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Maya Deren Program

Screening on Film
  • Meshes of the Afternoon

    Directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid.
    US, 1943, 16mm, black & white, 14 min.

Dancer, ethnographer, philosopher, and “visual poet” Maya Deren began making films in the early 1940s (with her cameraman husband, Alexander Hammid). In these striking psychodramas Deren often places herself in the frame, navigating a path through anxiety-laden Freudian environs, dreamscapes of the seemingly unphotographable. In her first and most famous work, Meshes of the Afternoon, a woman (Deren) dreams within dreams about suicide, about a phallic attack by her mate (Hammid), and about inanimate objects that assume threatening aspects. This seminal work gave birth to the American avant-garde film movement of the postwar era.

 
  • Witch's Cradle

    Directed by Maya Deren.
    With Marcel Duchamp, Pajarito Matta.
    US, 1944, 16mm, black & white, silent, 12 min.

This unfinished film, shot at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery (the prime exhibitor of Surrealist works in New York), was inspired by both the architecture of the space itself and the art works it contained. Deren used her camera to delineate the magic of what she called these “cabalistic symbols of the twentieth century.” 

 
  • At Land

    Directed by Maya Deren.
    With Maya Deren, John Cage, Alexander Hammid.
    US, 1944, 16mm, black & white, 15 min.

This experiment in time and space features Deren as an alienated figure, unable to integrate with the social milieu that surrounds her. 

  • The Private Life of a Cat

    Directed by Alexander Hammid.
    US, 1944, 16mm, black & white, silent, 22 min.

This charming depiction of the romantic encounter between a male and female cat who decide to take up housekeeping together was made by Deren’s second husband, Alexander Hammid.

  • Ritual in Transfigured Time

    Directed by Maya Deren.
    With Maya Deren, Anais Nin, Rita Christiani.
    US, 1945–46, 16mm, black & white, silent, 15 min.

Deren’s exploration of female sexuality and the human psyche is given form through figures inspired by Greek mythology. This elaborate “choreography for the camera” transforms everyday movements into dancelike passages, with the help of slow-motion effects.

Part of film series

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Adventures in Surrealism

Current and upcoming film series

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Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque

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Albert Serra, or Cinematic Time Regained

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Wang Bing’s Youth Trilogy

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The Shochiku Centennial Collection

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Planet at 50

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The Yugoslav Junction Continues!

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Theo Anthony, Subject to Review

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The Ideal Cinematheque of the Outskirts of the World

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From the collection – Satyajit Ray