Blue Value

Directed by Stan Brakhage

This is a hand-painted step-printed film which begins with slow dissolves of what appear to be decaying leaves, crumpled browns and golds and oranges which assume qualities of earth and rock shot-through with flashes of crystalline prism colors and jagged scratch marks amidst glows of multiple coloration with increasing blues, varieties of tones of blue, from turquoise to near-purple - these variations of tone (and shape, as well) gradually convey, given the comparatively few appearances of blue, a formal domination over all other tones (and attendant shapes) of the spectrum of the film. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.