Editing Maya Deren

{{short description|American experimental filmmaker (1917–1961)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2016}}
{{Infobox artist
| name             = Maya Deren
| image            = Maya Deren.jpg
| caption          = Deren in the film ''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'' (1943), her debut
| birth_name       = Eleonora Derenkovska
| birth_date       = {{OldStyleDate|May 12|1917|April 29}}
| birth_place      = [[Kyiv|Kiev]]<!--See WP:KYIV-->, [[Kiev Governorate]], [[Russian Provisional Government]]<!--the Ukrainian People's Republic was founded in June 1917--> (present-day Ukraine)
| death_date       = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1961|10|13|1917|5|12}}
| death_place      = [[New York City|New York, New York]], U.S.
| nationality      = American
| movement         = [[Experimental film|Avant-garde cinema]]
| spouse           = {{Plainlist|
*{{marriage|Gregory Bardacke|1935|1939|end=div}}
*{{marriage|[[Alexandr Hackenschmied]]|1942|1947|end=div}}
*{{marriage|[[Teiji Itō]]|1960}}
 }}
| awards           = {{Plainlist|
*[[Guggenheim Fellowship]] 1946
*Grand Prix International for Avant-garde Film, [[Cannes Film Festival]] 1947
 }}
| alma_mater       = {{ubl|[[New York University]]|[[New School of Social Research]]|[[Smith College]]}}
| works            = '''Films:'''{{Plainlist|
* ''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'' (1943)
* ''[[At Land]]'' (1944)
* ''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]'' (1945)
* ''[[Ritual in Transfigured Time]]'' (1946)
* ''[[Meditation on Violence]]'' (1947)
* ''[[Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti]]'' (1953)
* ''[[The Very Eye of Night]]'' (1955)
}}'''Books:'''{{Plainlist|
* ''An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film'' (1946)
}}
}}
'''Maya Deren''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|ɛr|ən}}; born '''Eleonora Derenkovskaya'''; {{langx|uk|Елеоно́ра Деренко́вська|links=no}}; {{OldStyleDate|May 12|1917|April 29}}<ref name="metrica">[https://cdiak.archives.gov.ua/images/arxiv_cetera/ac_2016_09_20/1164_0001_0517_73zv-74.jpg Запись о рождении в метрической книге Киевского раввината за 1917 год] // ЦГИАК Украины. Ф. 1164. Оп. 1. Д. 161 (517 — по старой нумерации). Л. 73об–74 (in Russian).</ref> – October 13, 1961) was a Ukrainian-born American [[experimental film]]maker and important part of the [[avant-garde]] in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer.

The function of film, Deren believed, was to create an experience.<ref name=anagram/> She combined her expertise in dance and choreography, ethnography, the African spirit religion of [[Haitian Vodou]],  [[Symbolism (movement)|symbolist poetry]] and [[gestalt psychology]] (as a student of [[Kurt Koffka]]) in a series of perceptual, black-and-white short films. Using editing, [[multiple exposure]]s, [[jump-cut]]ting, [[superimposition]], slow-motion, and other camera techniques to her advantage, Deren abandoned established notions of physical space and time, innovating through carefully planned films with specific conceptual aims.<ref name="Legend">{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=VèVè |title=The Legend of Maya Deren: a documentary biography and collected works. Vol. 1, pt. 1, Signatures (1917-42) |last2=Hudson |first2=Millicent |last3=Neiman |first3=Catrina |publisher=Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-91168-914-3 |editor-last=Melton |editor-first=Hollis |location=New York}}</ref><ref name="Athology Film Archive/Film Culture" />

''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'' (1943), her collaboration with her husband at the time, [[Alexander Hammid]], has been one of the most influential experimental films in American cinema history. Deren went on to make several more films, including but not limited to ''[[At Land]]'' (1944), ''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]'' (1945), and ''[[Ritual in Transfigured Time]]'' (1946), writing, producing, directing, editing, and photographing them with help from only one other person, [[Hella Hammid|Hella Heyman]], her camerawoman.

==Early life==
Deren was born {{OldStyleDate|May 12|1917|April 29}} in [[Kyiv|Kiev]]<!--See WP:KYIV-->, into a [[Jewish]] family,<ref name="Nichols 2001, p. 3">Nichols 2001, p. 3</ref> to psychologist Solomon Derenkowsky and Gitel-Malka (Marie) Fiedler,<ref name="metrica" /> who supposedly named their daughter after Italian actress [[Eleonora Duse]].<ref>Nichols 2001, p. 17</ref><ref>Soussloff 2001, p. 120</ref>

In 1922, the family fled the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]] because of [[Kiev pogroms (1919)|antisemitic pogroms]] perpetrated by the [[White movement|White Volunteer Army]] and moved to [[Syracuse, New York]]. Her father shortened the family name from Derenkovskaya to "Deren" shortly after they arrived in New York.<ref name=Nichols>{{cite book |title=Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde: Includes the complete text of An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film |editor-first=Bill |editor-last=Nichols |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |location=Berkeley |year=2001 |pages=3–10, 268}}</ref><ref name=":0">Bruce R. McPherson, “Preface,” in, ''Essential Deren: Collected Writings on Film by Maya Deren,'' ed. Bruce R. McPherson (New York: McPherson & Company, 2005), 8.</ref> He became the staff psychiatrist at the [[Syracuse State School|State Institute for the Feeble-Minded]] in Syracuse.<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Taylor & Francis| isbn = 978-0-8240-5306-2| last = Litoff| first = Judy Barrett| author-link1=Judy Barrett Litoff| title = European Immigrant Women in the United States: A Biographical Dictionary| date = 1994 |page=74 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ZyYa0cAPbkC |access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref> Deren's mother was a musician and dancer who had studied these arts in Kiev.<ref name=":0" /> In 1928, Deren's parents became [[naturalized citizen]]s of the United States.<ref name="Nichols 2001, p. 3" />

