Maya Deren
The Complete Films (1943 - 1958)

“The camera of Maya Deren delivers us from the studios: it presents our eyes with physical facts which contain profound psychological meaning; it beats out within our hearts or upon our hearts a time which alternates, continues, revolves, pounds, or flies away…. One escapes from the stupidity of make-believe. One is in the reality of the cinematic fact, captured by Maya Deren at that point where the lens cooperates as a prodigious discoverer.” (Le Corbusier, 1945)

Biography
Maya Deren was a brilliant filmmaker and theorist whose films and writings have nevertheless paled beside the even larger legend surrounding her life and death. From the early 1940’s until her sudden (and some would say supernaturally-caused) death in 1961, Maya Deren both evoked and exemplified the American avant-garde film movement virtually by herself - as filmmaker, distributor, lecturer, theorist and promoter — all in one fiery personality. She worked completely outside the commercial film industry and made her own inner experience the center of her films.

Maya Deren was born Eleonora Derenkowsky in Kiev in 1917. Her father was a psychiatrist. In 1922 the family emigrated to America and settled in Syracuse, New York. Maya was educated at the League of Nations School in Switzerland, at Syracuse and New York universities, and at Smith College, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in literature in 1938. While still a student at Syracuse, she devoted her energies to the underground socialist movement. As her fascination for photography and film grew, her talent for organization and persuasion was re-channeled.

All the arts lacked subsidies in the forties, but film was one of the poorest. Charismatic and determined, Deren peddled effectively for herself and her peers. She worked ceaselessly to establish facilities and funding for the independent film movement which subsequently grew up in America. She lectured everywhere from Yale University to the Dave Garroway show. In 1946, she was the first filmmaker to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship (for work in “creative motion pictures” ) as well as the first to establish a non-profit film foundation, the Creative Film Foundation. Her work led ultimately to the establishment of the first Film-Makers Co-op in New York. She also wrote numerous theoretical and technical articles for film magazines and in 1946 published a pamphlet, “Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film.” Her work was crucial in building an atmosphere of respect for the art of film.

Deren became involved in modern dance, and while she was not trained as a dancer, she was enchanted by the power of movement and the challenges of space and time. While working as publicity assistant, photographer, and secretary to the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe on tour, she met the Czech emigre filmmaker, Alexander Hammid (nee Hackenschmied,) whom she later married. Though she made only seven films, Deren is credited as being the first dance filmmaker, someone who, Stan Brakhage said, “Made people both think and feel, and dared to give sense its full meaning.” In her Statement of Principles she wrote: “My films might be called poetic, referring to the attitude towards these meanings…My films might be called choreographic, referring to the ‘design and stylization of movement which confers ritual dimension upon functional motion… My films might be called experimental, referring to the use of the medium itself… I am addressing myself not to any particular group but to a special area and definite faculty in every or any man — to the part of him which creates myths, invents divinities, and ponders, for no practical purpose whatsoever, on the nature of things… The important truth is the poetic one.”

Deren inspired and stunned many people in her short life of forty-four years. Her first film, “Meshes of the Afternoon,” was made with Hammid, a hand-wind Bolex camera and funds from her own pocket in a period of two weeks in 1943. Fluidly combining mysterious surrealist elements with decidedly female psychological overtones to evoke an image of consciousness, its influence ranks with that of Bunuel’s “Un Chien Andalou.” Her subsequent films continued to explore space, time, the nature of form, the psyche, the possibilities of cinematic manipulation and the magic of dance.

Deren used her Guggenheim Fellowship to go to Haiti to film Voudoun (voodoo) ceremonies and dances. During this visit she became personally involved in the mysterious religion, which led to her writing “The Divine Horsemen.” Although not trained as an anthropologist, she did a painstaking ethnographic study and consulted at length with Joseph Campbell and Gregory Bateson, with the result that the book became the definitive work on Haitian Voudoun. Her film footage, shot between 1947 and 1951, never finished in her lifetime and never seen before 1978, was later culled and edited by her third husband and collaborator, Teiji Ito and his wife Cherel. They added to the footage an anthropological structure and narration (true to the facts and spirit of her book) which though perhaps at odds with the original film’s rhythm, clarifies the ceremonies for the viewer and does no harm. This revealing and stunningly photographed documentary, “Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti,” is perhaps at the center of the Deren legend: the legend of Deren the Voodoo Priestess. It is a film that conveys, perhaps for the first time, the power and beauty of the Voudoun rites free of both the false fantasies of Hollywood and the desensualizing distance of ethnographers. It is a picture of Voudoun viewed by an artist, and one privileged to conduct a study of emotional and psychological perceptions on an intimate and subjective level. It is also the work of an insider; Deren had not only gained the celebrants’ trust enough to be permitted to film authentic ceremonies, she also participated in them. In fact, she had undergone initiation as a Mambo, or priestess, and had experienced possession - the center toward which all the roads of Voudoun converge. Of this experience, she wrote:”As sometimes in dreams, so here I can observe myself [dancing]… my sense of self doubles again…except that now the vision of the one who watches flickers, the lids flutter, the gaps between the moments of sight flowing greater…wider…My skull is a drum; each great beat drives that leg, like the point of a stake, into the ground. The singing is at my very ear, inside my head, this sound will drown me!…I cannot wrench the leg free. I am caught in this cylinder, this well of sound. There is nothing anywhere except this. There is no way out. The white darkness moves up the veins of my leg like a swift tide rising, rising; is a great force which I cannot sustain or contain…The bright darkness floods up through my body, reaches my head, engulfs me. I am sucked downward and exploded upward at once. That is all.”

