Window Water Baby Moving

In the early 80's, Brakhage screened 'Window Water Baby Moving' to Andrei Tarkovsky who wasn't impressed with the film. Brakhage said in an interview: "The first film was Window Water Baby Moving. First of all I got nervous because Olga, who is teetering over me on the bureau, begins to sway. I've seen people faint at that film and I don't know, maybe she's never seen childbirth before. And then I see Tarkovsky's wife averting her face from the screen at times as you get to see some of the more explicit details of childbirth. ... Tarkovsky starts talking in rapid Russian, with Zanussi answering him, and whatever he's saying it's obviously angry. Finally, after a lot of these exchanges, Jane had the presence of mind to say, "What's going on? What's he saying?" So Zanussi starts translating and he says, "Well..." and we all wait, "Well... he says," and we wait some more, "he says that Art must have a mystery to it and this is too scientific to be Art.""

Featured in By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume One (2003)