Jane Wodening
Jane Wodening is an American writer and the first wife of American filmmaker Stan Brakhage. Her birth to her and Brakhage's first child is the subject of the 1959 experimental short film Window Water Baby Moving. Married in 1957, Wodening was born Mary Jane Collom and is credited with creating scrapbooks for the Brakhage family during what is recognized as the filmmaker's most significant period of creation from the late 1950s to the mid 1960s. The couple separated in 1987.[1]
Life
Wodening grew up in a Chicago suburb, and moved to Fraser, Colorado, when she was eleven years old. After graduating highschool in Boulder, she dropped out of college and went to New York City. After meeting Stan Brakhage, the couple traveled around the country for several years before settling in Lump Gulch, where they had five children together. After separating from Brakhage, she again traversed the U.S. and settled in a cabin in Fourth of July Canyon, where she lived alone for ten years and authored seven collections of short stories.[2]
Window Water Baby Moving
Jane insisted that Brakhage be present at the birth of their daughter, Myrrenna; however, Brakhage felt he would faint if he weren't focused on filming the event.[3] The hospital initially gave permission for filming, but this was later reneged.[3] Instead, Brakhage transferred the birth to their home, hiring a nurse and some expensive emergency equipment.[3] Jane was originally "very, very shy" about being filmed, but eventually relented after Brakhage made "a big dramatic scene and said 'All right, let's forget it!'"[3] Most of the film was photographed by Brakhage himself, but Jane occasionally took the camera to capture her husband's reactions.[4]
Quotes
"The moon was a great chum when I was an adolescent. He looked like a freckle-faced boy and when he’d smile, it was going to be a nice day."[5]
References
- ↑ Deming, Richard (October 2006). "Collage, Collaboration, and Material Quotation: The Scrapbooks of Jane Wodening and Stan Brakhage, 1962-66, in the Beinecke Library". The Yale University Library Gazette 81 (1/2): 27–41. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
- ↑ Smith, Jeffrey. "Author’s latest ties together lifetime of observations". MMAC Monthly. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
- 1 2 3 4 MacDonald, Scott (2005) A critical cinema: interviews with independent filmmakers, p64-66
- ↑ Barr, William R. (1999) "Brakhage: Artistic Development in Two Childbirth Films," Film quarterly: forty years, a selection, University of California Press, p536-541
- ↑ Whittaker, R. "A Conversation with Jane Wodening: Doors of Perception". Works & Conversations. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
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