Deren died suddenly in 1961, of a strange seizure or apoplectic fit or cerebral hemorrhage, according to varying accounts. It would please her that her picture language still calls out to us, for she concluded her Statement of Principles with these words: “I am not greedy. I do not seek to possess the major portion of your days. I am content if, on those rare occasions whose truth can be stated only by poetry, you will, perhaps, recall an image, even only the aura of my films.” Biography from - Mysticfire.com

Download Torrent- Various formats and codecs- 1.3 gb.

You can also Stream or Download the films from UbuWeb

Purchase these films from re:voir

File Name ………….: Maya Deren - At Land (1944) - Experimental Films Schizo.avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 179,218,432 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:14:44 (21195 frames)

Video Codec ………..: XviD
Frame Size …………: 512×384 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 23.976
Video Bitrate ………: 1618 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.343 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: []…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..:
Sample Rate ………..: Hz
Audio bitrate ………: kb/s [ channel(s)] audio
Interleave …………: ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 0

File Name ………….: Maya Deren - The Divine Horsemen_the living gods of Haiti.[Thanks daseinforlorn!].mpg
File Size (in bytes) ..: 529,119,024 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:50:36 (90978 frames)

Video Codec ………..: MPEG-1
Frame Size …………: 352×240 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 29.970
Video Bitrate ………: 1150 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.454 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: []…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..: MPEG-1 Layer 2
Sample Rate ………..: 44100 Hz
Audio bitrate ………: 224 kb/s [2 channel(s)] CBR audio
Interleave …………: ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 1

File Name ………….: Maya Deren - Witch’s cradle (1943) (excerpt).avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 180,781,056 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:11:46 (21172 frames)

Video Codec ………..: XviD
Frame Size …………: 608×448 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 29.971
Video Bitrate ………: 2044 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.250 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: [B-VOP]…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..:
Sample Rate ………..: Hz
Audio bitrate ………: kb/s [ channel(s)] audio
Interleave …………: ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 0

File Name ………….: Maya Deren Experimental Films - Meshes Of The Afternoon (1943).avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 156,956,672 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:13:30 (19414 frames)

Video Codec ………..: XviD
Frame Size …………: 512×384 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 23.976
Video Bitrate ………: 1285 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.273 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: []…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..: 0×0055(MP3, ISO) MPEG-1 Layer 3
Sample Rate ………..: 48000 Hz
Audio bitrate ………: 106 kb/s [1 channel(s)] VBR audio
Interleave …………: 42 ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 1

File Name ………….: Maya Deren Experimental Films - The Very Eye Of Night (1958).avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 83,935,232 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:15:01 (21608 frames)

Video Codec ………..: XviD
Frame Size …………: 512×384 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 23.976
Video Bitrate ………: 635 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.135 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: []…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..: 0×0055(MP3, ISO) MPEG-1 Layer 3
Sample Rate ………..: 48000 Hz
Audio bitrate ………: 101 kb/s [1 channel(s)] VBR audio
Interleave …………: 42 ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 1

File Name ………….: Maya Deren Experimental Films (1943-1958)-Ritual_in_Transfigured_Time_(1946).avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 136,634,368 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:14:27 (20789 frames)

Video Codec ………..: XviD
Frame Size …………: 512×384 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 23.976
Video Bitrate ………: 1257 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.267 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: []…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..:
Sample Rate ………..: Hz
Audio bitrate ………: kb/s [ channel(s)] audio
Interleave …………: ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 0

File Name ………….: Maya.Deren.-.A.Study.In.Choreography.For.Camera.(1945).avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 18,014,208 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:02:13 (3195 frames)

Video Codec ………..: XviD
Frame Size …………: 512×384 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 23.976
Video Bitrate ………: 1080 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.229 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: []…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..:
Sample Rate ………..: Hz
Audio bitrate ………: kb/s [ channel(s)] audio
Interleave …………: ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 0

File Name ………….: Maya.Deren.-.Meditation_on_Violence_(1948).avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 161,107,968 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 00:12:26 (17881 frames)

Video Codec ………..: XviD
Frame Size …………: 512×384 () [=]
FPS ……………….: 23.976
Video Bitrate ………: 1627 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ……..: 0.345 bpp
B-VOP, QPel, GMC ……: []…[]…[]
Audio Codec ………..: 0×0055(MP3, ISO) MPEG-1 Layer 3
Sample Rate ………..: 48000 Hz
Audio bitrate ………: 92 kb/s [1 channel(s)] VBR audio
Interleave …………: 42 ms
Nr. of audio streams ..: 1

Share This