Stan Brakhage Films, 1983-1990

HELL SPIT FLEXION (1983)
35mm, color, silent 24fps, 1m (0:49)
Although it was later incorporated into The Dante Quartet in 1987 in a slightly modified form, this film was initially completed in 1983 by Brakhage, and 35mm prints exist of the standalone version, which features main and end titles, and a small amount of additional material at its very beginning, including a few small film flares and two frames of a leader lady (which are part of the film, but were removed in 1987).
Film stock notes: This film has a curious composition comprising a mix of hand-painting and photographic material, and I would love to get to the bottom of at least one mysterious thing about it in particular, having to do with the photographic material (more on this below). Essentially, besides the brief leader lady at the beginning of the film, this film is made up of two batches of material interspliced throughout the film’s length. The hand-painted material is original hand-painting, but has been done on top of pieces of a 1981 35mm print of the Night Blooming material from The Garden of Earthly Delights. In fact, the main/end titles for this film also derive from the repurposed print, and Brakhage even hand-scratched a ‘3’ over the second ‘1’ in ‘1981’ on the original source print, to update the year accordingly.
The other material present in the film’s original is 1978 35mm Eastman color reversal film, almost definitely Ektachrome. The presence of 35mm color reversal film in the original is a singular occurrence in Brakhage’s entire body of filmmaking. This material seems to be shot exclusively single-frame, and one reasonable theory I have is that this material might have been shot single-frame on a half-frame 35mm still camera as an experiment in creating motion picture material with still photography equipment. It’s also possible that the material was shot on a motion picture camera, but I’m nearly completely positive it was all shot single-frame (even the black frames are in-camera), as even the very few clusters of frames that have suggested continuity don’t hold up as convincingly continuous when examined frame-by-frame. The edge numbers in this reversal material range from 49 to 71, suggesting the original material was approximately 22 feet. As/if I come across further information about the making of this film, I’ll update this text.
Additionally, the film is edited throughout with cement splices. Brakhage was not known to have a 35mm cement splicer, nor are his other 35mm films edited in this manner, so this is another singular occurrence in his body of work as far as I can tell, and it’s reasonable that he might have borrowed a splicer from his lab.

EGYPTIAN SERIES (1984)
16mm, color, silent 24fps
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM & KMA stocks.

TORTURED DUST (1984)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 90m (89:48) total
This is a film in four parts, but the component parts can be shown individually. The title Tortured Dust only appears on screen on the first part, with the subsequent parts only having a “2”, “3”, or “4” as an opening title.

TORTURED DUST [PART 1] (1984)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 22m (21:55)
Film stock notes: All four parts of Tortured Dust seem to be made from pre-existing material, ranging from 1966-1980. Part 1 contains 1969 7255 Ektachrome Commercial, 1972 & 1976 7242 Ektachrome EF, 1975 7240 Ektachrome VNF, 1976 7252 Ektachrome Commercial, 1976 & 1978 Kodachrome KM, and 1977 7250 Ektachrome VNX stocks.

TORTURED DUST [PART 2] (1984)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 20m (20:11)
Film stock notes: All four parts of Tortured Dust seem to be made from pre-existing material, ranging from 1966-1980. Part 2 contains 1966 Eastman b/w reversal stock, 1975 7242 Ektachrome EF, 1976 7239 Ektachrome VND, 1976 Eastman color negative, 1978 Kodachrome KMA, and 1980 7381 Eastman color print stock.

TORTURED DUST [PART 3] (1984)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 23m (23:12)
Film stock notes: All four parts of Tortured Dust seem to be made from pre-existing material, ranging from 1966-1980. Part 3 contains 1970 & 1976 7242 Ektachrome EF, 1971 & 1975 7241 Ektachrome EF, 1971 7252 Ektachrome Commercial, 1975 7240 Ektachrome VNF, 1978 Kodachrome KM, and 1980 7390 Eastman color reversal print stock.

TORTURED DUST [PART 4] (1984)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 24.5 (24:30)
Film stock notes: All four parts of Tortured Dust seem to be made from pre-existing material, ranging from 1966-1980. Part 4 contains 1970 7242 Ektachrome EF, 1971 7241 Ektachrome EF, 1971 7387 Kodachrome print, 1973 & 1975 7252 Ektachrome Commercial, 1977 7250 Ektachrome VNX, 1978 Kodachrome KM, and 1978 7390 Eastman color reversal print stock.

