In the latter half of the 20th Century, Raymond Rohauer was one of the nation's foremost proponents of experimental cinema. This two-disc collection continues Kino's tribute to the Rohauer Collection, including the early works of Stan Brakhage and influential films by Willard Maas, Gregory Markopoulos, Marie Menken, Dimitri Kirsanoff, Jean Mitry, Sidney Peterson and others. The piece de resistance is Jean Isidore Isou's passionate manifesto of film aesthetics Traite de Bave et d'Èternite; (Venom and Eternity), which sparked a riot when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951. This edition of Venom includes 34 minutes of footage never seen in the United States.
Music composed and performed by Sue Harshe, Larry Marotta and Jon C. Mirsalis
Produced for video by Bret Wood
Production superviser: Brian Shirey
Special thanks to Tim Lanza
Licensed by the Douris Corp.

"The first months of marriage, with moments of mutual awareness, frightening understandings, lovemaking." -S.B.

An important early film by Stan Brakhage, which Joseph Cornell commissioned as a record of New York's Third Avenue elevated train before it was torn down. Curiously lacking in people, the film focuses on the rhythms of the ride and reflections in train windows, finding a real-world version of the superimpositions Brakhage would later create in the lab. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

”This little film (originally painted on IMAX) attempts to capture the beauty of sadness, as the eyes have it when closed in meditation on sorrow." -S.B.

Comingled Containers is an experimental short film by Stan Brakhage. "This 'return to photography' (after several years of only painting film) was made on the eve of cancer surgery - a kind of 'last testament,' if you will… an envisionment of the fleeting complexity of worldly phenomenon."

Inspired by a bad fall on a patch of black ice (that ultimately resulted in Brakhage's need for eye surgery), the filmmaker gives us something of a dreamlike descent through the fear and refractions of closed-eye vision regarding such an event.

This is a hand-painted film which has been photographically step-printed to achieve various effects of brief fades and fluidity-of-motion, and makes partial use of painted frames in repetition (for "close-up" of textures). The tone of the film is primarily dark blue, and the paint is composed (and rephotographed microscopically) to suggest galactic forms in a space of stars.

Stan Brakhage's final film, made shortly before his death by wetting a filmstrip with saliva and using his fingernail to scratch marks into the emulsion. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

This hand-painted, step-printed film begins with streaks of light and vibrantly colored forms. There appears, frame center, the tapered shape of a tower-- An imposing silhouette against the backdrop of the flaring sky.

"What a moth might see from birth to death if black were white and white were black." -S.B.

“The hand-painted work six years in-the-making (37 in the studying of The Divine Comedy) demonstrates the earthly conditions of 'Hell', 'Purgatory' (or Transition), and 'Heaven' (or 'existence is song,' which is the closest I'd presume upon heaven from my experience), as well as the mainspring of/from 'Hell' (Hell Spit Flexion) in four parts." -S.B.

Stan Brakhage的代表作《狗．星．人》(Dog Star Man，1961—1964)，他稱之為「影像的史詩」(Visual Epic)，當中表達了人離去社會與文明後的狀態。《狗．星．人》分為五大部分：前奏是關於日與夜的夢，第一部分是關於攀爬雪山的過程，第二部分是關於誕生，第三部分是關於性愛的白日夢，第四部分是複合的崩潰。從以上的簡介可知，布力奇治承接了超現實主義的傳統，夢佔了一個重要的位置，但他在抽象的哲學性議題上有所開拓，這一點大大擴展了詩的電影的內涵。

非常自传片过程中强烈的抑郁期他离婚从简，他的第一任妻子，和分离从他的五个孩子后，电影制片人制作。 Brakhage称之为“一个真正的，叙事的，戏剧性的心理剧”。影片的背景音乐是​​一块是短暂的短语来自不同斯蒂芬·福斯特的歌曲，其共同的主题是损失拼贴。 Brakhage划痕从电影这些歌个别单词的间隔，以及摇摇欲坠的信件跨越架不确定性跳舞。主要的视觉主题是55岁的电影制片人自己在一个孤独的公寓耿耿于怀的，坐在地板上，靠在墙上，多次从床上赤裸的上升和回落。这是剪切片段制成年前，在70年代，当他的孩子小很多，因为他们在他们曾经共享家庭快乐地玩镜头。即使在他非常最低点，Brakhage继续把他的生活变成艺术。

”This hand-painted work is easily the most minutely detailed ever given to me to do, for it traces (as best I'm able) the hypnagogic after-effect of psychological cathexis as designated by Freud in his first (and unfinished) book on the subject, Toward a Scientific Psychology." -S.B.

　　他在《水窗中的颤动婴儿》（Window Water Baby Moving，1959）中，以倒叙和一连串的主题元素画面，描绘珍•布莱凯吉（Jane Brakhage）怀孕和生产的情景。

"This film presents the voice of a child play-singing in relation to full orchestral 'takes' of The Times and visually juxtaposed with children-at-play (my grandchildren Iona and Quay Bartek) in Americana backyard. They are seen, as in dream, to be already caught-up in ── yet absolutely distinct ── from the rituals of adulthood." -S.B.

"An untitled hand-painted film - a phynagogic four-part thought process interwoven with scratched words in thanks to and praise of God." - S.B.

"A series of shocks of recognition of daily living as a series of big bangs - creations of the universe." -S.B.