Deren was highly intelligent, starting fifth grade at only eight years old.<ref name=":0" /> She attended the [[League of Nations]] [[International School of Geneva]], [[Switzerland]] for high school from 1930 to 1933.<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Farrar, Straus and Giroux| isbn = 978-0-374-71132-0| last = James| first = Jamie| title = The Glamour of Strangeness: Artists and the Last Age of the Exotic| date = 2016 |page=624 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0qUJ-JuSPdQC |access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref> Her mother moved to Paris, France to be nearer to her while she studied. Deren learned to speak French while she was abroad.<ref name=":1">Bruce R. McPherson, “Preface,” in, ''Essential Deren: Collected Writings on Film by Maya Deren,'' ed. Bruce R. McPherson (New York: McPherson & Company, 2005), 9.</ref>

Deren enrolled at [[Syracuse University]] at sixteen, where she began studying journalism and political science.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.answers.com/topic/maya-deren |title=Maya Deren |website=Answers.com |access-date=August 28, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140504210211/http://www.answers.com/topic/maya-deren |archive-date=May 4, 2014}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Deren became a highly active socialist activist during the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist movement]] in her late teens.<ref name="Legend" /> She served as National Student Secretary in the National Student office of the [[Young People's Socialist League (1907)|Young People's Socialist League]] and was a member of the Social Problems Club at Syracuse University.

At age eighteen in June 1935, she married Gregory Bardacke, a socialist activist whom she met through the Social Problems Club.<ref name="Legend" /> After his graduation in 1935, she moved to New York City. She finished school at [[New York University]] with a Bachelor's degree in literature in June 1936, and returned to Syracuse that fall.<ref name="Nichols" /> She and Bardacke became active in various [[socialist]] causes in New York City; and it was during this time that they separated and eventually divorced three years later.<ref name="sicherman">{{Cite book| publisher = Harvard University Press| isbn = 978-0-674-62733-8| last1 = Sicherman| first1 = Barbara| last2 = Green| first2 = Carol Hurd| title = Notable American Women: The Modern Period : a Biographical Dictionary| date = 1980 |page=[https://archive.org/details/notableamericanw00sich/page/187 187] |url=https://archive.org/details/notableamericanw00sich | url-access = registration|access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref>

In 1938, Deren attended the [[New School for Social Research]], and received a master's degree in English literature at [[Smith College]].<ref name="bauer">{{Cite book| publisher = ABC-CLIO| isbn = 978-1-4408-3649-7| last = Bauer| first = Laura L. S.| title = Hollywood Heroines: The Most Influential Women in Film History| date = 2018 |pages=109–110 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZdB5DwAAQBAJ |access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref> Her Master's [[thesis]] was titled ''The Influence of the French Symbolist School on Anglo-American Poetry'' (1939).<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Edinburgh University Press| isbn = 978-1-4744-0326-9| last = Brill| first = Olaf| title = Expressionism in the Cinema| date = 2016 |page=290 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wjRWDwAAQBAJ |access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref> This included works of Pound, Eliot, and the Imagists. By the age of 21, Deren had earned two degrees in literature.<ref name=":1" />

==Early career==
After graduation from Smith, Deren returned to New York's [[Greenwich Village]], where she joined the European [[émigré]] art scene.<ref>Bill Nichols, “Introduction,” in ''Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde'', ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2001), 3.</ref> She supported herself from 1937 to 1939 by freelance writing for radio shows and foreign-language newspapers. During that time she also worked as an editorial assistant to famous American writers [[Eda Lou Walton]], [[Max Eastman]], and then [[William Seabrook]].<ref name="Legend" /> She wrote poetry and short fiction, tried her hand at writing a commercial novel, and also translated a work by Victor Serge which was never published.<ref name=":0" /> She became known for her European-style handmade clothes, wild red curly hair and fierce convictions.<ref name=Nichols /><ref name=":2">{{Cite magazine |last=Brody |first=Richard |date=2022-11-16 |title=How Maya Deren Became the Symbol and Champion of American Experimental Film |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/how-maya-deren-became-the-symbol-and-champion-of-american-experimental-film |access-date=2023-03-21 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1940, Deren moved to Los Angeles to focus on her poetry and freelance photography. In 1941, Deren wrote to [[Katherine Dunham]]—an African American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist of [[Caribbean culture]] and dance—suggesting a children's book on dance and applying for a managerial job for her and her dance troupe; she later became Dunham's assistant and publicist. Deren travelled with the troupe for a year, learning greater appreciation for dance, as well as interest and appreciation for Haitian culture.<ref name=":0" /> Dunham's fieldwork influenced Deren's studies of [[Haitian culture]] and [[Haitian Vodou|Vodou mythology]].<ref name="Modern Women">{{cite journal |first=Sally |last=Berger |title=Maya Deren's Legacy |editor1-last=Butler |editor1-first=Connie |journal=Modern Women |date=2010 |publisher=Museum of Modern Art |location=New York |page=301}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> At the end of touring a new musical ''[[Cabin in the Sky (musical)|Cabin in the Sky]]'', the [[Katherine Dunham Company|Dunham dance company]] stopped in Los Angeles for several months to work in [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]]. It was there that Deren met [[Alexandr Hackenschmied]] (who later changed his name to Alexander Hammid), a celebrated Czech-born photographer and cameraman who would become Deren's second husband in 1942. Hackenschmied had fled from [[Czechoslovakia]] in 1938 after the [[Sudetenland crisis]].

