Dark Days: Brakhage in the Late ’70s
These four films are just a small sampling of the Coop’s vast Brakhage collection. Many of their Brakhage prints are rarely screened, and they aren’t available anywhere digitally. This screening series highlights the best of this underseen trove of Brakhage’s films.
The warm childhood imagery of Soldiers and Other Cosmic Objects foreshadows the dark suburban core of Nightmare Series. Tragoedia and Sluice act as an extended interlude between the two, the former a “goat-song” and the latter a silver-streaked poem. A striking sunset sequence in Nightmare Series predates Tommy Lee Wallace’s Halloween III but postdates David Brooks’ Carolyn and Me: Part Two.
Soldiers and Other Cosmic Objects (16mm) [1977] dir. Stan Brakhage – 21 min.
Tragoedia (16mm) [1977] dir. Stan Brakhage – 35 min.
Sluice (16mm) [1978] dir. Stan Brakhage – 6 min.
Nightmare Series (16mm) [1978] dir. Stan Brakhage – 20 min.
Carter Haskins 