MAYA DEREN: EXPERIMENTAL FILMS
"She is the mother of us all."
Maya Deren was one of the most pre-eminent avant-garde filmmakers of the 20th century; her first film MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943), is the most renown experimental film throughout all of film history. She became known as a major proponent of the “trance” film, and her movies are a transitional link between the European avant-garde films of the 1920’s (see, for example, CINÉMA DADA and SURREALISM AND EXPERIMENTS IN BELGIUM CINEMA), and the American avant-garde films of Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos, Stan Brakhage and others. Deren was also a poet and developed an interested in modern dance (see also MAYA DEREN: DANCE FILMS). In her experimental films, she also collaborated with other artists, who appeared in her films, including poet Anaïs Nin, musician John Cage, dancer Frank Westbrook, and her filmmaker-husband, Alexander Hammid.
MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON
"The cinema of Maya Deren delivers us from the studios: it presents our eyes with physical facts which contain profound psychological meaning; it beats out within our hearts or upon our hearts a time which alternates, continues, revolves, pounds, or flies away.... One escapes from the stupidity of make-believe. One is in the reality of the cinematic fact, captured by Maya Deren at that point where the lens cooperates as a prodigious discoverer."
- Le Corbusier, 1945
Rita Christiani and Frank Westbrook in RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME
Maya Deren in AT LAND
Contents
Format: DVD-PAL / Region 0
(No Regional Code)
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MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON
(US, 1943)
Director: Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid
Music: Teiji Ito (1959)
With: Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid
• 15 minutes
• 16mm
• B&W
• Sound
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AT LAND
(US, 1944)
Director: Maya Deren
With: Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, Hella Heyman & John Cage
• 16 minutes
• 16mm
• B&W
• Silent
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RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME
(US, 1945–1946)
Director: Maya Deren
With: Maya Deren, Rita Christiani, Frank Westbrook & Anaïs Nin
• 16 minutes
• 16mm
• B&W
• Silent
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Total Running Time: 00:47:00
Published By: Re:Voir Video
Institutional Price: $250 (plus shipping)
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