Deren and Hammid lived together in [[Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles|Laurel Canyon]], where he helped her with her still photography which focused on local fruit pickers in Los Angeles.<ref name="Legend" /> Of two still photography magazine assignments of 1943 to depict artists active in New York City,  including [[Ossip Zadkine]], her photographs appeared in the Vogue magazine article.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lerman |first1=Leo |title=Before the Bandwagons |journal=Vogue |date=November 1943}}</ref> The other article intended for Mademoiselle magazine was not published,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clarke |first1=VeVe |last2=Hodson |first2=Millicent |last3=Neiman |first3=Catherine |title=The Legend of Maya Deren: Volume I Part Two Chambers (1942-47) |date=1988 |publisher=Anthology film Archives/Film Culture |location=New York |pages=136–40}}</ref> but three signed enlargements of photographs intended for this article, all depicting Deren's friend New York ceramist [[Carol Janeway]], are preserved in the MoMA<ref>{{cite web |last1=Maya Deren |title=Portrait of Carol Janeway |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/52508 |access-date=August 29, 2020}}</ref> and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Maya Deren |title=Carol Janeway and Zadkine Sculpture |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/334106}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Maya Deren |title=Carol Janeway |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/334080}}</ref> All prints were from Janeway's estate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jenssen |first1=Victoria |title=The Art of Carol Janeway: A Tile & Ceramics Career with Georg Jensen Inc. and Ossip Zadkine in 1940s Manhattan |date=2022 |publisher=Friesen Press |pages=27–29}}</ref>

==Personal life==
In 1943, she moved to a bungalow on Kings Road in Hollywood<ref name="Legend" /> and adopted the name Maya, a pet name her second husband Hammid coined. Maya is the name of the mother of the historical [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]] as well as the [[dharmic]] concept of the illusory nature of reality. In Greek myth, [[Maia (mythology)|Maia]] is the mother of [[Hermes]] and a goddess of mountains and fields.

In 1944, back in New York City, her social circle included [[Marcel Duchamp]], [[André Breton]], [[John Cage]], and [[Anaïs Nin]].<ref name="bauer2">{{Cite book |last=Bauer |first=Laura L. S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZdB5DwAAQBAJ |title=Hollywood Heroines: The Most Influential Women in Film History |date=2018 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-3649-7 |pages=109–110 |access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref> In 1944, Deren filmed ''[[The Witch's Cradle]]'' in [[Peggy Guggenheim]]'s [[Art of This Century gallery]] with Duchamp featured in the film.

In the December 1946 issue of ''Esquire'' magazine, a caption for her photograph teased that she "experiments with motion pictures of the subconscious, but here is finite evidence that the lady herself is infinitely photogenic."<ref name="persona2">{{cite journal |last=Pramaggiore |first=Maria |date=Winter 1997 |title=Performance and Persona in the U.S. Avant-Garde: The Case of Maya Deren |url=http://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/11877/1/MP_Performance_1997.pdf |journal=Cinema Journal |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |volume=36 |pages=17–40 |doi=10.2307/1225773 |jstor=1225773 |s2cid=191363914 |number=2}}</ref> Her third husband, [[Teiji Itō]], said: "Maya was always a Russian. In [[Haiti]] she was a Russian. She was always dressed up, talking, speaking many languages and being a Russian."<ref name="persona2" />

==Film career==
Deren defined cinema as an art, provided an intellectual context for film viewing, and filled a theoretical gap for the kinds of [[independent film]]s that film societies were featuring.<ref>{{cite book |title=Points of Resistance: Women, Power & Politics in the New York Avant-garde Cinema, 1934–1971 |last=Rabinowitz |first=Lauren |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |year=1991 |location=Urbana, IL |pages=49–91 |chapter=Maya Deren and an American Avant-garde Cinema}}</ref> As Sarah Keller states, “Maya Deren lays claim to the honor of being one of the most important pioneers of the American film avant-garde with a scant seventy-five or so minutes of finished films to her credit.”<ref>Sarah Keller, "Frustrated Climaxes: On Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and Witch’s Cradle," ''Cinema Journal'' 52, no. 3 (Spring 2013): 75.</ref>

Deren began to screen and distribute her films in the United States, [[Canada]], and [[Cuba]], lecturing and writing on [[avant-garde]] film theory, and additionally on Vodou. In February 1946 she booked the [[Provincetown Playhouse]] in Greenwich Village for a major public exhibition, titled ''Three Abandoned Films'', in which she showed ''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'' (1943), ''[[At Land]]'' (1944) and ''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]'' (1945).<ref name="sicherman" /> The event was completely sold out, inspiring [[Amos Vogel]]'s formation of [[Cinema 16]], the most successful film society of the 1950s.<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Temple University Press| isbn = 978-1-4399-0530-2| last = Macdonald| first = Scott |author-link=Scott MacDonald (media scholar) | title = Cinema 16: Documents Toward History Of Film Society| date = 2010 |page=4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ivmisn4Rm_8C |access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref>

In 1946, she was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] for "Creative Work in the Field of Motion Pictures", and in 1947, won the Grand Prix International for avant-garde film at the [[Cannes Film Festival]] for ''Meshes of the Afternoon''. She then created a scholarship for experimental filmmakers, the Creative Film Foundation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/158493/Maya-Deren |title=Maya Deren &#124; biography - American director and actress |website=Britannica.com |access-date=August 24, 2015}}</ref>

Between 1952 and 1955, Deren collaborated with the [[Metropolitan Opera]] Ballet School and [[Antony Tudor]] to create ''[[The Very Eye of Night]]''.

