Film #118: Mothlight

Watching the works of Stan Brakhage is like looking at a field of daisies: why ask why? The best of his films are pure magic, and this is one of the best. Watch it with the sound off. It was made in 1963; Brakhage took strips of 16mm splicing tape and embedded in them the wings of moths he accumulated at his New England home. This was the first Brakhage film I KNEW I had to see, and I

Film #118: Mothlight

Watching the works of Stan Brakhage is like looking at a field of daisies: why ask why? The best of his films are pure magic, and this is one of the best. Watch it with the sound off. It was made in 1963; Brakhage took strips of 16mm splicing tape and embedded in them the wings of moths he accumulated at his New England home. This was the first Brakhage film I KNEW I had to see, and I

TriBeCa Diaries #3: Empire II

Dedicated not to Andy Warhol but to late film geniuses Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni, Amos Poe's new experimental documentary Empire II still owes a lot--including its title--to the white-haired pop artist. Warhol's 1964 film Empire was an 8-hour black-and-white shot of the top half of the Empire State Building. It was a quizzical experiment that I suppose had to be done, but of

TriBeCa Diaries #3: Empire II

Dedicated not to Andy Warhol but to late film geniuses Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni, Amos Poe's new experimental documentary Empire II still owes a lot--including its title--to the white-haired pop artist. Warhol's 1964 film Empire was an 8-hour black-and-white shot of the top half of the Empire State Building. It was a quizzical experiment that I suppose had to be done, but of