JANE (1985)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 13m (12:58)
Film stock notes: This film was shot on 7241 and 7242 Ektachrome EF, Kodachrome KM & KMA, and also contains some 7252 Ektachrome Commercial (which may be dupe material rather than camera original, though this is not confirmed). There may be a few brief appearances of other stocks that were missed in inspection.

CASWALLON TRILOGY (1986)
This is the name given to a trio of films (The Aerodyne, Fireloop, and Dance Shadows by Danelle Helander) that have most commonly been shown together, although the individual films have in some cases been shown on their own (especially Fireloop). There is no onscreen title for the trilogy name itself.

THE AERODYNE (1986)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 3.5m (3:18)
Film stock notes: This film was shot on 7239 Ektachrome VND, 7240 Ektachrome VNF, and Fuji color reversal stocks.

FIRELOOP (1986)
16mm, color, sound, 2m (2:12)
Sound by Joel Haertling.
Although the title for this film is given exclusively in print references (including those by Brakhage) as FIRELOOP (one word), the onscreen title is given as two words (FIRE LOOP).
Film stock notes: This film was made by duplicating a hand-painted 16mm loop to 7399 Eastman color reversal print stock. The original loop is exactly 182 frames long and is presented 15 times, each time with 18 frames of black in between.

DANCE SHADOWS BY DANELLE HELANDER (1986)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 2.5m (2:38)
Danelle Helander’s name has been frequently mistranscribed as “Danielle” in print references and many external sources reflect this error.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on 7239 Ektachrome VND and 7240 Ektachrome VNF stocks.

CONFESSION (1986)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 22.5m (22:15)
This film was originally called Love Sacrifice.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM, 7239 Ektachrome VND, 7240 Ektachrome VNF, 7250 Ektachrome VNX, and also contains some 7384 Eastman LPP color print stock.

THE LOOM (1986)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 42.5m (42:29)
Film stock notes: This film was originally edited by Brakhage in four reels, with each reel being edited as A/B/C/D rolls. Eventually Brakhage combined reels 3 and 4, probably in part to simplify printing. The film’s internegative was struck individually from the film’s 3-4 parts, and then conformed into a single reel, so projection prints are also only a single reel. The film seems to likely have been made entirely from pre-existing footage, as all of the material in the film is on stocks dating between 1971 and 1983 (and Brakhage didn’t typically shoot outdated rolls of film). The film was shot on Kodachrome KM & KMA, 7240 Ektachrome VNF, 7250 Ektachrome VNX, 7241 Ektachrome EF, and there is also some 7252 Ektachrome Commercial present (though this may comprise entirely of duped or blown up material, as Brakhage seems to have rarely, if ever, actually shot on 7252).

NIGHT MUSIC (1986)
35mm/16mm, color, silent 24fps, 0.5m (00:30)
Some print references list this film’s title as “Nightmusic”, but on screen the title is two separate words.
Although its original release format was 35mm, this film was also reduced to 16mm and made available on its own, as well as included in a 16mm compilation released in 1990, with Rage Net and Glaze of Cathexis, under the name Three Hand-Painted Films (in the order: Night Music, Rage Net, Glaze of Cathexis).
Film stock notes: This film was originally hand-painted on 70mm 15-perf IMAX film, over an existing color print of footage from the 1978 IMAX film, Genesis: Four Billion Years in the Making. This underlying film was part of the same batch of footage on which the Hell Itself and “existence is song” sections of The Dante Quartet was also painted. Night Music was never duplicated in IMAX format. Although originally hand-painted in IMAX film, this film was finished only in 35mm. Not having a 70mm or IMAX-capable optical printer, Brakhage’s laboratory, Western Cine, reduced the film by shooting each frame on 35mm over a light box. The resulting original negative for this film is on 35mm 5247 Eastman color negative stock, although the final conform was actually only done in the film’s 35mm interpositive.

LOUD VISUAL NOISES [silent version] (1986)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 2m (1:50)
This film was originally released as a silent film, but a sound version was also released a little over a year later, with a soundtrack created by Joel Haertling.
Film stock notes: This film was created by printing a hand-painted loop 245 frames long to 7390 Ektachrome print stock to achieve the film’s roughly two-minute length. The loop repeats for a total length of 2299 frames, representing nine and roughly a third run-throughs of the original loop.

