Song 23: 23rd Psalm Branch, Part 11978

This work, created in Reg. 8mm. a decade ago, was in great danger ( as all the SONGS) of being lost forever due to deterioration of the original and all Lab Masters. Despite great expense, I've managed to enlarge the original (step-printed) into a 16mm master. I chose this film (above all other SONGS) FIRST because of the multiple splices and hand-painted sections of it endangered it the most AND because I fear the war- inclination of this society at this time once again. P. Adams Sitney writes (in Visionary Film): The furthest that Brakhage came in extending the language of 8mm cinema was his editing of the 23rd PSALM BRANCH... The phenomenal and painstaking craftsmanship of this film reflects the intensity of the obsession with which its theme grasped his mind. In 1966, out of confusion about the Vietnam was the American reaction to it, Brakhage began to meditate on the nature of war... The fruit of his studies and thought was the longest and most important of the SONGS... it is an apocalypse of imagination.