Films by Maya Deren (Experimental Revival)

Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Tuesday, 7pm
Leaving aside the filmmaking for a moment, it is fair to say that only a few individuals rival Maya Deren's importance in the development of the American Experimental cinema, and none of the early figures can rival the tales of her rich life and forceful personality. There's an often-repeated rumor that she once used her Voodoo powers, acquired while researching for an anthropology book in Haiti (The Divine Horseman), to pick up a refrigerator and toss it at a houseguest who had overstayed his welcome. An astute theorist and tireless promoter of the art, Deren's early films took the psychodrama of European filmmakers such as Jean Cocteau and morphed them to create a foundation for the personal-lyrical filmmaking of early Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger, and her later films foreshadowed the Structuralist work of Michael Snow and Ernie Gehr. Though she only completed a handful of films in her short life, they are each almost unanimous classics of the genre. Talk to any film professor worth their salt and you'll hear about the groundbreaking editing in MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, the elegant spatial manipulation of A STUDY IN CHOREOGRAPHY FOR THE CAMERA, and the formal shamanism in MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE. Although her work is now quite accessible on DVD, all true believers of the Church of Cinema need to march down to Hyde Park to see these films as they were intended. Also showing: AT LAND, RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME, THE WITCH'S CRADLE, and THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT. (1945-55, 86 min total, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info