The Promotional World: Maya Deren Avant-Garde

"I'm afraid that if you look at a thing

long enough, it loses all of its meaning."

-Andy Warhol

I have always enjoyed art in its many shapes and forms. If I had enough money, I would own every piece of art Andy Warhol touched, or maybe the rights to The Beatles songs, sorry Paul. There’s something so epic about another human being who can create a work of art out of nowhere. Who would have known a simple Pop Art painting of Campbell’s Tomato Soup would be worth so much today?

For Maya Deren, all it took was a 16mm camera, her husband, and a thought, for her to create one of the first avant-garde experimental films, a masterpiece before its time. Coming from a creative background, she was also a dancer, poet, choreographer, writer and photographer; she was the first of her kind. Her films, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and At Land (1944), bring poetry to life. “Experimental media contemplates the way human senses and consciousness function.” (Corrigan and White 321) The close ups of the objects she uses, from the key, to the knife, to the chess piece makes us as the viewer focus on the symbolic associations she is trying to make. What do these symbols mean? What is it she’s trying to say? Does she really want us to know?

Art is how you interpret it. Art is meant to shock us, make us think; make us say “what just happened”? Deren does this to her audience with her films. Her metaphoric associations give us clues as to what she is trying to tell us, but nothing definite. In both films, she appears to be multiple characters. Her characters are always on a journey. A journey as the hero or the villain, we don’t quite know. A personal journey perhaps? She always personifies these characters; she is the only one who really knows what or whom she is trying to portray. “What is undeniable is that Meshes establishes key themes and cinematic innovations that Deren continued to explore throughout her career as an experimental filmmaker.” Senses of Cinema

In the movie, Meshes of the Afternoon, Deren uses her lyrical styles to grasp our interest. She focuses on the shadows of the subjects rather than just their physical being. She makes you curious as to what it’s all about. That’s what an innovative filmmaker does, makes us wonder what’s around the corner.

Avant-garde is described as an artistic, experimental, ahead of its time, form of art. Today such filmmakers like David Lynch and Terry Gilliam, who’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), takes us on a wild ride through the life of Hunter S. Thompson, keep the image of Deren and others like her alive. It takes a person with a great imagination and a story to tell to create this type of movie.

Deren created her silent films with just her 16mm camera she purchased with the money her father had given her. She had a dream and a desire. She uses different angles, slow motion and her creative background to make these surrealist films challenge the viewer to think outside the box. I wonder what the movie industry would be like today if Deren were still alive today.

Souces:

Corrigan & White (2009), The Film Experience: An Introduction. (Chapter 9)