Deren's background and interest in dance appears in her work, most notably in the short film ''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]'' (1945). This combination of dance and film has often been referred to as "choreocinema", a term first coined by American dance critic [[John Martin (dance critic)|John Martin]].<ref name="Korossi 2017">{{cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/maya-deren-meshes-of-the-afternoon|title=Maya Deren: seven films that guarantee her legend|last=Korossi|first=Georgia|date=April 28, 2017|publisher=[[British Film Institute|British Film Institute (BFI)]]|language=en|access-date=2021-12-02}}</ref>

In her work, she often focused on the unconscious experience, such as in ''Meshes of the Afternoon.'' This is thought to be inspired by her father who was a student of psychiatrist [[Vladimir Bekhterev]] who explored trance and hypnosis as neurological states.<ref name="Durkin 2013">{{Cite journal|last=Durkin|first=Hannah|date=2013|title=Cinematic "Pas de Deux": The Dialogue between Maya Deren's Experimental Filmmaking and Talley Beatty's Black Ballet Dancer in "A Study in Choreography for Camera" (1945)|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24485526|journal=Journal of American Studies|volume=47|issue=2|pages=385–403|doi=10.1017/S0021875813000121|jstor=24485526|s2cid=144363190|issn=0021-8758}}</ref> She also regularly explored themes of gender identity,  incorporating elements of introspection and mythology. Despite her feminist subtext, she was mostly unrecognized by feminist writers at the time, even influential writers [[Claire Johnston (film theorist)|Claire Johnston]] and [[Laura Mulvey]] ignored Deren at the time,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Nichols |first1=Bill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NA8a2jbCUTcC&dq=maya+deren&pg=PA3 |title=Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde: Includes the Complete Text of An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film |last2=Deren |first2=Maya |date=2001-10-31 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-22732-3 |language=en}}</ref> though Mulvey later would give Deren this recognition, since their works were often in conversation with each other.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Geller |first=Theresa L. |title=The Personal Cinema of Maya Deren: "Meshes of the Afternoon" and ITS Critical Reception in the History of the Avant-Garde |date=2006 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23541020 |journal=Biography |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=140–158 |jstor=23541020 |issn=0162-4962}}</ref>

==Major films==

===''Meshes of the Afternoon'' (1943)===
{{main|Meshes of the Afternoon}}

[[File:Meshes of the Afternoon 1.png|thumb|Deren in ''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'' (1943)]]

In 1943, Deren purchased a used [[16 mm|16mm]] [[Bolex]] camera with some of the inheritance money after her father's death from a heart attack. This camera was used to make her first and best-known film, ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' (1943), made in collaboration with Hammid in their Los Angeles home on a budget of $250.<ref name="Athology Film Archive/Film Culture">{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=VeVe A. |last2=Hudson |first2=Millicent |last3=Neiman |first3=Catrina |editor1-last=Melton |editor1-first=Hollis |title=The Legend of Maya Deren: A Documentary Biography and Collected Works |date=1988 |publisher=Athology Film Archive/Film Culture |location=New York City |isbn=0-911689-17-6 |edition=Volume 1 Part Two}}</ref> ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' is recognized as a seminal American avant-garde film. Critics have seen autobiographical elements in the film, as well as thoughts about woman as subject rather than as object. Originally a silent film with no dialogue, music for the film was composed, long after its initial screenings, by Deren's third husband [[Teiji Itō]] in 1952. The film can be described as an expressionistic "trance film", full of dramatic angles and innovative editing. It investigates the ephemeral ways in which the protagonist's unconscious mind works and makes connections between objects and situations. A woman, played by Maya Deren, walks up to a house in Los Angeles, falls asleep and seems to have a dream. The sequence of walking up to the gate on the partially shaded road restarts numerous times, resisting conventional narrative expectations, and ends in various situations inside the house. Movement from the wind, shadows and the music sustain the heartbeat of the dream. Recurring symbols include a cloaked figure, mirrors, a key, and a knife.

The loose repetition and rhythm cut short any expectation of a conventional narrative, heightening the dream-like qualities. The camera initially does not show her face, which precludes identification with a particular woman, which creates a universalizing, totalizing effect- as it is easier to relate to an unknown, faceless woman. Multiple selves appear, shifting between the first and third person, suggesting that the [[Id, ego and super-ego|super-ego]] is at play, which is in line with the [[Psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic]] [[Sigmund Freud|Freudian]] staircase and flower motifs. This kind of Freudian interpretation, which she disagreed with, led Deren to add sound, composed by [[Teiji Itō]], to the film.

