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      MAYA'S BACKGROUND

 Maya Deren is considered a pioneer of American experimental film and theory.  She worked throughout her life to change the way that people thought about avant-garde cinema.  Her most important works were created in the 1940s and 1950s, and she formed the Independent Film Foundation in 1953. 

Originally, Maya's name was Elenora Derenkowsky, but her family changed her last name to Deren because it sounded more American.  During the early 1940s she altered her name again when she changed it to Maya because she wanted to be associated with the various mythologies and meanings that the name suggests, especially the Buddhist (and Hindu) meaning of illusion in an individual's view of the world. 

Maya spent most of her life in New York.  She was especially active in socialist efforts when she lived in New York City.  She became friends with John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, and Anaïs Nin.  Maya attended three different universities in the Northern United States where she studied journalism, political science and eventually obtained a master's degree in English.  She spent a few years writing poetry, short stories, newspaper articles and essays until she purchased a 16mm camera and started on her path to experimental filmmaking.  Maya was never associated with the major Beat writers in any way, but she inspired and befriended many Beat filmmakers, including Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger. 

In many ways, Maya was a part of Beat film and culture.  Maureen Latvala has even suggested that Maya was Beat before there was a Beat.  The Beat writers rebelled against literary standards and Maya rebelled against Hollywood standards.  Maya staunchly and openly criticized films, filmmakers and the entire system of Hollywood.  She said, "I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick."  Maya believed that Hollywood stifled the creative endeavors of filmmakers and that the politics and finances in Hollywood were misapplied or misused. 

MAYA'S FILMS

Maya Deren was more than just a filmmaker.  With her work in film, she acted, edited, directed, wrote, choreographed, and worked on cinematography.  In her work, she focused on movement and rhythm through mise-en-scène and editing.  Maya rejected all conventions of film by altering traditional continuity, composition, framing, editing, sound, and narrative devices and structures.  She did not place any barriers on her creativity and even portrayed and examined sexual, ritualistic, and spiritual subjects in her films.  Maya stated that "creativity consists in a logical, imaginative extension of a known reality." 

Maya's first film, Witch's Cradle (1943), starred Marcel Duchamp and explored magic and art exhibition.  The work, which relies on repetition and low budget special effects, was never completed.

Her most famous and celebrated film is Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). This is a work in which she collaborated with her second husband, Alexander Hammid.  Maya's third husband, Teiji Ito, created the music for the film.  Using many jump cuts to differing implied proximities between objects and the protagonist, Maya establishes a dream-like narrative that is reminiscent of earlier Surrealist films.  This type of film would eventually be called a trance film. 

At Land (1944), her third film, contains a critique of middle and upper class society and their inability to see beyond their own world.

A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) is a visually gorgeous work in which Maya experiments with time and space, using a professional dancer to display the beauty of human movement.

Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) uses dance and the trance film style to explore the roles of women in housework, society, and sexuality.   Maya uses freeze frames and slow motion to depict the confusion and discomfort of the protagonist in each situation.  During the party scene, as each male and female swap partners, the protagonist becomes more comfortable in her environment until she wanders throughout the crowd and becomes lost and sullen.  This film also examines a connection between art and reality.

Meditation on Violence (1948) shows the contrast between the beauty and violence of the Wu-Tang and Shaolin schools of martial arts.

The Very Eye of Night (1958) was completed while Maya was traveling between New York and Haiti.  She worked with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School and its students in this film.  Using Roman Gods and Shakespearean characters, Maya created a controversial work which displayed floating, dancing figures in a night sky full of stars.

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1985) was Maya's final project and it wasn't completed until 24 years after her death, when Maya's third husband and his new wife finished the project.  Maya had received the first Guggenheim fellowship for filmmaking in 1946 and used the grant to make this film.  This film was a study of the Haitian Voudoun rituals, and at some point Maya became deeply involved in the rituals and considered herself a Voudoun priestess.  But she died on October 13, 1961, of a cerebral hemorrhage, before her work was complete.  She had been taking amphetamines and sleeping pills. 

 

For sources used, check the Maya on the Web page and see:

Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw, 2003.