THE FILMS OF MAYA DEREN
Filmmaker MAYA DEREN
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, 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. 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.
GME distributes DVD editions of the following Maya Deren films:
Various Directors
More women worked in film during its first two decades than any time since. Unfortunately, many early women filmmakers have been largely written out of film history, their contributions undervalued. This necessary and timely collection highlights the work of 14 of early cinema's most innovative and influential women directors, rewriting and celebrating their rightful place in film history. Directors include Alice Guy Blaché, Lois Weber, Mabel Normand, Madeline Brandeis, Germaine Dulac, Olga Preobrazhenskaia, Marie-Louise Iribe, Lotte Reiniger, Claire Parker, Mrs. Wallace Reid (Dorothy Davenport), Leni Riefenstahl, Mary Ellen Bute, Dorothy Arzner, and Maya Deren.
MASTERWORKS OF AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE EXPERIMENTAL FILM 1920-1970
Various Directors (US)
Commencing in 1920 with Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand’s creative collaboration on MANHATTA, successive generations of experimental filmmakers such as Kenneth Anger, James Broughton, and Maya Deren, and artists (including Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp) have worked in collaboration or alone to create a cinema capable of expressing dynamic unspoken concepts in totally abstract visual terms.
MAYA DEREN: DANCE FILMS
Maya Deren (US)
Maya Deren (1917-1961) integrated her interest in modern dance into her filmmaking practice, and in the 1950’s did fieldwork in Haiti on rituals, dances, and voodoo. She also collaborated with choreographer Anthony Tudor and students of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in the making of THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT (1952-55). Deren’s first dance film, A STUDY IN CHOREOGRAPHY FOR THE CAMERA (1945) was subtitled “Pas de Deux”, referring to the co-equal role of the camera and the on-screen dancer in terms of the interplay between movement, space, and time.
MAYA DEREN: EXPERIMENTAL FILMS
Maya Deren (US)
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 and the American avant-garde.