LOUD VISUAL NOISES [sound version] (1988)
16mm, color, sound, 2m (2:03)
This sound version of the film was proposed by Joel Haertling as a response to Brakhage’s original silent film. The soundtrack was created by Joel Haertling and comprises a collage of music by Die Tödliche Doris, Zoviet France, The Hafler Trio, Nurse With Wound, Joel Haertling, and I.H.T.S.O.
The silent and sound versions are identical in visual content, with the exception of end titles crediting the soundtrack on the sound version.
The dating of the sound version distinctly from the silent version was done by consulting the original lab printing paperwork, and specifically the printing of each version’s internegative by Western Cine. For Brakhage’s filmmaking in the 1970s-’80s, the lab would typically strike a reversal answer print from Brakhage’s supplied originals, and if/when Brakhage approved the reversal answer print, Western Cine would then print an internegative from the originals, from which all subsequent prints would be struck. In the case of Loud Visual Noises, the silent version internegative was made in September 1986, whereas the sound version internegative was made in January 1988 (preceded by a rejected first attempt on 12/27/1987). So although the soundtrack was probably finished and matched to the picture by late 1987, this version would not have been “released” per se until at least January 1988.

THE DANTE QUARTET (1987)
35mm/16mm, color, silent 24fps, 6.5m (6:19)
This film comprises four individual parts in succession (with hand-scratched titles appearing on screen before each section): Hell Itself (1:32), Hell Spit Flexion (0:35), Purgation (2:16), and “existence is song” (0:59). Each section was originally printed separately, with each having their own main and end titles and copyright cards (all from 1985/86), although these were removed when they were combined into their final form as sections of The Dante Quartet.
This film was originally finished in 35mm, but also reduced to 16mm for distribution in that format. The film prints all conclude with a funding titlecard acknowledging the Western States Media Arts Fellowship, but this seems to have been left off of the HD transfer done for the first “by Brakhage” Criterion set.
All four parts of this film were hand-painted and scratched over existing color footage. Despite some references suggesting Hell Itself was painted on 35mm, in an 8/15/2001 salon presentation by Brakhage recorded by Phil Solomon (as well as in at least one interview with Suranjan Ganguly), Brakhage says that Hell Itself was painted on 70mm 15-perf IMAX, and my inspections have confirmed this. Hell Spit Flexion was painted/filmed on 35mm, Purgation on 5-perf 70mm and “existence is song” over footage from the 1978 IMAX film, Genesis: Four Billion Years in the Making (also the source of the underlying film material used for Night Music). With the exception of Hell Spit Flexion, each of the parts were rephotographed in different ways to adjust rhythms and speeds. Not having a 70mm or IMAX-capable optical printer, Brakhage’s laboratory, Western Cine, reduced the large-format material to 35mm by shooting each frame onto 35mm color negative film over a light box, incorporating his requested speed changes (for example, note how in Hell Itself, the footage goes between being shot on 4s to 1s, among other variations).
Film stock notes: Though painted on a number of formats, this film was finished in 35mm format via optical printing and rephotography techniques. The 70mm and IMAX sequences were never duplicated in those formats. The final, conformed, original negative for this film is on 35mm Eastman color negative stock.
Some of the underlying source material is visible in Hell Itself and “existence is song”, which led to my identification of the original IMAX film they were painted over (as with Night Music). Interestingly, while the underlying material in “existence is song” closely resembles shots in the Genesis film, the material used in Hell Itself seems to more likely be outtakes/trims, especially considering the first sequence of Hell Itself is painted over a stationary shot of a man holding a slate, and the second and third sequences painted over aerial photography that’s similar to – but not the same as – aerial photography in Genesis.
As noted in the earlier filmography entry on Hell Spit Flexion, that film was painted over a 1981 35mm print of the Night Blooming section of The Garden of Earthly Delights, combined with some 35mm Ektachrome photographic material almost certainly produced by Brakhage. That film was initially completed in April 1983, but in June 1987, Brakhage ordered a 35mm negative to be made from his 35mm interpositive that would reduce the onscreen size of the frame to “16mm size”, giving the film a new scale as seen in the finished The Dante Quartet (in addition to removing a small amount of material from the film’s beginning).
Purgation was painted over material from a 1968 Eastman color 70mm roadshow blowup print of Bob Fosse’s film Sweet Charity. In his 1994 interview with Suranjan Ganguly in Film Culture (and possibly elsewhere), Brakhage identified the underlying material as a 70mm print of Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce, and this bit of (admittedly trivial but incorrect) information is widely cited. However, Zena Grey and I definitively, absolutely, 100% have confirmed it is Sweet Charity (and in fact, Irma La Douce was not given a 70mm roadshow release).
I have heard that Brakhage obtained the 70mm 5-perf and 15-perf material used to make this film and Night Music from Doug Edwards, who had brought Brakhage to Los Angeles while a program coordinator for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and to whom Brakhage dedicated his film Blossom-Gift/Favor, upon Edwards’ death in 1993. If so, it would be reasonable to presume that Edwards — either through contacts in the industry through the Academy or laboratory/filmmaking friends — would have had access to large format junk material to supply Brakhage with, and trims/outs from an IMAX production or discarded print material from a 70mm roadshow blowup could have been obtained in this manner.

