In 1971, Brakhage was given access to film the workings of three essential Pittsburgh institutions: the hospital, the police, and the morgue. (This access was brokered by CMOA film curator Sally Dixon, who was also responsible for bringing Brakhage to Pittsburgh to begin with.) What resulted is what Bill Judson — who succeeded Dixon as CMOA film curator — described as “exceptional.” “It’s less about Stan’s life and being, and more about the three institutions. And the way they’re edited also — giving each image a little more strength, a little more time, a little less manipulation. And in that sense, too, they’re more documentary. So they really stand out in his body of work,” Judson said. “And I don’t really know whether Sally [Dixon] had a role in that directly or not. I suspect that Stan might have had a sense that it was his obligation, since these institutions made available to him, that it was his obligation to really honor the police, the morgue, to give us a portrait of what...