Scenes from Under Childhood
Scenes from Under Childhood | |
---|---|
Directed by | Stan Brakhage |
Release date | 1967–1970 |
Running time | Approx. 135 min. (Total) |
Country | United States |
Scenes from Under Childhood is a series of 16mm film in four independent sections by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced between 1967 and 1970. All four sections are silent, though Brakhage made a version with sound available for the first section.
The film is often described as an attempt by Brakhage to visualize how his children saw the world.[1][2][3] In a 2008 Village Voice review, critic J. Hoberman wrote described the film as a "glorious, two-hour plus romantic epic."[4] In a 1992 poll for the British film magazine Sight & Sound, experimental filmmaker Michael Snow named Scenes from Under Childhood as one of the ten greatest films of all time.[5]
When asked to describe the film, Brakhage himself wrote that it was "a visualization of the inner world of foetal beginnings, the infant, the baby, the child – a shattering of the ‘myths of childhood’ through revelation of the extremes of violent terror and overwhelming joy of that world darkened to most adults by their sentimental remembering of it… a ‘tone poem’ for the eye – very inspired by the music of Olivier Messiaen."[6]
Sections
Year | Title | Format | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1967 | Section One | 16mm | 241⁄2 minutes |
1969 | Section Two | 16mm | 40 minutes |
1969 | Section Three | 16mm | 25 minutes |
1970 | Section Four | 16mm | 45 minutes |
Archive
Film elements for all four sections of Scenes from Under Childhood are held by the Academy Film Archive as part of the Stan Brakhage Collection.[7] Sections 1 and 3 were preserved by the archive in 2018.[8]
See also
References
- ^ Village Voice: Scenes from Under Childhood Review
- ^ Shooting Down Pictures: Scenes from Under Childhood (1967–1970, Stan Brakhage)
- ^ House Next Door: Scenes from Under Childhood
- ^ Village Voice: Scenes from Under Childhood Review
- ^ Directors' Top Ten
- ^ Scenes from Under Childhood at Anthology Film Archives
- ^ "Stan Brakhage Collection". Academy Film Archive.
- ^ "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
- v
- t
- e
- Interim (1953)
- Unglassed Windows Cast a Terrible Reflection (1953)
- The Way to Shadow Garden (1955)
- Anticipation of the Night (1958)
- Cat's Cradle (1959)
- Sirius Remembered (1959)
- Window Water Baby Moving (1959)
- Thigh Line Lyre Triangular (1961)
- Blue Moses (1962)
- Mothlight (1963)
- The Art of Vision (1965)
- Fire of Waters (1965)
- Eye Myth (1967)
- The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971)
- Sexual Meditation: Room with View (1971)
- Eye Myth Educational (1972)
- The Wold Shadow (1972)
- The Text of Light (1974)
- The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981)
- The Dante Quartet (1987)
- I... Dreaming (1988)
- Commingled Containers (1997)
- Dog Star Man (1961–64)
- Songs (1964–69)
- Scenes from Under Childhood (1967–70)
- Pittsburgh Trilogy (1971)
- Arabics (1981–82)