Dog Star Man, Stan Brakhage's epic drama of the creation of the universe, is a brilliant instance of cinematic form creating and articulating content. A woodsman climbs a mountain, struggles with a tree, has a sexual daydream, continues to struggle with the tree, falls back down the mountain. Brakhage expands the narrative via a synthesis of his well-known techniques: multiple superimposition, colored filters, distorting lenses, painting-on-film. The themes are as diverse as the subject matter and cinematic renderings: the relationship of man and environment, of the personal and general, of seeing and perceiving. Michael McClure wrote in Artforum: “Dog Star Man is the most self–sufficient and innocent film. . . . [The] film itself becomes a dance of editing and moves as the best silent actors do. . . . The film breathes and is an organic and surging thing . . . a colossal lyrical adventure dance of image in every variation of color.”