In The Dead (1960), Stan Brakhage’s roaming camera explores the funerary architecture of the huge Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Shots of the tombs and the banks of the Seine viewed from a river boat may be typical tourist fare but Brakhage transforms his footage with fragmented editing, superimposition and continual cutting from positive to negative. The youthful figure glimpsed at the beginning is Kenneth Anger. As usual with Brakhage, the film is a silent one. Watch it here.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Mothlight, a film by Stan Brakhage
• Thot-Fal’N, a film by Stan Brakhage