Criterion is proud to present 26 masterworks by Stan Brakhage in high-definition digital transfers made from newly minted film elements. For the first time on DVD, viewers will be able to look at Brakhage’s meticulously crafted frames one by one.

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 pièce de résistance is Jean Isidore Isou's passionate manifesto of film aesthetics Traitéde Bave et D'eternité (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.

Working outside the mainstream, Stan Brakhage made nearly four hundred films. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of: birth, sex, death, and the search for God, Brakhage turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even autopsy. Many of his