Another interpretation is that each film is an example of a "personal film". Her first film, ''Meshes of the Afternoon'', explores a woman's subjectivity and relation to the external world. [[Georges Sadoul]] said Deren may have been "the most important figure in the post-war development of the personal, independent film in the U.S.A."<ref name="letter">{{cite book |title=Women and the Cinema: A Critical Anthology |editor-first1=Karyn |editor-last1=Kay |editor-first2=Gerald |editor-last2=Peary |chapter=A Letter to James Card by Maya Deren |location=New York |publisher=Dutton |year=1977 |isbn=978-0-52547-459-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/womencinema00rein}}</ref> In featuring the filmmaker as the woman whose subjectivity in the domestic space is explored, the feminist dictum "the personal is political" is foregrounded. As with her other films on self-representation, Deren navigates conflicting tendencies of the self and the "other", through doubling, multiplication and merging of the woman in the film. Following a dreamlike quest with allegorical complexity, ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' has an enigmatic structure and a loose affinity with both film noir and domestic melodrama.<ref name="Nichols" /> The film is famous for how it resonated with Deren's own life and anxieties. According to a review in ''The Moving Image'', "this film emerges from a set of concerns and passionate commitments that are native to Deren's life and her trajectory. The first of these trajectories is Deren's interest in socialism during her youth and university years".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gadassik |first=Alla |date=2012-07-11 |title=Meshes of the Afternoon (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/480559 |journal=The Moving Image |language=en |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=139–142 |doi=10.1353/mov.2012.0015 |s2cid=191487240 |issn=1542-4235|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==== Director's notes ====
There is no concrete information about the conception of ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' beyond that Deren offered the poetic ideas and Hammid was able to turn them into visuals, as she envisioned them. Deren's initial concept began on the terms of a subjective camera, one that would show the point of view of herself without the aid of mirrors and would move as her eyes through spaces. According to the earliest program note, she describes ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' as follows:

<blockquote>This film is concerned with the interior experiences of an individual. It does not record an event which could be witnessed by other persons. Rather, it reproduces the way in which the subconscious of an individual will develop, interpret, and elaborate an apparently simple and casual incident into a critical emotional experience.</blockquote>

===''At Land'' (1944)===
{{main|At Land}}

[[File:Maya Deren from the still in the film At Land (1944).jpg|left|thumb|Deren in a still from the film ''At Land'' (1944)]]

Deren filmed ''At Land'' in [[Port Jefferson, New York|Port Jefferson]] and [[Amagansett, New York]] in the summer of 1944. Taking on more of an environmental psychologist's perspective, Deren "externalizes the hidden dynamic of the external world...as if I had moved from a concern with the life of the fish, to a concern with the sea which accounts for the character of the fish and its life."<ref name="letter" /> Maya Deren washes up on the shore of the beach, and climbs up a piece of driftwood that leads to a room lit by chandeliers, and one long table filled with men and women smoking. She seems to be invisible to the people as she crawls across the table, uninhibited; her body continues seamlessly again onto a new frame, crawling through foliage; following the flowing pattern of water on rocks; following a man across a farm, to a sick man in bed, through a series of doors, and finally popping up outside on a cliff. She shrinks in the wide frame as she walks farther away from the camera, up and down sand dunes, then frantically collecting rocks back on the shore. Her expression seems confused when she sees two women playing chess in the sand. She runs back through the entire sequence, and because of the jump-cuts, it seems as though she is a double or "doppelganger", where her earlier self sees her other self running through the scene. Some of her movements are controlled, suggesting a theatrical, dancer-like quality, while some have an almost animalistic sensibility as she crawls through the seemingly foreign environments. This is one of Deren's films in which the focus is on the character's exploration of her own subjectivity in her physical environment, inside as well as outside her subconscious, although it has a similar amorphous quality compared to her other films.

===''A Study in Choreography for Camera'' (1945)===
{{main|A Study in Choreography for Camera}}

[[File:Still from A Study in Choreography for Camera.jpg|thumb|Still from ''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]'']]

In the spring of 1945 she made ''A Study in Choreography for Camera'', which Deren said was "an effort to isolate and celebrate the principle of the power of movement."<ref name="letter" /> The compositions and varying speeds of movement within the frame inform and interact with Deren's meticulous edits and varying film speeds and motions to create a dance that Deren said could only exist on film. Excited by the way the dynamic of movement is greater than anything else within the film, Maya established a completely new sense of the word "geography" as the movement of the dancer transcends and manipulates the ideas of both time and space.<ref name="letter" /> <blockquote>"For Deren, no transition is needed between a place outside (such as a forest, or a park, or the beach) and an interior room. One action can be performed across different physical spaces, as in A Study in Choreography For Camera (1945), and in this way sews together layers of reality, thereby suggesting continuity between different levels of consciousness."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Szperling|first=Silvina|date=2017-05-05|title=Ritual in Transfigured Time: Narcisa Hirsch, Sufi Poetry, Ecstatic Dances, and the Female Gaze|url=https://screendancejournal.org/article/view/5710|journal=The International Journal of Screendance|language=en|volume=3|doi=10.18061/ijsd.v3i0.5710|issn=2154-6878|doi-access=free}}</ref></blockquote>At just under 3 minutes long, ''A Study in Choreography for Camera'' is a fragment depicting a carefully constructed exploration of a man who dances in a forest, and then seems to teleport to the inside of a house because of how continuous his movements are from one place to the next. The edit is broken, choppy, showing different angles and compositions, and even with parts in slow-motion, Deren is able to keep the quality of the leap smooth and seemingly uninterrupted. The choreography is perfectly synched as he seamlessly appears in an outdoor courtyard and then returns to an open, natural space. It shows a progression from nature to the confines of society, and back to nature. The figure belongs to dancer and choreographer [[Talley Beatty]], whose last movement is a leap across the screen back to the natural world. Deren and Beatty met through Katherine Dunham, while Deren was her assistant and Beatty was a dancer in her company.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2016-03-30|title=Talley Beatty|url=https://www.alvinailey.org/talley-beatty|access-date=2021-12-02|website=Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater}}</ref> It is worth noting that Beatty collaborated heavily with Deren in the creation of this film, hence why he is credited alongside Deren in the film's credit sequence.<ref name="Durkin 2013" /> The film is also subtitled 'Pas de Deux', a dance term referring to a dance between two people, or in this case, a collaboration between Deren and Beatty.<ref name="Durkin 2013" />

