Stan Brakhage's DOG STAR MAN - an experimental epic

(I actually watched and reviewed these last year on Letterboxd, but as I discovered there is a "Complete" Dog Star Man film and not just in parts, I compiled them together into one review here - you can find the complete Dog Star Man on YouTube or through the Criterion Collection release of 'By Brakhage Vol 1'):

(Prelude):

I should note right at the top that it seems unfair to give this a rating or a vote based on anything to do with story. My praise for this piece of art film - and that is what it is, no ifs ands or buts about that - comes from the cinematography, the special lighting effects, and naturally the editing. This is so far beyond the scope of what many in the world seek out to watch as this is the definition of 'experimental' in cinema, and yet for those who find it or somehow it comes to them (via a small revival house or from the Criterion collection set) it's a wonder to behold.

Funny though to think that, not intentionally I assume, when the "MTV Generation" of directors would make their videos (and still do, but I mean when they were regularly shown on TV) they were decried by critics for being cut too fast. This really goes back to Brakhage here, though of course his intentions were not to promote some band with the rapid-fire cuts and the stream-of-consciousness flow of images and colors and warped contours folding into one another. That's why it's kind of hard to write any kind of appraisal of this aside from 'well, watch it for yourself, and if you make it past the first few minutes there's... more of these wonders to behold!'

I think because of the way my mind works I watch something like the Prelude to Dog Star Man (the whole "film" is in four parts), and I do try to find some semblance of a story. My mind is still on the experimental, transgression and consciousness-expanding wavelength, but I think that if you look for at least some kind of scenario there's the slightest, most subtle touches going on. You can see the shots of the sun, which are shot via help from an observatory, and also a naked woman (her breasts and public hair are there to see), but unlike Brakhage's Window Water Baby Moving you don't get a clear sense of a woman giving birth.

There IS a sexual component, however, something to do with the flesh and lots of moving parts with it and blood that flows underneath - red is always a potent color, the kind that vibrates and you (or I at least) can feel something that has to do with blood, life force, something that goes back to a time before we can remember. Or... maybe it's all simply a bunch of images meant to conjure in the viewer anything he or she is looking for or identifies with. It's an adventure in... stuff, in colors, in mountains, in driving on a road, in a bearded guy playing with a kid, with things that are happening and in motion (and, at times, kind of akin to what we see if we close our eyes in dreams).

No other filmmaker has made or will make a work quite like this, and even at 25 minutes it feels like an epic and so 'out there' in a pre-psychedelic sense that it makes the Jupiter & the Beyond the Infinite in 2001 look like a conventional effects trail.

(Part 1):

With this 'first' part of Dog Star Man (I'd say you should watch the Prelude before this, but I don't buy that there's exactly a strong 'continuity' here, this isn't the Marvel universe or something), we get more of a narrative this time. By 'more' I mean that there is at least a character of a sort - a rugged man (Brakhage himself) climbing up a mountain. Ala that song by Chumbawumba (remember that one, yes I went there), he gets knocked down and then he gets back up again, and his visions won't keep him down. That is, if they are visions.

This time there are more steady shots that last longer than the half a second or less that we got in the Prelude section, and yet in a strange way I wish it was *more* abstract. Because of there being "character" or a person or whatever, there's some expectation set up, at least for me, for more to go on. What we get is the furious, rapid-fire and stream of consciousness approach to imagery, where things go by so far I visage about 100 images in 20 seconds, and then it goes back briefly to slow-motion shots of the man climbing ever so slowly up the mountainside. Sometimes the dog is there and sometimes not.

Maybe it makes the most sense as this section being like some abstract documentary of what it takes to climb up a mountain, and if you're in a mood that is rather infuriating your mind will go at a very fast clip across images and sights and things that may be unspeakable. That's what this series is strongest as it approaching things like red membranes where cells and tiny organs pulsate, and the sun, shot with a lens that makes it look up close and personal, is imposing in some way that is far off but close at the same time.

