Stills from any film give a very incomplete picture of what the actual viewing experience, and this is particularly true of Brakhage films. The perceived imagery in Brakhage's work depends very much on movement and montage, to the extent that some things a viewer is convinced are contained in a single image are in fact only the product of movements within a shot, or/and of juxtapositions from shot to shot. Still, I've attempted to select strips and individual frames that suggest the aesthetic of each film.

Where a still image makes sense I use that; for handpainted films I've tried to use strips, and I've included some strips from photographed films to show movement and editing patterns. Above some of the strips are selected frames from those strips that I chose as particularly representative. The larger versions of these frames are not quite the highest resolution I can get. Also, unlike frames within the strip, these are cropped to reflect the cropping that 16mm projectors produce according to the current SMPTE standard. Projectors do not show the entire frame, and while Brakhage views the whole strip while painting on it, he also views the films projected before completion, and what appears on the screen is the intended final result. Similar care has been used in writing the titles of each film, which appear in italics. I have used the form of the title exactly as it appears on the film itself, which Brakhage confirms is his preferred form. Thus the title of "existence is song" includes quote marks, to take one example.

Except for Creation, the left-to-right order of these strips follows the order in which they occur in the film. Fred Camper

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Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film "..." Reel 2, also known as Ellipses Reel 2



From "..." Reel 3 (1998)







Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film "..." Reel 3, also known as Ellipses Reel 3

From …Prelude 1 (1996)



Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film …Prelude 1

From Anticipation of the Night (1958)





The image at right below shows the Shadow Man hanging himself in the famous final scene.



Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film Anticipation of the Night

From Chartres Series (1994)



Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film Chartres Series

From A Child's Garden and the Serious Sea (1991),





Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film A Child's Garden and the Serious Sea

From Chinese Series (2003)



Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film Chinese Series

From Creation (1979)









Frame enlargements from Stan Brakhage's film Creation

From Coupling (1999)