''A Study in Choreography for Camera'' was one of the first experimental dance films to be featured in the New York Times as well as Dance Magazine.<ref name="Durkin 2013" />

===''Ritual in Transfigured Time'' (1946)===
{{main|Ritual in Transfigured Time}}

By her fourth film, Deren discussed in ''An Anagram'' that she felt special attention should be given to unique possibilities of time and that the form should be ritualistic as a whole. ''Ritual in Transfigured Time'' began in August and was completed in 1946. It explored the fear of rejection and the freedom of expression in abandoning ritual, looking at the details as well as the bigger ideas of the nature and process of change. The main roles were played by Deren herself and the dancers [[Rita Christiani]] and Frank Westbrook.<ref>{{cite book |title=Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde |editor-last=Nichols |editor-first=Bill |publisher=University of California Press |date=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NA8a2jbCUTcC&q=Rita+Christiani+%2B+Nichols&pg=PP12 |isbn=978-0-52022-732-3 |page=141 |access-date=September 18, 2017}}</ref>

===''Meditation on Violence'' (1948)===
{{main|Meditation on Violence}}

Deren's ''Meditation on Violence'' was made in 1948. [[Chao-Li Chi]]'s performance obscures the distinction between violence and beauty. It was an attempt to "abstract the principle of ongoing metamorphosis", found in ''Ritual in Transfigured Time,'' though Deren felt it was not as successful in the clarity of that idea, brought down by its philosophical weight.<ref name="letter" /> Halfway through the film, the sequence is rewound, producing a film loop.

==Criticism of Hollywood==
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Deren attacked Hollywood for its artistic, political and economic monopoly over American cinema. She stated, "I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick," criticizing the amount of money spent on production. She also observed that Hollywood "has been a major obstacle to the definition and development of motion pictures as a creative fine-art form." She set herself in opposition to the Hollywood film industry's standards and practices.<ref>Timeline at 2010 MoMA exhibit.</ref>
Deren talks about the freedoms of independent cinema:

{{Blockquote|text=Artistic freedom means that the amateur filmmaker is never forced to sacrifice visual drama and beauty to a stream of words...to the relentless activity and explanations of a plot...nor is the amateur production expected to return profit on a huge investment by holding the attention of a massive and motley audience for 90 minutes...Instead of trying to invent a plot that moves, use the movement of wind, or water, children, people, elevators, balls, etc. as a poem might celebrate these. And use your freedom to experiment with visual ideas; your mistakes will not get you fired.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Maya |last=Deren |title=Amateur Versus Professional |journal=Film Culture |number=39 |year=1965 |pages=45–46}}</ref>}}

==Haiti and Vodou==
When Maya Deren decided to make an ethnographic film in Haiti, she was criticized for abandoning avant-garde film where she had made her name, but she was ready to expand to a new level as an artist.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6PHliJESxjYC&q=moira+sullivan |chapter=Maya Deren's Ethnographic Representation of Ritual and Magic in Haiti |first=Moira |last=Sullivan |pages=207–229 |title=Maya Deren and the American Avantgarde |editor-last=Nichols |editor-first=Bill |publisher=University of California Press |year=2001 |isbn=9780520227323 |access-date=August 24, 2015}}</ref><ref>Nichols (2001), page 18. According to Nichols, "Taking up another neglected dimension of Maya Deren's work, Moira Sullivan's "Maya Deren's Ethnographic Representation of Ritual and Magic in Haiti" relies on primary source material in the Maya Deren Archive in Boston and Anthology Film Archives in New York."</ref> She had studied ethnographic footage by [[Gregory Bateson]] in [[Bali]] in 1947, and was interested in including it in her next film.<ref name=Legend /> In September, she divorced Hammid and left for a nine-month stay in Haiti. The [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] grant in 1946 enabled Deren to finance her travel and film footage for what would posthumously become ''[[Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (film)|Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti]]''. She went on three additional trips through 1954 to document and record the rituals of [[Haitian Vodou]].

