Date of Birth 14 January 1933, Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Date of Death 9 March 2003, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (cancer)

Birth Name Robert Sanders

Mini Bio (1)

Stan Brakhage was born on January 14, 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA as Robert Sanders. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Window Water Baby Moving (1959), The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971) and Mothlight (1963). He was married to Marilyn Jull and Jane Brakhage. He died on March 9, 2003 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Spouse (2)

Marilyn Jull (30 March 1989 - 9 March 2003) (his death) (2 children)

Jane Brakhage (28 December 1957 - 1987) (divorced) (5 children)

Trivia (8)

Was distinguished professor of film studies at the University of Colorado.

Made nearly 380 films, each lasting between 9 seconds and 4 hours.

Born in a home for unwed pregnant women. Adoptive mother named him James Stanley Brakhage.

Dropped out of Dartmouth during his freshman year (1952).

Dartmouth College class of 1955.

Though his films were rarely seen outside the experimental film community, there is one bit of film that Brakhage is supposed to have made that practically everyone in America has seen -- the original shot of a Downy fabric softener bottle falling in slow motion into a plump pile of towels.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985." Pages 151-158. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

American avant garde experimental film maker, concerned more with technique than subject matter. He filmed many short subjects on 8mm or 16mm film. He often used blurred or out-of-focus shots, superimposed or distorted images, intentionally designed to emphasize subjectivity of vision.

Personal Quotes (8)

The capacity to be intrinsic and vulgar is American.

Art is a sense of magic.

Flourescents turn everyone into German Expressionism.

There are a lot of movies made for nobody.

We have the notion that we exist but we have no way to prove it. 'I am' is the closest foundation we can get.

I love being objected to. It worries me, but I love being objected to.

No one is out to get you. It's just that...people are monkeys.

I met [Jackson Pollock] one time when I accompanied a friend who was invited with other critics to go see some new paintings in his famous Long Island barn. Evidently Pollock was dead drunk, immobile and silent in a corner. After a moment, while looking at the traces of paint with which Pollock covered the canvas that was stretched across the floor, one of the critics risked a few words, talking about 'chance operation.' Pollock, awaking slowly from his drunken stupor, repeats the words, 'Chance operation?'. He then takes a paintbrush, dips it into a pot of paint and, with one movement of his arm, flings the paint across the length of the room, squarely hitting the doorknob!