Maya Deren Cinema

Drawing upon Maya Deren’s panel contribution at the 1953 Cinema 16 Symposium and Martin Heidegger’s “Memorial Address” from Discourse on Thinking this paper uses Deren’s vertical/horizontal investigations theory and Martin Heidegger’s ideas on calculative/meditative thinking to describe how the mechanics of filmmaking contribute to the process of poetically creating meaning in film.
Maya Deren suggests two kinds of investigation in film, that of the horizontal and that of the vertical. The horizontal operates primarily to move the plot forward in sequence of action-after-action-after-action, while the vertical stops at a particular point on the horizontal plane of action and proceeds to move upward into the story or character, exploring meaning-upon-meaning-upon-meaning.
In the avid pursuit of the horizontal, popular filmmaking, in a distancing from the experimental, has lost concern for the vertical poetic investigation of Deren’s description, in the visual, the symbolic, and the act of characterization. What remains is a shallow preoccupation with pace, a perpetuation of action not story, an attraction to only the look of a character. What is forgotten is content - narrative and otherwise - the meaning of a moment, a character, an exploration. Such films can be seen as a reflection of present culture, which has come to reject the vertical poetic in thinking as well.
Philosopher Martin Heidegger presents a duality in thinking, similar Deren’s duality in filmic investigation. He observes two, contrasting kinds of thinking - that of the calculative thinking and that of the meditative - as approaches for how human beings think about the world. Calculative thinking, Heidegger says, concerns the technical and formulaic, while meditative thinking explores meaning. Meditative thinking, he believes, is practiced less and less by the modern human.
While Deren and Heidegger worked in different disciplines, film and philosophy, respectively, their thoughts can be seen as not only complementary to one another but when connected can advance an understanding of how meaning is poetically created in film. This process ultimately reflects cultural shifts in the way human beings think, understand, and create when guided by calculative practices instead of meditative. Discussion of the commonalities between the ideas and examination of Deren’s short films will serve as the vehicles by which this concept is explored. Film Theory is the field of academic discourse to which the paper contributes.

La presente investigación tiene como objetivo explorar los orígenes de la relación entre el cine y la danza a través del análisis y la comparación de los cortometrajes A Study in Choreography for Camera, de Maya Deren –película que supone el nacimiento del denominado coreocine– y Dance in the Sun, de Shirley Clarke, ambas ejemplo de la experimentación más temprana entre cámara, montaje, movimiento y coreografía, y que representan los primeros duetos y simbiosis entre un medio orgánico, el cuerpo, y otro inorgánico, la cámara, que, por primera vez en la historia del cine adoptaba un rol activo respecto a la danza. Abstract This research aims to explore the origins of the relationship between film and dance through the analysis and comparison of short films A Study in Choreography for Camera by Maya Deren –movie representing the birth of the so called choreocinema– and Dance in the Sun by Shirley Clarke, both examples of the earliest experimentation among camera, edition, movement and choreography, and representing the first duets and symbiosis between an organic medium, the body, and an inorganic one, the camera, which for the first time in cinema history took on an active role towards dance.

Colección "Mujeres en la historia", dirigida por Ada del Moral, doctora en Estudios Teatrales, periodista y escritora.
Prisanoticias Colecciones, Ediciones El País, Madrid, 2019
ISBN: 978-84-9907-103-9
143 páginas

· + info: https://elpais.com/promociones/mujeres-en-la-historia/

Contenido PDF: Cubiertas e índice del libro.

This essay will discuss three important thinkers and creative artists that have made a significant contribution to my research topic in the field of filmdance, film theory and subjective camera technique. The three key people are Christian Metz (French film theorist), Sally Potter (British film maker and choreographer) and Maya Deren, (Russian/American film theorist, experimental film maker, dancer and poet). In my critical analyses of Metz, I will specifically look at his theories on the musings of Pablo Pasolini, an Italian filmmaker and critique of narrative cinematic language, and Metz’s critical dialogue with Pasolini’s theorem, im-segni.

