Stan Brakhage
Anticipation of the Night
Format VOD
Format 16mm
Year 1958
Artist(s) Stan Brakhage
Running time 40 min
Films
ANTICIPATION OF THE NIGHT (1958) 40'
Description
"The great achievement of Anticipation of the Night is to have successfully distilled an intense and complex interior crisis through an orchestration of views and associations coexisting within a new formal rhetoric of movement and editing."
— P. Adams Sitney
"Brakhage's work offers an eloquent and deeply moving alternative to Western consumer culture. He abjures preconceived emotions, predictable formulas, and 'beautiful images.' His films cannot be reduced to a simple summary or message, as each viewer will necessarily have a different experience of them. The engaged viewer is removed from the mindset in which watching a scene or shot consists of desiring it, coveting it, thinking you understand it, and wanting to possess it: instead, Brakhage asks for both more and less at the same time—He asks you to dance with him."
— Fred Camper
"Brakhage's death is an irreparable loss but also the opportunity for a new beginning. There was no catching up with Brakhage when he was alive but, now perhaps, we can begin to discover and understand the full breadth and depth of his incredible cinematic legacy."
— Scott MacDonald