And yet for all of the strong passages, I think having the man going up the hill, for as long as this movie is (30 minutes), makes it more monotonous. At least with the Prelude you didn't know what to expect, and it's more of a journey through someone's subconscious or unconscious. Here it's a mix of both this less-than-bare-bones scenario of a man on the mountain (albeit personal to Brakhage, who was out of work at the time with kids and one on the way, and this feels like a battle to persevere), and the abstract stream. It works, but not to where it's as outstanding as the Prelude.

(Part 2):

Somehow the 2nd part of the Dog Star Man film "epic" is about a 6th of the length of the first part (5 minutes instead of 30), and yet it's a lot more powerful because of what Brakhage does in the condensed time. There's a little of the mountain climber at the start, and while he's down or not climbing we see a baby.

At first it's not opening its eyes, and then it is. Then there's a whole s***load of images the flash by with a quickness that is staggering. There's a snowflake. There's the red-membrane color that comes by again, and of course a lot of scratched film, and even times where the film comes apart with jagged edges separating the frames into three parts.

I don't know what to tell you if you came this far watching it, you either dig this kind of experimental filmmaking or you don't. I find it hypnotic and unlike anything else out there, but there's also an aspect that I have to be in a certain mood for it too. It's sitting down to engage your senses, not really your emotions exactly (though perhaps you'll feel for the baby in some abstract way that is just down to whether or not it'll open its eyes, which is perhaps conflict enough).

It may be pretentious to use this term but it really functions as a tone poem, giving you a series of things to look at that take you to a steady flow from one thing to the next (and in this case one is more like a hundred).

(Part 3):

If one pictures the act of sex happening, one may think about a person's face during the act or their breasts or their hair. And of course when it comes to pornography in cinema you get many close-up shots of genitalia connecting and going in-out and so on, and other times if it's only one genitalia or another then it's simply seeing the man's or the woman's.

For Dog Star Man Part III, which is supposed to be from what Brakhage said in some interview somewhere the part of the protagonist's (mountain climber?) sexuality flourishing, this can mean different things to different people. But what that means for Brakhage is that his own "porno" is most graphic in the interior-biological sense and, as one may happen when sex occurs, things fly by so quick as to barely be able to think straight.

This is my favorite part of the series, I think in large part because the focus is around a key subject - human sexuality and the process of copulation - but the abstractness of the images, how fast everything goes by and yet how I can discern and recognize so many things makes it intimate in ways that are hard to describe. This is where I can *feel* the imagery, more than just an intellectual escapade like some of the other parts or where things simply flow over me. And in its own way it's paradoxically extremely sensual and coarse in how its produced.

Here I felt engaged with the art that speaks to something that is essential and primordial. Human beings need to have sex in order to procreate, but the key thing is that sex is... messy, for lack of a better word. This is a messy movie that moves fast and feels rough and raw and the scratches on the film obscure just enough so that we know what's going on and yet it all culminates in... a heart-beat, whether it's the man's or the woman's or, maybe, the life that's just created, who knows? I loved every second.

(Part 4):

If there's any theme to this final part of the Dog Star Man saga or epic or Tone Poem to the Nature and Human Body itself, it's birth and rebirth. We see a baby being born in very quick fragments - it's clear it is a baby, the amniotic fluid can't be obscured no matter how many super-impositions there are - and then the man on the mountain needs to be reborn as well into... something more, I suppose(?)

Whatever it is, this is a fine culmination of what Brakhage had on his mind at the time. According to other people online, at the time the filmmaker was in trouble as he was out of work and had kids before and another on the way. Sometimes if you're living in that part of the country of Colorado and the mountains it's more than likely to have that Sysyphus feeling of continually rolling the rock up the hill with little result except the continuation of that.

It may be hard to discern any 'theme' from this for some who are only in it for the visual pleasures and mind-f***ery. For the latter part that's certainly still here and in a fairly awesome way that's consistent through the other parts (and clearly if you made it this far you've at least been able to tolerate the other four parts, I include the prelude with that).

But I could see it as being about what it means to be a... human being, in essence: to create life, to witness life, to grow, to copulate, to climb a goddamn mountain and chop some wood.

Oh, and to have Man's Best Friend at your side guiding you (or trying to lick your face until you get up again) certainly helps.