Thigh Line Lyre Triangular is an experimental short film by Stan Brakhage, released in 1961, which depicts the birth of the director's third child, a daughter named Neowyn.
[1][2] The film, which involves painting and hand-scratching over photographic images,[3] is more abstract than the director's earlier Window Water Baby Moving, which documented the birth of Brakhage's first-born, a daughter named Myrrenna.
Stan Brakhage felt that Window Water Baby Moving had insufficiently captured his emotions at the birth of his child, and intended Thigh Line Lyre Triangular as an improvement.
William R. Barr wrote that Thigh Line Lyre Triangular lacked the "urgency and intensity" of the earlier film,[2] nevertheless describing it as "a layered, integrated affirmation of all creativity.
"[2] Steven Dillon wrote that the film “attains the complexity of a lyrical poem by balancing subjective, painterly vision with emancipator, documentary effect.”[7] R. Bruce Elder notes "the irony that [Brakhage], who had so vigorously rejected symbolism, resorted to using symbolism in Thigh Line Lyre Triangular.”[1] James Peterson likened the film to the 1930s and 1940s art of Surrealist painter Joan Miró.