In keeping with a major theme in the 50+ years he made films, in STAN'S WINDOW once again Brakhage returns to the light and the self of which so much of his cinema is concerned; not selfishly,but in the spirit of the giving from his "vision" to the universal eye of the audience.
STAN'S WINDOW (2003) was created as a sort of companion- piece to MARILYN'S WINDOW (1988), a film he made for and of his wife (in lieu of an actual portrait-film). Painfully and terminally ill with cancer and house-bound, Brakhage recorded the few pleasures and otherwise minuscule offerings his sheltered world offered him at the time: light streaming across a kitchen counter- top, the partial view of the hallway from his bed, natural light from his window falling on window sills, doors and books about his room, a brief glimpse of his face staring back at the camera from his pillow, and the shifting shades of night and sleep. Yet he does so with a love and concern in the image-taking as to raise these visions above the everyday and make them needed, for both he and the viewer. STAN'S WINDOW becomes all the more poignant in it's subtle pacing and tone, somewhat more shaky camera handling, and the knowledge that it was his last truly completed work (which Brakhage himself never got to view properly). It becomes a testament to a man who loved filmmaking so much that he felt he must continue even through to his passing.
7/10. A motion picture giving & taking film.
STAN'S WINDOW (2003) was created as a sort of companion- piece to MARILYN'S WINDOW (1988), a film he made for and of his wife (in lieu of an actual portrait-film). Painfully and terminally ill with cancer and house-bound, Brakhage recorded the few pleasures and otherwise minuscule offerings his sheltered world offered him at the time: light streaming across a kitchen counter- top, the partial view of the hallway from his bed, natural light from his window falling on window sills, doors and books about his room, a brief glimpse of his face staring back at the camera from his pillow, and the shifting shades of night and sleep. Yet he does so with a love and concern in the image-taking as to raise these visions above the everyday and make them needed, for both he and the viewer. STAN'S WINDOW becomes all the more poignant in it's subtle pacing and tone, somewhat more shaky camera handling, and the knowledge that it was his last truly completed work (which Brakhage himself never got to view properly). It becomes a testament to a man who loved filmmaking so much that he felt he must continue even through to his passing.
7/10. A motion picture giving & taking film.
