In Maya Deren's article "Creating Movies With a New Dimension: Time", Deren talks about creating dimensions of time in her films. She creates a feeling of time by doing trick cuts. For example, in Meshes of the Afternoon, Deren walks across her house and with each step, she walks on a different surface. (sand, grass, a rug, etc). This creates a feeling that she has walked longer than just a few steps. In the film we watched in class, At Land, she again creates this dimension of time when she is crawling up the branches on the beach. As she is crawling, the tree turns from brances, to a table, to a jungle-type area. Maya also talks about being creative in film. She discusses how there is "no particular value in duplicating something which already exists....except for purposes of personal or historical record..." I definitely agree with her on this statement. Why would somebody want to watch a film of, say a birthday party? It is more interesting when the filmmaker puts their own spin on the subject, when they put their own artistic view into the piece. Then we can see it as they see it.
Meshes of the Afternoon (Part one and two):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbJKyLXoqXc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GsNqHnbAWs&feature=related
1 comment:
Sarah,
You state interesting points about Maya Deren's "At Land," although I would like to hear more about your way of seeing her technique and ideas than a re-iteration or summary of shots. Stating the shots is a great starting point as a way to ground your observations, but after stating a shot that made you feel a particular way, describe something about it which might scrutinize Deren's state of mind or her uses of film.
I'm glad the reading was valuable. Consider relating her thought process in the article to her mode of filming and structuring her films. How do they relate?
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