KINDERING (1987)
16mm, color, sound, 3m (2:52)
Sound by Architects Office (Joel Haertling, Douglas Stickler, Trevor Haertling).
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM.

I… DREAMING (1988)
16mm, color, sound, 6.5m (6:35)
Sound by Joel Haertling, based on music by Stephen Foster.
Although essentially all print references refer to this film as “I… Dreaming”, the onscreen title actually reads only “I Dreaming”. However, I’ll employ the much more common form of the title (with ellipsis) here due to its pervasive usage.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM & KMA, 7239 Ektachrome VND, 7240 Ektachrome VNF, and 7250 Ektachrome VNX.

MARILYN’S WINDOW (1988)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 7.5m (7:42)
Marilyn Brakhage has stated that this film contains footage from Brakhage’s earlier film Made Manifest, but as the picture roll for Marilyn’s Window comprises entirely camera original footage, it is more likely that the two films share similar (but not identical) footage, taken from a common batch of raw material.
Film stock notes: This film seems to have been likely made from pre-existing footage, as it’s composed entirely of late 1970s Kodachrome KM and KMA (some of which is fogged), with a bit of 1984 KM noted as well.

MATINS (1988)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 2.5m (2:15)
Film stock notes: This film seems to have been likely made from pre-existing footage, as it’s entirely composed of 1978 Kodachrome KMA stock.

RAGE NET (1988)
35mm/16mm, color, silent 24fps
Although its original release format was 35mm, this film was also reduced to 16mm and made available on its own, as well as included in a 16mm compilation released in 1990, with Night Music and Glaze of Cathexis, under the name Three Hand-Painted Films (in the order: Night Music, Rage Net, Glaze of Cathexis).
Film stock notes: This film was optically printed to and finished on 35mm Eastman color negative stock.

FAUSTFILM: AN OPERA (1987)
16mm, color, sound, 42.5m (42:17)
Sound by Rick Corrigan.
In print references, this film is usually referred to as FAUSTFILM: AN OPERA, PART I, although there is no “Part I” present in the titlecards.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KMA and 7240 Ektachrome VNF.

FAUST’S OTHER: AN IDYLL (1988)
16mm, color, sound, 40.5m (40:23)
Sound by Joel Haertling.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM & KMA.

FAUST 3: CANDIDA ALBACORE (1988)
16mm, color, sound, 25.5m (25:16)
Sound by Rick Corrigan.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on 7250 Ektachrome VNX.

FAUST IV (1989)
16mm, color, sound, 37m (37:09)
Sound by Rick Corrigan.
This film is sometimes referred to in print references as FAUST 4, though the title on screen is FAUST IV. A titlecard at the end indicates: “This film was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts”, which possibly refers to the entire Faust series and not just this individual film.
Film stock notes: This film was originally edited in three reels, each reel edited in A/B/C rolls (i.e. nine printing rolls in total). The internegative struck from the originals was then conformed to one reel, and all prints are one reel as a result. The film was shot on Kodachrome KMA, 7239 Ektachrome VND, 7240 Ektachrome VNF, and 7250 Ektachrome VNX. There is also a small amount of 7384 LPP color print present, which means that Brakhage likely also shot some color negative in making this film (or repurposed from another shoot), and his tendency around this time when shooting any color negative stock (which was not totally uncommon in this era) was to print it to color positive, and then use the color positive material for editing (as he only really ever edited in positive, and almost never negative).

VISIONS IN MEDITATION #1 (1989)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 17m (17:07)
Film stock notes: This film was primarily shot on color negative stock which was then printed to 7384 LPP color print, and this resulting print material used for editing. There is also some Kodachrome KM stock.