A source of inspiration for ritual dance was [[Katherine Dunham]] who wrote her master's thesis on Haitian dances in 1939, which Deren edited. While working as Dunham's assistant, Deren was given access to Dunham's archive which included 16mm documents on the dances in Trinidad and Haiti. Exposure to these documents led her to write her 1942 essay titled, "Religious Possession in Dancing."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bernardi|first=Vito Di|date=2018-12-31|title="A continuous awakening movement". Note sul choreocinema di Maya Deren|url=https://danzaericerca.unibo.it/article/view/8852|journal=Danza e Ricerca. Laboratorio di Studi, Scritture, Visioni|volume=scritture|language=it|pages=161–173|doi=10.6092/issn.2036-1599/8852|issn=2036-1599}}</ref> Afterwards, Deren wrote several articles on religious possession in dancing before her first trip to Haiti.<ref>A list of these articles are found in : Sullivan, 1997, pp.199-218.</ref> Deren filmed, recorded and photographed many hours of Vodou [[ritual]], but she also participated in the ceremonies. She documented her knowledge and experience of Vodou in ''Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti'' (New York: Vanguard Press, 1953), edited by [[Joseph Campbell]], which is considered a definitive source on the subject. She described her attraction to Vodou possession ceremonies, transformation, dance, play, games and especially ritual came from her strong feeling on the need to decenter our thoughts of self, ego and personality.<ref name=Nichols /> In her book ''An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film'' she wrote:

{{Blockquote|text=The ritualistic form treats the human being not as the source of the dramatic action, but as a somewhat depersonalized element in a dramatic whole. The intent of such depersonalization is not the destruction of the individual; on the contrary, it enlarges him beyond the personal dimension and frees him from the specializations and confines of personality. He becomes part of a dynamic whole which, like all such creative relationships, in turn, endow its parts with a measure of its larger meaning.<ref name=anagram>{{Cite book |title=An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film |first=Maya |last=Deren |publisher=The Alicat Bookshop Press |year=1946}}</ref>}}

Deren filmed 18,000 feet of Vodou rituals and people she met in Haiti on her Bolex camera.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Maya Deren: seven films that guarantee her legend|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/maya-deren-meshes-of-the-afternoon|access-date=2021-12-03|website=British Film Institute|date=April 28, 2017 |language=en}}</ref> The footage was incorporated into a posthumous documentary film ''[[Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (film)|Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti]]'', edited and produced in 1977 (with funding from Deren's friend [[James Merrill]]) by her ex-husband, Teiji Itō (1935–1982), and his wife Cherel Winett Itō (1947–1999).<ref>Sullivan in Nichols (2001), pp.207-229.</ref><ref>"Program notes" from screening at [[Pacific Film Archive]] at UC Berkeley.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Paganopoulos |first=M. |chapter=The Archetype of Transformation in Maya Deren's Film Rituals |title=Jung and Film II |editor1-first=Christopher |editor1-last=Hauke |editor2-first=Luke |editor2-last=Hockley |year=2011 |publisher=Routledge |pages=253–265}}</ref> All of the original wire recordings, photographs and notes are held in the Maya Deren Collection at the [[Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center]] at [[Boston University]]. The film footage is housed at [[Anthology Film Archives]] in New York City.

An [[LP record|LP]] of some of Deren's wire recordings was published by the newly formed [[Elektra Records]] in 1953 entitled ''Voices of Haiti''. The cover art for the album was by Teiji Itō.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.atsf.co.uk/elektra/discography.php?from=10&to=340 |title=Master Discography |website=Elektra Records}}</ref>

Anthropologists Melville Herkovitz and Harold Courlander acknowledged the importance of ''Divine Horsemen'', and in contemporary studies it is often cited as an authoritative voice, where Deren's methodology has been especially praised because "Vodou has resisted all orthodoxies, never mistaking surface representations for inner realities."<ref>Cosentino, ed., ''Sacred Arts of Vodou'', p.xii. Cited by Sullivan in Nichols (2001), p.225.</ref>

In her book of the same name<ref>{{cite book |last=Deren |first=M. |title=The Voodoo Gods |year=1975 |publisher=Paladin |pages=26 & 305}} (A reprint of ''Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti.'')</ref> Deren uses the spelling ''Voudoun'', explaining: "Voudoun terminology, titles and ceremonies still make use of the original African words and in this book they have been spelled out according to usual English phonetics and so as to render, as closely as possible, the Haitian pronunciation. Most of the songs, sayings and even some of the religious terms, however, are in [[Haitian Creole|Creole]], which is primarily French in derivation (although it also contains African, Spanish and Indian words). Where the Creole word retains its French meaning, it has been written out so as to indicate both the original French word and the distinctive Creole pronunciation." In her Glossary of Creole Words, Deren includes 'Voudoun' while the ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary''<ref>{{cite book |title=Shorter Oxford English Dictionary |edition=3rd |year=1973}} See also: [[Haitian Vodou]].</ref> draws attention to the similar French word, ''Vaudoux.''

==Death==
Deren died in 1961, at the age of 44 from a [[brain hemorrhage]], which has been attributed to a combination of malnutrition and drug use.<ref name="Senses" /> Her condition may have also been weakened by her long-term dependence on [[amphetamines]] and sleeping pills prescribed by [[Max Jacobson]], a doctor and member of the arts scene, notorious for his liberal prescription of drugs,<ref name=Nichols /> who later became famous as one of President [[John F. Kennedy]]'s physicians.

