Dog Star Man is Brakhage's epic drama of the creation of the universe. If Michael Snow's Rameau's Nephew... is the "first talkie" (see March 20), Dog Star Man might be seen as a prototypical silent. "Dog Star Man is the most self-sufficient and innocent film...silent in the sense that the greatest silent films are...(The) film itself becomes a dance of editing and moves (like) the best silent actors with their physical movements..." (Michael McClure, Art Forum). P. Adams Sitney has described the four parts and prelude as follows: "Prelude (1961, 25 mins): Four basic visual themes dominate: l) the four elements...; 2) the cosmos represented in stock footage of the sun, moon and stars; 3) Brakhage's household...4) artificial, yet purely filmic devices... Part 1 (1962, 30 mins): In the tradition of Ezra Pound's vorticism, a Noh drama, the exploration in minute detail of a single action and all its ramifications... Part 2 (1963, 7 mins): ...the extension of the bardic into living film...images of life, regeneration...spring and early morning. Part 3 (1964, 11 mins): The marriage of striving and fertility...midsummer and high noon. Part 4 (1964, 5 mins): Death, cast into the future by the question, `What is death like?' is recognized as the lens through which we grasp the limitlessness of life."