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Early and Late Brakhage: Academy Restorations
Thu, Mar 10 | 7:30pm | TMT
Since 2004, the Academy Film Archive has been the home of the monumental collection of experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage (1933-2003). With a career that spanned more than fifty years, Brakhage’s influence and legacy as an artist of radical innovation cannot be overstated, as he explored and extended the capability of personal filmmaking to express complex notions of subjectivity, emotion, and pure human vision. Ultimately producing a body of work comprising well over 300 films in almost every possible film format, Brakhage tirelessly and expressively pursued ever-evolving articulations of intimate human vision and experience, inspiring generations of filmmakers in the global avant-garde, as well as directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas. The Academy has restored several dozen films by Brakhage, but because of the sheer volume of his output, restoration work is always ongoing. Brakhage was completely devoted to the production and exhibition of his work on analog film, and although in later years he agreed to the home release of some of his films in digital formats, the film exhibition of his work remained for him the truly authentic way to experience it. For this program, we are pleased to present a sampling of restorations by the Academy Film Archive, with a unique focus on films drawn from Brakhage’s earliest years of production alongside films from his last years of activity, including his final masterpiece of hand-painting Panels for the Walls of Heaven.
Program and notes by Academy Film Archive Senior Film Preservationist Mark Toscano
All prints courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, with thanks to Marilyn Brakhage. Desistfilm and Fire of Waters were restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. The Dead was restored by the Academy Film Archive with support from The Film Foundation.
Desistfilm
DIRECTOR: Stan Brakhage.
1954. 6.5 min. USA. B&W. Sound. 16mm.
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