The first 11 chapters of Stan Brakhage’s celebrated Songs cycle, made between 1964 and 1965.
SONG 1: Portrait of a lady
A woman dressed in a kimono lies on a sofa in an interior; superimposed images of nature, the frame of a window.
SONG 2 & 3: Fire and a mind’s movement in remembering
Abstract and natural imagery alternate, as atmospheric phenomena and serial details accumulate in layers.
SONG 4: Three girls playing with a ball (hand-painted)
Live-action images and windows are overlaid with layers of multicoloured paint. Brushstrokes invade the frames while still allowing glimpses of a real world, transformed into frenzied matter and colour. Then the girls appear, playing with a ball: their movements unfold in slow motion, each gesture becoming solemn, like the saturated yellow and red of their dresses.
SONG 5: A childbirth song
Five years after the experience of the birth of his first child (Window Water Baby Moving, 1959), life bursts onto the screen and manifests itself in childbirth, at home. A hand helps the baby emerge into the light; soft focus, superimpositions and film grain provide the texture for a family self-portrait, in which the faces of mother and father reflect the joy of life.
SONG 6: The painted veil via moth-death
Floral motifs, drawn or woven.
SONG 7: San Francisco
The Pacific Ocean, San Francisco, a succession of double exposures.
SONG 8: Sea creatures
Waves, ocean, beaches and marine life.
SONG 9: Wedding source and substance
Hippopotamuses, children and families, shafts of light.
SONG 10: Sitting around
Domestic interiors, details and various visual effects.
SONG 11: Fires, windows, an insectmalyre of rain scratches
Fire, flames, lights in the darkness of night (literally, “an insect lyre made of rain scratches,” referring to the effect of scratches on the film).
