The Brakhage Lectures
Stan Brakhage gave these lectures as a credit course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the fall and 'early winter of 1970-71. Forty-three films by Méliès, Griffith, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Cocteau and Edwin Porter (which are listed following) were shown in concert with the talks.
Gathering such lectures into bookform is one kind of act of presentation. And preservation. But it cannot really substitute for hearing-and-seeing, no matter how keen the mind's-eye or neutral the memory. Brakhage's introspective views leave one quite stranded if one attempts to adopt them as one's own. Faced immediately by the films themselves, you are forced to your own judgments and toward your own personal vision, spurred, in a sense, by Brakhage's words.
There doesn't appear to be, then, any 'lieu-of' for viewing the films of these four men, but the purely verbal aspects of Brakhage's lectures do convey an artist's insight into art and the ticking of artists' minds. We, at the School, affirm the pleasure of seeing these films with him and, the excitement of hearing his insights. Memorable, all-together.
-- IAN ROBERTSON
http://www.ubu.com/historical/brakhage/brakhage.html
http://www.ubu.com/historical/brakhage/ ... ctures.pdf