VISIONS IN MEDITATION #2 (1989)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 16m (16:10)
The full title of this film is usually given in print references as VISIONS IN MEDITATION #2: MESA VERDE, although the actual title on screen is only VISIONS IN MEDITATION #2.
Film stock notes: This film is edited in A/B/C/D rolls from a mix of 7384 LPP color print, Kodachrome KM & KMA, and some Agfa b/w print material.

VISIONS IN MEDITATION #3 (1990)
16mm, color, sound, 19m (19:06)
Sound by Rick Corrigan.
The full title of this film is usually given in print references as VISIONS IN MEDITATION #3: PLATO’S CAVE, although the actual title on screen is only VISIONS IN MEDITATION #3.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM & KMA, 7239 Ektachrome VND, 7240 Ektachrome VNF, and 7250 Ektachrome VNX, with just two shots on 7384 LPP color print.

VISIONS IN MEDITATION #4 (1990)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 17.5m (17:41)
The full title of this film is usually given in print references as VISIONS IN MEDITATION #4: D.H. LAWRENCE, although the actual title on screen is only VISIONS IN MEDITATION #4.
Film stock notes: This film was shot almost entirely on Kodachrome KM & KMA, with three shots on Agfa b/w print stock.

BABYLON SERIES (1989)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 5m (4:52)
The title on screen is only BABYLON SERIES, although later print references refer to it as BABYLON SERIES #1, once the two other parts were released.
Film stock notes: This film was originally edited in two parts, with part one edited in A/B rolls, and part two only in a single picture roll, though the resulting internegative was spliced together in a single roll for making prints. Part one is entirely Kodachrome KM, and part 2 is a mix of Kodachrome KM, 7291 Eastman color negative, 7384 LPP color print, and Eastman b/w positive.

BABYLON SERIES #2 (1990)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 2m (2:09)
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KMA, with some 7384 LPP color print material.

BABYLON SERIES #3 (1990)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 5m (4:48)
Film stock notes: This film was edited in A/B rolls from Kodachrome KM & KMA.

CITY STREAMING (1990)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 18.5m (18:18)
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM & KMA, with some 7384 LPP color print material. There is also a small amount of 1980 7252 Ektachrome Commercial footage similar to the chemically eroded material found in Brakhage’s 1981 film Aftermath (and also showing up in Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse).

THE THATCH OF NIGHT (1990)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 5.5m (5:23)
Film stock notes: As with a few other films from this period, this film was shot on Eastman 7291 color negative, but Brakhage printed the negative to 7384 LPP color print stock and then cut the print material to make the film, resulting in a positive original (and leaving the actual camera negative uncut). This was possibly around the time that his lab, Western Cine, was ceasing reversal processing, leading Brakhage to experiment with different shooting/editing approaches to get around that obstacle.

VISION OF THE FIRE TREE (1990)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 4m (3:59)
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Kodachrome KM, with some 7384 LPP color print material.

PASSAGE THROUGH: A RITUAL (1990)
16mm, color, sound, approx. 49 minutes
Sound by Philip Corner.
This film was edited and released as a two-reel film, and is intended to be shown with a reel change, per Brakhage’s wishes, with the reel change comprising part of the performance of the film, in a sense. The original sound recording to which Brakhage edited the picture is 47:11 in length, making the typical projection time of this film roughly 48 or 49 minutes in duration.
Film stock notes: The vast majority of this film is composed of black leader, with short sequences of footage shot on a mix of 7239 Ektachrome VND, 7240 Ektachrome VNF, and Kodachrome KM & KMA all spanning the years 1982-1986, as well as a few shots on Ektachrome from 1969 and 1971. It’s quite likely that all of the footage used in this film was pre-existing.

GLAZE OF CATHEXIS (1990)
16mm, color, silent 24fps, 3m (2:55)
This film was made available on its own, as well as included in a 16mm compilation released in 1990, with 16mm reductions of Night Music and Rage Net, under the name Three Hand-Painted Films (in the order: Night Music, Rage Net, Glaze of Cathexis).
Film stock notes: This film was hand-scratched and variously augmented (primarily with what looks like magic markers) over Eastman 7384 LPP color print material.

THREE HAND-PAINTED FILMS (1990)
This is a grouping of three films on one reel, to be shown together, although each film is also available separately. The films are Night Music, Rage Net, and Glaze of Cathexis.