Window Water Baby Moving
- 1959
- 13m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
2.5K
YOUR RATING
Stan Brakhage films the birth of his first child, Myrrena.Stan Brakhage films the birth of his first child, Myrrena.Stan Brakhage films the birth of his first child, Myrrena.
Stan Brakhage
- Self
- (uncredited)
Myrrena Schwegmann
- Self (baby being born)
- (uncredited)
Jane Wodening
- Self
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn the early 80's, Brakhage screened 'Window Water Baby Moving' to Andrei Tarkovsky who wasn't impressed with the film. Brakhage said in an interview: "The first film was Window Water Baby Moving. First of all I got nervous because Olga, who is teetering over me on the bureau, begins to sway. I've seen people faint at that film and I don't know, maybe she's never seen childbirth before. And then I see Tarkovsky's wife averting her face from the screen at times as you get to see some of the more explicit details of childbirth. ... Tarkovsky starts talking in rapid Russian, with Zanussi answering him, and whatever he's saying it's obviously angry. Finally, after a lot of these exchanges, Jane had the presence of mind to say, "What's going on? What's he saying?" So Zanussi starts translating and he says, "Well..." and we all wait, "Well... he says," and we wait some more, "he says that Art must have a mystery to it and this is too scientific to be Art.""
- ConnectionsFeatured in By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (2003)
Featured review
the most personal 'family film' ever made
You ever see that cliché happening, if not in TV or movies then in real life, of the husband documenting every single excruciatingly painful but miraculous happening that is birth? Apparently, according to Stan Brakhage on the DVD this film is on, this trend was at least in part inspired by his original efforts. Shot on a minimal budget (save for what it must've cost to have a birth in the Brakhage household as opposed to the hospital), this film IS the difference between a simple 'home movie' and something close to the most personal art possible. Documentary film-making has always been about a subject that compels the filmmaker enough to get hours and hours of footage down. That here Brakhage, who often does montage work of paintings and the like, is focusing his subject matter on his wife, and his child just itching to get out, in all graphic detail, is astounding. For the 60's, when this was first released, it was probably a lot more shocking than now.
Not to say that the film isn't shocking, but it is on a different level than what you might see on one of those 'birth' shows on one of the Discovery channels. The way certain things are presented in the film are surprising, and (if you're a guy like me) definitely unnerving. But Brakhage somehow makes his film almost beautiful in a way by cutting the film's subject matter in half, so to speak. The first half is just the mother of his child, in a bathtub, feeling the baby kicking, et all. It's really just a great montage of the woman as a whole, nothing unseen, with the belly getting the most screen-time aside from the mother's face and genitals. Then comes the second part, the birth. Basically, if you still wonder how it works, in near unflinching detail, watch the film. That it is presented in such a grainy 16mm kind of filming, and still using the intense, mad montage of Brakhage's two cameras on her (I think it was two, one more close to the 'action' than the other).
And when it ends, it is, like all (practically) successful births, a miracle in and of itself. So much happens within these 13 minutes of film than, in a way, it feels longer. I loved how it dealt with its subject matter, which could be very tricky, and messy (the latter of which is very true), and was still a wonder for the eyes. It lacks music, which is sort of a pro and a con for me- you could do with some music, make it even more home movie-like. As it is, Brakhage has one of his most notorious- and possibly best- works here, and maybe the only film that makes that bridge between a health class and film class in school.
Not to say that the film isn't shocking, but it is on a different level than what you might see on one of those 'birth' shows on one of the Discovery channels. The way certain things are presented in the film are surprising, and (if you're a guy like me) definitely unnerving. But Brakhage somehow makes his film almost beautiful in a way by cutting the film's subject matter in half, so to speak. The first half is just the mother of his child, in a bathtub, feeling the baby kicking, et all. It's really just a great montage of the woman as a whole, nothing unseen, with the belly getting the most screen-time aside from the mother's face and genitals. Then comes the second part, the birth. Basically, if you still wonder how it works, in near unflinching detail, watch the film. That it is presented in such a grainy 16mm kind of filming, and still using the intense, mad montage of Brakhage's two cameras on her (I think it was two, one more close to the 'action' than the other).
And when it ends, it is, like all (practically) successful births, a miracle in and of itself. So much happens within these 13 minutes of film than, in a way, it feels longer. I loved how it dealt with its subject matter, which could be very tricky, and messy (the latter of which is very true), and was still a wonder for the eyes. It lacks music, which is sort of a pro and a con for me- you could do with some music, make it even more home movie-like. As it is, Brakhage has one of his most notorious- and possibly best- works here, and maybe the only film that makes that bridge between a health class and film class in school.
helpful•62
- Quinoa1984
- Dec 22, 2005
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- Also known as
- Window, Water, Baby, Moving
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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Top Gap
By what name was Window Water Baby Moving (1959) officially released in Canada in English?
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