I... Dreaming is an experimental

Experimental film

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...

 short film by Stan Brakhage

Stan Brakhage

James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....

, released in 1988

1988 in film

-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice...

. The film features a soundtrack of Stephen Foster

Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...

 songs, composed by Joel Haertling.

Production

I... Dreaming was described by Brakhage as "extremely autobiographical," and was produced at one of the lowest points in his life, following his separation from wife Jane. Unlike most of the director's works, the film features a soundtrack. Brakhage took a "collage" of Stephen Foster

Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...

 songs, composed by Joel Haertling, and set images to the music. The soundtrack often "jumps" abruptly from one musical phrase or song to another.

Brakhage also scratched chosen song lyrics, such as "sweet spirit" and "see the dark void," directly onto the film emulsion. The visuals interchange between images of Brakhage, appearing a weary old man, and the restless movements of his grandchildren, sometimes captured with a time-lapse

Time-lapse

Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing...

 camera. The film is composed of "small, minimalist images" and often uses a steady, mounted camera.

Reception

I... Dreaming is often commented upon for its use of soundtrack, an atypical element in Brakhage's work. The film has been likened to the director's earlier "trance films," such as The Way to Shadow Garden (1954) and Reflections on Black (1955), as well as the work of contemporaries Maya Deren

Maya Deren

Maya Deren , born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s...

, Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...

, and Gregory Markopoulos

Gregory Markopoulos

Gregory J. Markopoulos was a Greek-American experimental filmmaker. Born in Toledo, Ohio to Greek immigrant parents, Markopoulos began making 8 mm films at an early age. He attended USC Film School in the late 1940s, and went on to become a co-founder — with Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Stan...

. Malcolm Cook, writing for Senses of Cinema

Senses of Cinema

Senses of Cinema is a quarterly online film magazine founded in 1999 by filmmaker Bill Mousoulis. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Senses of Cinema publishes work by film critics from all over the world, including critical essays, career overviews of the works of key directors, and coverage of many...

, described I... Dreaming as "an emotional experience." Laurel Gildersleeve writes that the film "elicits a melancholy and cold emptiness," and communicates the loss of vitality that comes with growing older. R. Bruce Elder considered the film significant in Brakhage's oeuvre, in that it, alone among Brakhage’s work, challenges the idea of “mind as creating the world anew, with every passing moment, in a triumphant act of the imagination.” Fred Camper praised the imagery of I... Dreaming as "poetic and suggestive," and interpreted the scratching of phrases as Brakhage acknowledging the impossibility of transcending his sadness.