Title: Hell spit flexion
Description: A filmed response to the poems of William Blake, this hand painted film is one of Stan Brakhage's many film poems. Brakhage described the film as having been inspired by the sound of an old man coughing heard from the other side of an aging hotel room wall. Brakhage's films appear nearly as radical today as when they were first made. He was born in 1933, and made his first film, Interim, at 19. His filmography lists over 300 titles, ranging in length from a few seconds to several hours. Like Maya Deren, Brakhage came to understand film through poetry, and some of his earliest films resemble those of Deren and her contemporaries in the early American avant-garde."Inevitably it is an avant-garde filmmaker who confronts us for the first time with a morgue and an autopsy room. This is an apalling and haunting work of great purity and truth...There are timeless images: the hands, closed forever on themselves, the deft and simple opening of a body's surface....With almost the entire film photographed in close up or medium shot and utter silence, form and content are for once perfectly blended to create a subversive work that changes our consciousness." Amos Vogel
Subjects: Poetry, Surrealism, Dreams, Drama
People: William Blake
Time periods: 18th Century