This paper is concerned with the life and oeuvre of Maya Deren, born Eleanora Derenowskaia (1917-1961), unquestionably – one of the most intriguing personalities of 20th century art. She was a filmmaker, film theorist, photographer, dancer and most of all – someone that might be called a radical surrealist and a creative „shamaness”. The author seeks to describe the main ideas presented in Divine Horsemen. The Living Gods of Haiti – a book that was originally published in 1953, as a result of Deren's personal research on Haitian voodoo culture.

ÖĞLEDEN SONRANIN AĞLARI’NA TAKILAN YABANCILAŞMA SORUNSALI

Özet

Bu çalışmada, Amerikan avangard sinemasının temsilcilerinden Maya Deren’ın 1943 tarihli Öğleden Sonranın Ağları (Meshes Of The Afternoon) filmi, yabancılaşma sorunsalı çerçevesinde ele alınmaktadır. Bu bağlamda Deren’ın, yabancılaşmanın yarattığı sınırlara hapsolmaktan kurtulma çabasını ve yabancılaşmanın sebeplerine bağlı olarak kendiyle yüzleşmesini döngüsel bir anlatıyla dile getirdiği film incelenirken sosyolojik analiz yönteminden faydalanılmıştır. Savaş zamanının etkilerinin hissedildiği bir ortamda, Los Angeles’ta çekilen filmin, rüya fabrikası olarak da anılan Hollywood’un bağımsız yapımlara yaklaşımını kâbus unsuru üzerinden ilişkilendirmesine dikkat çekilmesinin yanı sıra deneysel bir film yapımcısı olan Deren’ın kariyeri boyunca karşı çıktığı klasik anlatıma alternatif sinematik yenilikleri ortaya koyma çabası dile getirilmektedir. Literatür taraması ile yapılan bu çalışmada, yabancılaşmanın Deren’ın yaşamı ve sanat yaratımı üzerindeki etkileri üzerinde durulmaktadır.

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THE PROBLEM OF ALIENATION STUCK IN ‘MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON’

Abstract
In this study, Maya Deren's 1943 film Meshes of The Afternoon, one of the representatives of the American avant-garde cinema, is discussed within the framework of the problem of alienation. In this context, the sociological analysis method was used while examining the film in which Deren expresses her effort to escape from being confined to the borders created by alienation and her confrontation with herself depending on the reasons of alienation in a cyclical narrative. In an environment where the effects of wartime are felt, the film, shot in Los Angeles, relates Hollywood's approach to independent productions, also known as the dream factory, through the nightmare element, as well as revealing alternative cinematic innovations to the classic narrative that Deren, an experimental filmmaker, opposed throughout her career. In this study conducted with a literature review, the effects of alienation on Deren's life and artistic creation are emphasized.

"STALKSCAPES. Cinematic experiments in Landscape Architecture and beyond". Lecture & Film (100 photograms / 1 hour) by Eunate Torres-Modrego, Keynote Speaker (IAUG University of Geneva, Switzerland) in ATMOSPHERE SYMPOSIUM 2011. University of Manitoba, Faculty of Architecture, CANADA, February 2011.

Stalkscapes Lecture in Vimeo:  https://vimeo.com/240546852/settings

Atmosphere Symposium was created in 2009 by Dr. Marcella Eaton, B.E.S. (Manitoba), Ph.D. (Edinburgh Coll. of Art, Heriot Watt), Associate Dean (Academic), Chair, Environmental Design Program, Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Manitoba, CANADA.

"Every year the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Architecture hosts a symposium in the series Atmosphere.

The Atmosphere symposia explore the intangible and overlooked dimensions of architecture and the city: those difficult to pin down, document, record with conventional instruments and methodologies.

Atmosphere 2011 will focus on MEDIATED CITIES, the image of architecture, space, and place in cinema and other media. There is a long history of "city films" which have portrayed the experience of urban life, exploring through that experience the qualities and conundrums of modern life. Today that history is updated as cinema is supplemented by new forms of media including video, internet, and portable media. These new forms of media emerge from and articulate shifts and developments in architecture, landscape and cities as well as global geographies, technologies and politics. They include imaginary as well as documentary narratives, and works that blur the two. They are also being incorporated, rapidly, into the practice of all design disciplines.

The conference will build bridges between disciplines, between research and creation, between the academy and the community – contributing to the production of a truly mediated city."