3/30/2015 Canyon Cinema Salon, Nathaniel Dorsky on Stan Brakhage pt II

Posted March 16th, 2015 in Announcements, Canyon Cinema Salon, Events and Screenings, News / Events

Please join Canyon Cinema on the evening of March 30, 2015 at New Nothing Cinema for the first installment of our 2015 Salon series. This month, filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky will return to present Stan Brakhage’s The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him on 16mm. Dorksy writes:

This evening’s Canyon Cinema Salon blooms out of the joy and desire to continue with what we began on the Salon of December 15th, that is, an exploration into Stan Brakhage’s photographed films in celebration of his new love and marriage to his second wife, Marilyn. In the first Salon we screened Visions in Meditation #2 and #3, two shorter-form films (just under 20 minutes), made in 1989 and 1990. In 1991 Stan began what was to be another four-part series called The Vancouver Island films, beginning with the magnificent 74 minute A Child’s Garden and the Serious Sea, a loving celebration of Marilyn’s childhood home and surroundings.

In this evening’s salon we will show and discuss the third film in the Vancouver series, the 49 minute, The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him made nearly ten years later in the year 2000. Stan continues to celebrate Marilyn’s youth, but now life is quite different.  Stan had contracted severe bladder cancer five years earlier and having survived the operation, his life expectancy was brief. This epic and difficult work is torn by Stan’s love of Marilyn in the midst of his own fear and sadness of what remaining life has to offer. This dark and gorgeous film has all of these conflicts woven into its syntax, into its montage. I would like to continue our discussion of form and meaning in terms of what we actually see in the film itself and also consider the structural problems of a longer film form.

The Canyon Cinema Salon Series is a FREE event hosted at New Nothing Cinema (located at 16 Sherman St, off Folsom between 6th and 7th in SOMA). Doors open at 7pm, screening at 7:30pm.

The Program:

The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Them | Stan Brakhage | 2000 | 50 minutes | COLOR | SILENT

For full program notes, see the official page HERE.

The Canyon Cinema Salon series is made possible with generous support from the George Lucas Family Foundation and The Owsley Brown III Philanthropic Foundation.

Image credits: © Estate of Stan Brakhage, courtesy Fred Camper