Postwar American experimental cinema was primarily founded on the creative endeavors of Maya Deren. Her psychodramatic narratives highly influenced works of the era and continue to influence contemporary filmmakers.
Deren and her husband, Alexander Hammid, collaborated in making MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943, written by Deren), the preeminent experimental film of the day (and arguably today). With a "nonrealistic spatial and temporal continuity"* and an innovatively skewed narrative, Deren and Hammid produced a film radically different from the traditional Hollywood narrative, forcing viewers to defamilarize themselves with perceptions of what movies "should be" and delve into the vast unexplored terrain of unconventional cinematic expression.
Unlike most surrealist or avant-garde films that present many unconnected images and non-linear strings of events, MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON wields a solid narrative despite repetitions, temporal lapses, and ambiguity. While the images and events in the film are indeed subjective, the film unfolds whilst producing cumulative meanings.
Topically, the film might appear pretentious and self-indulgent; however, when looked at closely, it presents rich commentaries on the duplicity of persona, self-reflexivity and the constraints of femininity as a nameless woman (Deren) travels through various subjective interludes. These interludes build off each other and are understood in their entirety when juxtaposed with what was seen previously (like a narrative). For example, two props are continually displayed, a knife and a key. Upon deeper (psycho)analysis, one might see the knife-like phallus as a symbol of power, and the key – an object that is "stuck" into a hole to "open" something – a symbol of discovery. The woman's manipulations of these two objects can be seen as her frustrations with her reality as a wartime woman where the privileges of power and discovery were limited by the default of gender. The eventual death of the woman at the end of the film is her penalty for experimenting with forbidden masculine privileges, a scenario reminiscent of the systematic exclusion of women from the work place after men returned from the war. Deren's almost prophetic understanding of this situation is brought to light in MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON.
Deren's experimental narrative approach to film-making is arguably one of the most commonly explored facets of cinematic experimental possibility. When it is realized that these types of films were virtually non-existent in the United States prior to the 1940s, the magnitude of influence Deren imposed upon American avant-garde film-making is understood in its entirety.
*Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin. Film History: an Introduction. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Deren and her husband, Alexander Hammid, collaborated in making MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943, written by Deren), the preeminent experimental film of the day (and arguably today). With a "nonrealistic spatial and temporal continuity"* and an innovatively skewed narrative, Deren and Hammid produced a film radically different from the traditional Hollywood narrative, forcing viewers to defamilarize themselves with perceptions of what movies "should be" and delve into the vast unexplored terrain of unconventional cinematic expression.
Unlike most surrealist or avant-garde films that present many unconnected images and non-linear strings of events, MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON wields a solid narrative despite repetitions, temporal lapses, and ambiguity. While the images and events in the film are indeed subjective, the film unfolds whilst producing cumulative meanings.
Topically, the film might appear pretentious and self-indulgent; however, when looked at closely, it presents rich commentaries on the duplicity of persona, self-reflexivity and the constraints of femininity as a nameless woman (Deren) travels through various subjective interludes. These interludes build off each other and are understood in their entirety when juxtaposed with what was seen previously (like a narrative). For example, two props are continually displayed, a knife and a key. Upon deeper (psycho)analysis, one might see the knife-like phallus as a symbol of power, and the key – an object that is "stuck" into a hole to "open" something – a symbol of discovery. The woman's manipulations of these two objects can be seen as her frustrations with her reality as a wartime woman where the privileges of power and discovery were limited by the default of gender. The eventual death of the woman at the end of the film is her penalty for experimenting with forbidden masculine privileges, a scenario reminiscent of the systematic exclusion of women from the work place after men returned from the war. Deren's almost prophetic understanding of this situation is brought to light in MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON.
Deren's experimental narrative approach to film-making is arguably one of the most commonly explored facets of cinematic experimental possibility. When it is realized that these types of films were virtually non-existent in the United States prior to the 1940s, the magnitude of influence Deren imposed upon American avant-garde film-making is understood in its entirety.
*Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin. Film History: an Introduction. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.