Quote:
“In 1944 Maya made a film at the Peggy Guggenheim Art of this Century Gallery with Marcel Duchamp called Witches Cradle. Deren used the camera, as she envisioned medieval witches and magicians did, to ‘defy’ time and space through the disappearance and reappearance of objects. Based on an article written by the Frenchman Charles Duits, colleague of Andre Breton and an extra in Ritual in Transfigured Time, Deren compared these medieval witches and magicians to the surrealists, and had a brief association with the movement. She resisted the label attached to her work and defended her position in scholarship and on tour for lecture/demonstrations.” (algonet.se)Read More »
Maya Deren
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Maya Deren – Witch’s Cradle (1944) (HD)
1941-1950ExperimentalMaya DerenShort FilmUSA -
Maya Deren – Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946)
1941-1950ExperimentalMaya DerenShort FilmUSAQuote:
Ritual in Transfigured Time is like a dream, meaning that the various sequences don’t seem to have any connection to each other unless you try to approach this film in a different way and not as a conventional hollywood movie.The main character in the film is Rita Christiani who after a strange scene with Maya Deren herself who disappears startling Rita, appears in this ball with ladies and gentlemen dancing. This film has one of the most beautiful scenes in a Maya Deren’s film when Rita Christiani while she’s dancing she appears to float in the air.Read More »
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Maya Deren – A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945)
Maya Deren1941-1950ExperimentalShort FilmUSAA man dances in several locations, edited to have a fluent effect.Read More »
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Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid – Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
1941-1950Alexander HammidMaya DerenShort FilmUSAA solitary flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a phone off the hook: discordant images a woman sees as she comes home. She naps and, perhaps, dreams. She sees a hooded figure going down the driveway. The knife is on the stair, then in her bed. The hooded figure puts the flower on her bed then disappears. The woman sees it all happen again. Downstairs, she naps, this time in a chair. She awakes to see a man going upstairs with the flower. He puts it on the bed. The knife is handy. Can these dream-like sequences end happily? A mirror breaks, the man enters the house again. Will he find her?Read More »
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Maya Deren – At Land (1944)
1941-1950ArthouseExperimentalMaya DerenUSASilently, a woman wakes on a beach as the tides go in reverse. Her dreamscape unfolds as she tries to locate a chess piece traveling from the beach to a party to a country road and then back.Read More »
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Alexander Hammid & Maya Deren – The Private Life of a Cat (1944)
1941-1950Alexander Hammid and Maya DerenExperimentalMaya DerenUSAQuote:
Alexander Hammid’s intimate study of a female cat and the birth and maturation of her five kittens.Read More »