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The first disc in the set offers four 'Brakhage on Brakhage' conversations, each running approximately nine minutes. In the first, Brakhage reads from decades-old writings of his before refuting the concept of "chance operations" as it applies to himself and such artists as Jackson Pollack and John Cage. He goes onto explain the origin of his trademark scratched titles and the importance of the rhythm of the project...of conveying a sense of the surface of the film itself. We are also given the opportunity to see all of the strips of film that comprise his shortest work, the nine second Eye Myth.

'Brakhage on Brakhage II' is the first of Brakhage's explorations into the concept of "moving visual thinking" in this boxed set. He speaks of the gulf between what his own physical eyes can perceive versus his mind's eye. Also discussed here are Brakhage's disinterest in video as opposed to experiencing films in a proper theater, his correspondances with various poets, and how he appreciates mainstream cinema but doesn't believe it warrants the sort of thought and consideration it so often receives.

The third 'Brakhage on Brakhage' turns its focus largely to the camera as an instrument, particularly the filmmaker's embrace of 8mm after his 16mm equipment was stolen. Brakhage marvels at the effectiveness of the even smaller, more lightweight 8mm camera in capturing daily life...in beating with the pulse of the person holding it...in empowering Brakhage, as he puts it, to be a "writer of movement". Brakhage also delves into the sort of trance state he'd fall into during the production of his films, one in which his actions are better described as reflexive rather than deliberate.

Finally, 'Brakhage on Brakhage IV' explores the topics that most deeply fascinate the filmmaker: birth, sex, death, and the search for God. Brakhage shows off a framed strip of 70mm film that went unused in The Dante Quartet, likens his willingness to abandon extravagance and return to basics to that of Whistler's painted cigar box tops, and his self-diagnosis that his painting of film strips would ultimately be responsible for the virulent form of bladder cancer that so deeply ravaged his body.

Brakhage doesn't offer audio commentary for his films, but nineteen of the twenty-six works showcased in this first volume are accompanied by remarks that serve much the same function. There are 49 minutes' worth of these remarks, recorded between 1996 and 2002. While discussing Desistfilm, for instance, Brakhage delves into his cinematic influences, noting the same fascination with French surrealism and Italian neo-realism that shaped the work of Fellini while also making apparent the impact Eisenstein's concept of montage had. Brakhage does a marvelous job exploring the backdrop that led him to filmmaking, challenging the notion that film was inaccessible to artists. We learn about

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the feature-length Dog Star Man as an attempt to produce a visual epic, one that features the "inner cellular dreams" that would suggest to the Woodman what was to come in the day that follows. Brakhage's comments on Window Water Baby Moving put the drive to capture childbirth in context and the enormous hurdles that had to be overcome to have a home delivery to document at all. An audio commentary for the nine second Eye Myth would've been challenging, to say the least, and these remarks give Brakhage the opportunity to discuss the film at slightly more length. Among the many, many other highlights are Brakhage discussing the world creation myths he'd invent every night that would go on to shape The Stars are Beautiful, the intrusion of sound and the possible negative influence of a title on his visual poetry in The Wold-Shadow, how it's to The Dante Quartet's benefit that Brakhage's grand mixed format ambitions didn't quite come to pass, Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse marking the first of Brakhage's mentions of hypnagogic vision in this collection, Mothlight drawing inspiration from Brakhage's struggles as a filmmaker feeling so much like a moth flying into a candle and becoming consumed by its flames, and bleakly laughing at how Commingled Containers would've been a marvelous final statement if indeed he'd died on the operating table the day after it was filmed.

Brakhage held weekly salons in which he'd screen -- and at times debut -- films by himself and other artists he admired, and this would be followed by a group discussion. Three excerpts from these salons, recorded between 1993 and 2002, have been included as part of this collection. With 23rd Psalm Branch, Brakhage notes the profound impact that Freud had on his life, particularly the concept that the most ordinary, mundane moments we experience day in and day out can be so charged in the proper context that they resound with meaning. He explores the often unrecognized darker side of being a child in Scenes from Under Childhood, Section One, while still trying to be fair and include the sense of awe and adventure that's also an integral part of childhood. Finally, Brakhage notes the three day fit of rage and horror following a matricidal nightmare that inspired Murder Psalm.

