for ney could be due more to geography than nationalism.

[joyelenor]

Nope. Brakhage took it way further, in aesthetics and in body of work.

[mizofan]

I should have said i meant in hand-painted films, i'm not talking body of work, Brakhage ges enough attention, and is often credited with innovation when there were fore-runners who are hardly known. I'm not convinced by his preference for silence as if carrying more weight and integrity. But that's just me. I was only expressing a preference and it's all subjective.

[xesclub101]

COOL!