Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man Show

A legendary experimental filmmaker turns up on cable TV.

Jesse Walker from the February 2001 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

The other side of the coin is when I see something that I appreciate, not as an art but as a wonderful entertainment, or when I see something advertised that seems to be a worthy thing for people to have, and they use my effects. I remain just completely delighted by Superman [1978], for example. They rented The Text of Light a number of times, and they made Superman's cradle out of it, and the place where he goes to renew his strength. I thought it was a really good movie, the children all enjoyed it, we had a wonderful time, and they certainly made good use of effects I had created.

Q: Have you had that experience watching an advertisement?

A: I don't know if they got it directly from my work, but I was the first to use the interruptive flash frame as a psychological effect. It's in a film called Cat's Cradle.

You've often had single frames used to create fake lightning-single frames of white staggered in a rhythm that was lightning-like. But no one that I know of before myself used a single frame of a previous image so that, fleetingly, you get a kind of memory. Then Gregory Markopoulos did it in Twice a Man; and then The Pawnbroker came out, with Rod Steiger, which used it quite extensively. This is a clear case of grammar coming directly out of independent filmmaking, through Gregory and myself, to Hollywood and then to advertisers.

Q: You had a role in Cannibal: The Musical, made by [South Park creators] Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

A: They were students of ours, and they wanted professors to take cameo roles. I do that for students all the time. The hardest part for me was that I don't like to go up into the mountains anymore. I suffered from the mountains for years and years, contrary to most people's belief that I'm the archetypal mountain-man filmmaker.

Q: They've seen Dog Star Man too many times.

A: Yeah. Look at that poor fool falling down-it's a wonder I didn't kill myself with that axe. I think one reason I'm such a good photographer of mountain scenery is that I'm not sentimental about it at all. I come with a deep fear, a great deal of respect, and some outright hatred for these landscapes.

But I like those guys. I think South Park: The Movie was a great musical-Trey is a marvelous composer. We do quite different things, but they have respect for me. They put on this counter-festival at Sundance, and they showed hours and hours of my work.