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Thoughts on Birth and Brakhage

Thoughts on Birth and Brakhage A R C H I V E F O R T H E F U T U R E Lynne Sachs From California to Florida to New York, from Maryland to Tennessee, I have been making and teaching avant-garde film for twenty years. In my experience, there is only one film, of the many works to which I expose my college students, that consistently creates a passionate, call it vitriolic, reaction: Stan Brakhage’s twelveminute Window Water Baby Moving (US, 1962). From “sublime!” to “disgusting!” and all the shades in between, this forty-five-yearold silent movie never fails to stir a classroom audience. Over the course of the semester, the initial issues that emerge from our discussions of the film attain a deeper, more charged level of discourse. Reactions to Brakhage’s filming of his wife Jane’s labor and at-home delivery of their firstborn baby, a quasi mirror on the genesis of all of our lives, have revealed to me an ever-evolving cultural fascination with birth and the body. In 1995, I gave birth to my first daughter, Maya. Two years later, my second daughter popped out. Images and sounds from both pregnancies and deliveries eventually found their way into my http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Camera Obscura Duke University Press

Thoughts on Birth and Brakhage

Sachs, Lynne
Camera Obscura , Volume 22 (1 64) – Jan 1, 2007
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
© 2007 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0270-5346
eISSN
0270-5346
DOI
10.1215/02705346-2006-026
Publisher site
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Abstract

A R C H I V E F O R T H E F U T U R E Lynne Sachs From California to Florida to New York, from Maryland to Tennessee, I have been making and teaching avant-garde film for twenty years. In my experience, there is only one film, of the many works to which I expose my college students, that consistently creates a passionate, call it vitriolic, reaction: Stan Brakhage’s twelveminute Window Water Baby Moving (US, 1962). From “sublime!” to “disgusting!” and all the shades in between, this forty-five-yearold silent movie never fails to stir a classroom audience. Over the course of the semester, the initial issues that emerge from our discussions of the film attain a deeper, more charged level of discourse. Reactions to Brakhage’s filming of his wife Jane’s labor and at-home delivery of their firstborn baby, a quasi mirror on the genesis of all of our lives, have revealed to me an ever-evolving cultural fascination with birth and the body. In 1995, I gave birth to my first daughter, Maya. Two years later, my second daughter popped out. Images and sounds from both pregnancies and deliveries eventually found their way into my

Journal

Camera Obscura – Duke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2007

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