Dog Star Man is a series of short experimental films, all directed by Stan Brakhage, featuring Jane Wodening. It was released in instalments between 1961 and 1964 and comprises a prelude and four parts. In 1992, Dog Star Man was included in its entirety in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation. Described as a "cosmological epic" and "creation myth" (particularly the Prelude), Dog Star Man illustrates the odyssey of a bearded woodsman (Brakhage) climbing through a snow-covered mountain with his dog to chop down a tree. While doing so, he witnesses various mystical visions with various recurring imagery such as a woman, child, nature, and the cosmos while making his ascent. The five short films all form one larger film, and they are almost always shown together as one film. In 1965, Brakhage used the same footage from Dog Star Man and re-edited it into a much longer film, The Art of Vision. Both are generally considered the greatest works of his first mature period. Background After editing and completing Cat's Cradle, Brakhage began filming Dog Star Man. At the time when he began work on the project, Brakhage had not set on any particular idea on what the project would be about. In addition to this, he had also faced different sets of crisis including the questioning of his distant relationship with his wife Jane at the time, experiencing visions, and contemplations of death and decay. The filming of Dog Star Man took on gradually as Brakhage also worked on The Dead. Structure Ever since he commissioned the idea of the project, Brakhage had already had a prelude and four parts in mind. Dog Star Man, like Brakhage's other works, is characterized and known for their abstract imagery and techniques such as scratching and punching holes into the film. While the work is considered difficult and unorthodox by many, there is a general structure to the narrative of the film cycle that comprises the prelude and four parts. Prelude The opening of Dog Star Man is entitled Prelude and runs at around 26 minutes, making it one of the longer parts of the film cycle. Brakhage described the Prelude as a "created dream" for the film as opposed to Surrealism in which the work itself is