Brakhage is featured again in a 37 minute interview conducted in 1990, and the emphasis is predominantly on the philosophies of the artist; I don't believe Brakhage once mentions a single of his films by name. Brakhage debates the concept of the artist serving as a litmus for society, discusses The Muse as a very real entity rather than an intangible concept, and explores the spiritual truth of the visually abstract. Brakhage doesn't overinflate his own skill or importance, noting that he fails in every film he's made to some extent. From there, Brakhage addresses whether or not he's evolved as an artist and touches on ceasing his photography of his own life.

The last of the extras on this second disc is a fifty minute lecture from 1996, presented here without any accompanying video. It's here that Brakhage's concepts of moving visual thinking...of hypnagogic vision...are most thoroughly explored. His comments address the arts as a whole -- a medium for the private person to be exposed and to erupt in public as he can in no other form -- and how he believes film can one day be an art itself as far off on the horizon though that may be. Brakhage describes himself as a midwife for whatever cinematic impulses come through his nervous system and that his greatest achievement is simply survivng, especially in a climate this hostile towards the arts. Many of Brakhage's philosophies are explored in detail here: drawing inspiration from music though he prefers that his films be silent, painting offering a way to present that which cannot be photographed, the many challenges inherent to meticulously painting directly on a negative, the nature of collaboration, and his fascination with the purity of a fetus' dreams. Brakhage is an endlessly fascinating speaker, and part of this is owed to a marvelous sense of humor, smirking at the idea that the public can't stomach abstract art but will watch the O.J. Simpson car chase for hours on end when it's nothing more than one tiny box slowly being followed by four other boxes.

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excerpts from Brakhage's salon discussions are featured here as well. In Boulder Blues and Pearls and..., Brakhage notes how he wanted to stay true to his presentation of the city of Boulder, pointing out some of the specific landmarks featured in his film and how he attempted to compose with that which might be caught in people's peripheral vision. Again, his sense of humor is appreciated, noting that Boulder is one of the few cities on these shores in which the sight a coffin in someone's yard doesn't seem the least bit out of place. Afterwards, Brakhage discusses how The Cat of the Worm's Green Realm is an entirely visual story, one that would be as gripping as reading text from a book but without ever spelling out what the premise is, exactly.

Three more 'Brakhage on Brakhage' conversations are offered on this disc, running just over twenty minutes in total. Among the topics here are the many eccentricities of Joseph Cornell that Brakhage was subjected to when tasked to film The Wonder Ring, debating the semantics of such terms as "experimental film", "underground", and "avant-garde", the infinite possibilities of painting on film, and Brakhage's incorporation of chemotherapy and his surgeries into the filmmaking process.

Another lecture from 1996 has been included with this disc, but intriguingly, Brakhage mentions his own films only in passing. The lecture does begin by charting the early years of his career and the plays he staged in San Francisco, but the subject is ultimately not himself but Gertrude Stein, who Brakhage argues is the greatest writer of the 20th Century. This lecture serves at least in part as a biography of Stein, charting her life and movements as well as the influence this had on her work. Despite Brakhage's deep admiration for Stein, so impressed with her exacting use of language in which changing one word unravels all that follows, he's unabashedly critical of her lesser works. The inclusion of this lecture seems entirely appropriate: Brakhage's discussion largely centers on how Stein pushed the English language to its outermost extremes, and the filmmaker does much the same with the concept of film in his own work. Brakhage also discusses his dissatisfaction with the word "abstract" when applied to his films, though he doesn't argue the point when it's directed towards him, and he again notes how drama is the least changing of all the arts.

The last of the extras is Marilyn Brakhage's For Stan, a sixteen minute collection of footage of her husband working on Visions in Meditation in 1988. Shot on film, this is the only of the extras to be transferred and presented in 1080p24, and appropriate given its subject, For Stan is silent.

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