Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Meshes of the Afternoon
(Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, US 1943, 14 min., 16mm)
At Land
(Maya Deren, US 1944, 14 min., 16mm)
A Study in Choreography for Camera
(Maya Deren, US 1945, 3 min., 16mmt)
Ritual in Transfigured Time
(Maya Deren, US 1946, 15 min., 16mm)
Meditation on Violence
(Maya Deren, US 1948, 13 min., 16mm)
“Maya Deren was one of the most important American experimental filmmakers and entrepreneurial promoters of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. She was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet lecturer, writer, and photographer. The function of film, Deren, believer, like most art forms, was to create an experience; each one of her films would evoke new conclusions, lending her focus to be dynamic and always-evolving. She combined her interests in a series of surreal, perceptual, black-and-white short films. Using editing, multiple exposures, jump cuts, superimposition, slow motion and other techniques to their fullest advantage, Deren creates continued motion through discontinued space, while abandoning the established notions of physical space and time.” –The Film-makers’ Cooperative
Meshes of the Afternoon appears at #16 on Sight and Sound magazine’s list of The 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
Presented with our Community Sponsor, the National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House