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DVD Underground: Maya Deren: Experimental Films

DVD cover featuring a portrait of Maya Deren in her most famous film, Meshes of the Afternoon

Official Description: The collected shorts of Maya Deren the “Mother of the trance film” who worked completely outside the commercial film industry and made her own inner experience the center of her films.

“From the early 1940’s until her death in 1961, Maya Deren evoked and exemplified the American avant-garde movement virtually by herself. Her first film, Meshes of the Afternoon, set the tone for the decade and linked the movement to the older European avant-garde films of Cocteau and Buñuel.”
– Cecile Starr, The New York Times

Distributor: Mystic Fire Video

Availability: Amazon

Contents:

  1. Meshes of the Afternoon (1943-59, in collaboration with Alexander Hammid, music by Teiji Ito, 14 min.)
  2. At Land (1944, silent, 15 min.)
  3. A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945, silent, 4 min.)
  4. Ritual in Transfigured Time (1945-6, silent, 15 min.)
  5. Meditation on Violence (1948, music arranged by Maya Deren, 12 min.)
  6. The Very Eye of Night (1952-59, choreographic collaboration by Anthony Tudor, music by Teiji Ito, 15 min.)

Special Features:

  1. Excerpt from:
    Divine Horseman: The Living Gods of Haiti
  2. Private Life of a Cat
    Previously unreleased short by Alexander Hammid
  3. Picture Gallery
  4. Notes and Quotes
  5. Biography

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