Maya Deren
Date of Birth: 29 Apr 1917
Country: USA
Biography: Maya Deren (May 12 [O.S. April 29] 1917 – October 13, 1961) was a Ukrainian-born American experimental filmmaker and important promoter of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer.
Total Credits at Criticker: 5 (Actor), 10 (Director), 6 (Writer)
Biography submitted by Rivette and picture by driscarpin
Find more information about Maya Deren at The Internet Movie Database
Titles you haven't rated - Actor (5) | Director (10) | Writer (6)
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) - Short Film
A 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 (imdb)
Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) - Short Film
A ritual is an action distinguished from all others in that it seeks realization of its purpose through the exercise of form. In this sense ritual is art; and even historically, all art derives from ritual. In ritual the form is the meaning. More speci fically, the quality of movement itself is not a merely decorative factor; it is the meaning itself of the movement. In this sense, this film is a dance. (Picpal.com)
A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) - Short Film
It seems like an exercise piece to capture a dancer's movement on celluloid, which later on developed into Deren's masterpieces such as "Ritual in Transfigured Time".
At Land (1944) - Short Film
Silently, 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. (imdb)
Meditation on Violence (1948) - Short Film
A young Oriental man with a headscarf and bare torso shadowboxes indoors in front of a series of unadorned walls, light, dark, both shades. He is then shown exercising outside with a sword in an area surrounded by a low stone wall and overlooking a river, before there is a return to the first sequence. (imdb)
The Very Eye of Night (1958) - Short Film
Dancers, shown in photographic negative, perform a series of ballet moves, solos, pas de deux, larger groupings. The dancers glide and rotate untroubled by gravity against a slowly changing starfield background. Their movements are accompanied by music scored for a small ensemble of woodwind and percussion. (imdb)
Witch's Cradle (1944) - Short Film
The Witch's Cradle is an unfinished Maya Deren film made in the Guggenheim Gallery during a surrealist "Art of this Century" exhibit. It was assembled long after her death by staffers within the preservation department at Anthology Film Archives. (All Movie Guide)
A documentary about the Haitian voodoo shot by Maya Deren at the 50's and later edited at the 80's.
Ensemble for Somnambulists (1951) - Short Film
Ensemble for Somnambulists was a film Maya Deren made while teaching a workshop at the Toronto Film Society. It was never completed, and is officially "unpublished," but this title has been restored and it screens occasionally along with her other films. (MUBI)