Stan Brakhage

Night Music

Collective Review for Brakhage&apos;s Hand-Painted Films

(This is a collective review for the following shorts: Night Music (1986), Autumnal (1993), Study in Color and Black and White (1993), Three Homerics (1993), Ephemeral Solidarity (1993), The Harrowing (1993), Tryst Haunt (1993), Stellar (1993), Black Ice (1994), The Chartres Series (1994), Naughts (1994))

After one exercise in the mid 80s (Night Music), Stan Brakhage has made a series of short &quot;hand-painted films&quot; in the early 90s. In those films, the colorful paintings, which resemble the Abstract Expressionism from the 50s, flash like fireworks, fade in and fade out, overlay, and interact with each other, in complete silence. By watching the pieces sequentially, the viewers will be dazzled by their compelling and persistent optical effects.

 While all pieces look similar with each other in a larger scale, the details bear differences: the colors mainly used, the patterns of the colors&apos; movements, the ways the patterns are layered, the length of the patterns and the intervals, the additional materials, and so on. Among them, Autumnal&apos;s occasional insertions of color mattes yield a clear contrast to the main ingredient--in fact, by the contrast, the piece has the viewers pay attention to the beauty of the mattes, which they normally can&apos;t recognize.

(This is a collective review for the following shorts: Night Music (1986), Autumnal (1993), Study in Color and Black and White (1993), Three Homerics (1993), Ephemeral Solidarity (1993), The Harrowing (1993), Tryst Haunt (1993), Stellar (1993), Black Ice (1994), The Chartres Series (1994), Naughts (1994))

After one exercise in the mid 80s (Night Music), Stan Brakhage has made a series of short "hand-painted films" in the early 90s. In those films, the colorful paintings, which resemble the Abstract Expressionism from the 50s, flash like fireworks, fade in and fade out, overlay, and interact with each other, in complete silence. By watching the pieces sequentially, the viewers will be dazzled by their compelling and persistent optical effects.

 While all pieces look similar with each other in a larger scale, the details bear differences: the colors mainly used, the patterns of the colors' movements, the ways the patterns are layered, the length of the patterns and the intervals, the additional materials, and so on. Among them, Autumnal's occasional insertions of color mattes yield a clear contrast to the main ingredient--in fact, by the contrast, the piece has the viewers pay attention to the beauty of the mattes, which they normally can't recognize.

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Night Music

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