Maya Deren: Experimental Films
by Maya Deren
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Maya Deren Experimental FilmsDirector: Maya Deren
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 76 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-26
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Mystic Fire Video
Movie Reviews of Maya Deren: Experimental Films
Movie Review: A brilliant, must-have collection of short films
Summary: 5 Stars
I think it was Stan Brakhage who once explained the importance of Maya Deren to the development of underground film culture by saying, "She is the mother of us all." This DVD collects the short films that prove Brakhage right. All of them are in black and white; most of them are about 15 minutes long (the one exception is even shorter than that); and all are silent, though some have musical accompaniment.
"Meshes of the Afternoon" (1943), made in collaboration with her then-husband, Hollywood cameraman Alexander Hamid, is the foundation of American experimental cinema. It tells a dream-like story that loops back on itself with variations, telling a dream-like story of a woman (Deren) following a strange, cloaked figure with a mirror for a face. It is an endlessly fascinating film made all the more intense by its brevity. Along with Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks", it is the finest distillation of dream into film that I have seen.
"At Land" (1944) begins with a woman (Deren again) being washed up on the shore by the ocean and climbing up into a series of curious adventures. A good early example of the "trance" film.
"A Study in Choreography for Camera" (1945) is only four minutes long and doesn't really tell a story; it's more a brief experiment in the cinematography and editing of dance footage, with an innovative opening in which the camera rotates in place and manages to pass the same figure four times before completing the circle.
"Ritual in Transfigured Time" (1946) is arguably Deren's greatest film. Three women (Deren, writer Anais Nin, and dancer Rita Christiani) play archetypal roles in the the transformation of "widow into bride" (as Deren explained it).
"Meditation on Violence" (1948) is an extended study of ritual motion in which a master of Chinese martial arts demonstrates Wu Tang and Shao Lin forms. It is surprisingly difficult to tell that the last four minutes of the film are played backwards!
"The Very Eye of Night" (1958) is a curious piece in which dancers, filmed in negative, perform against a starry background. Some critics dismiss this film, but it is really quite absorbing, in a meditative sort of way, if you are willing to slow down and accept it as it is rather than demanding a "story."
The DVD also includes Alexander Hamid's charming documentary "The Secret Life of a Cat" (1945), which shows the birth and raising of a new litter of kittens in the Deren/Hamid household.
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