Maya Deren: Experimental Films

Maya Deren: Experimental Films
by Maya Deren

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DVD details

Actor: Maya Deren Experimental Films
Director: Maya Deren
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 76 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-26
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Mystic Fire Video

DVD Reviews of Maya Deren: Experimental Films

DVD Review: Enigmatic short films
Summary: 3 Stars

These pieces seem to strip movie-making down to its bare bones. The longest clocks at 15 minutes, one lasts just four. As in short-story writing, the central idea has to become clear quickly. They're all black and white. Perhaps economics forced that on her (these pieces all come from the 1940s and 1950s), but it also eliminates the complexities of the color dimensions. Some of the pieces have accompanying music, others play out in silence, but none feature spoken words. In all, the result compresses the viewer's attention into a purely visual experience.

The first of these pieces, "Meshes of the Afternoon," has the most narrative quality. Surreal characters move across a limited setting, in stylized and repetitive ways - under the gaze of that cloaked, faceless character. Later pieces, especially "The Very Eye of Night," become choreographic abstractions.

It's interesting to see the origins of later experimental movie-making, and to see imagery that might have been echoed in other art films of the day. Deren's use of optical effects, although somewhat grainy and jittery, also prefigures techniques that became main-stream by the 1970s. I've never had much response to choreography, though, and most of these pieces center closely around idioms of dance. As a result, not much really grabbed my attention. I found it useful to see the development of film-making as a nearly abstract art, but I probably won't come back to this collection.

-- wiredweird

DVD 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.

DVD Review: amazing visual experiences !
Summary: 5 Stars

It gives you exactly extra ordinary visual experiences. Or, let me say it is exactly an invention of what movie is and how film should be. If you do like watching motion pictures, then you must see this. I mean it !

DVD Review: one of the greatest women artists of all time
Summary: 5 Stars

In my opinion,Maya Deren ranks right up there with Hildegard von Bingen as one of the most prolific female artists in the history of mankind.Her films are amazing because they have so many "faces" to them.They are at-once femininely strong,femininely beautiful,and have a delicate flow.She should not simply be remembered as a "woman artist" however;her directorial and editing work are among the best in all of cinematic history--men or women.This dvd may not present her material in a Criterion Collection-quality manner,but the material alone is worth the purchase.

Description of Maya Deren: Experimental Films

Studio: Microcinema Inc. Release Date: 06/26/2007 Run time: 76 minutes

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