==Legacy==
<!--Maya Deren had a passionate sense of social commitment and moral purpose that distinguished her from the less favorable values of the entertainment industry; from the indifferent, ironic attitudes of her surrealist and dada predecessors; from the cool, hip attitudes of her Beat successors; from the passive aesthetic of stylized filmmakers; and from the pretentious attitudes of contemporary film theorists.<ref name=Nichols /> Early political Socialist activism served as the base for Deren's organizational and creative endeavors; her pursuit of art was grounded in her strong ethical, moral and social convictions.<ref name=anagram />
-->
Deren was an inspiration to such up-and-coming avant-garde filmmakers as [[Curtis Harrington]], [[Stan Brakhage]], and [[Kenneth Anger]], who emulated her independent, entrepreneurial spirit. Her influence can also be seen in films by [[Carolee Schneemann]], [[Barbara Hammer]], and [[Su Friedrich]].<ref name="Modern Women" /> In his review for renowned experimental filmmaker [[David Lynch]]'s ''[[Inland Empire (film)|Inland Empire]],'' writer Jim Emerson compares the work to ''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'', apparently a favorite of Lynch's.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Emerson |first=Jim |title=Go Inland, young woman! {{!}} Scanners {{!}} Roger Ebert |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/scanners/go-inland-young-woman |access-date=2022-03-05 |website=www.rogerebert.com/ |date=December 14, 2012 |language=en}}</ref>

Deren was a key figure in the creation of a New American Cinema, highlighting personal, experimental, underground film. In 1986, the [[American Film Institute]] created the [[Maya Deren Award]] to honor independent filmmakers.

''The Legend of Maya Deren, Vol. 1 Part 2'' consists of hundreds of documents, interviews, oral histories, letters, and autobiographical memoirs.<ref name=Nichols />

Works about Deren and her works have been produced in various media:
* Deren appears as a character in the long narrative poem ''[[The Changing Light at Sandover]]'' (1976-1980) by her friend [[James Merrill]].
* In 1987, Jo Ann Kaplan directed a biographical documentary about Deren, titled ''Invocation: Maya Deren'' (65 min)
* In 1994, the UK-based [[Horse and Bamboo Theatre]] created and toured ''Dance of White Darkness'' throughout Europe—the story of Deren's visits to Haiti.
* In 2002, {{ill|Martina Kudláček|de}} directed a feature-length documentary about Deren, titled ''[[In the Mirror of Maya Deren]]'' (''Im Spiegel der Maya Deren''), which featured music by [[John Zorn]].

Deren's films have also been shown with newly written alternative soundtracks:
* In 2004, the British rock group [[Subterraneans (band)|Subterraneans]] produced new soundtracks for six of Deren's short films as part of a commission from [[Queen's University Belfast]]'s annual [[Belfast Film Festival|film festival]]. ''At Land'' won the festival prize for sound design.
* In 2008, the Portuguese rock group [[Mão Morta]] produced new soundtracks for four of Deren's short films as part of a commission from Curtas Vila do Conde's annual film festival.

==Awards and honors==
*[[Guggenheim Fellowship]] 1946
*Grand Prix International for Avant-garde Film at the [[Cannes Film Festival]] (1947)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Peyrière |first=Monique |date=2007 |title=Maya Deren et les sciences sociales: quand le cinéma expérimental prend l'avantage sur le documentaire pour affronter la réalité du monde |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-societes-2007-2-page-41.htm |journal=Sociétés |language=fr |volume=2 |issue=96 |pages=41–50 |doi=10.3917/soc.096.0041 |issn=0765-3697}}</ref>
*Creative Work in Motion Pictures (1947)

==Filmography==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Key
| style="background:#FFFFCC;"| {{dagger|alt=Films that released after Deren's death}}
| Denotes posthumously released
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
! rowspan="2" scope="col" | Title
! rowspan="2" scope="col" | Year
! colspan="4" scope="col" | Credits
! rowspan="2" scope="col" class="unsortable"| Notes
! rowspan="2" scope="col" class="unsortable" |{{abbr|Ref.|References}}
|-
! width=65 |Director
! width=65 |Writer
! width=65 |Producer
! width=65 |Editor
|-
!scope="row"|''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]''
|1943
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|co-directed with [[Alexander Hammid]]
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Senses/><ref name=Zeitgeist>{{Cite web |url=http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/films/inthemirrorofmayaderen/presskit.pdf |title=In the Mirror of Maya Deren |website=Zeitgeist Films |access-date=19 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606075957/http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/films/inthemirrorofmayaderen/presskit.pdf |archive-date=June 6, 2013 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[The Witch's Cradle]]''
|1944
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|unfinished
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Senses>{{cite journal |url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/deren-2/ |title=Great Directors: Maya Deren |first=Wendy |last=Haslem |journal=Senses of Cinema |issue=23 |date=12 December 2002 |access-date=19 June 2011}}</ref>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[At Land]]''
|1944
|{{yes}} 
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Senses/>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]''
|1945
|{{yes}} 
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|solo starring by [[Talley Beatty]]
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Senses/>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[The Private Life of a Cat]]''
|1947
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|Collaboration with Alexander Hammid
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Zeitgeist/>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[Ritual in Transfigured Time]]''
|1946
|{{yes}} 
|{{yes}} 
|{{yes}} 
|{{yes}} 
|co-edited by Alexander Hammid
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Senses/>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[Meditation on Violence]]''
|1948
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|music by [[Teiji Itō]]
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Senses/>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[Medusa (1949 film)|Medusa]]''
|1949
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|unfinished
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Zeitgeist/>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[Ensemble for Somnambulists]]''
|1951
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|Toronto Film Society workshop; unreleased, unfinished
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Zeitgeist/>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[The Very Eye of Night]]''
|1955
|{{yes}}
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|{{yes}}
|collaboration with [[Metropolitan Opera]] Ballet School
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name="Korossi 2017"/><ref name=Senses/><ref name=Zeitgeist/><ref>{{cite web |title=The Very Eye of Night |url=https://www.cinematheque.qc.ca/fr/programmation/projections/film/very-eye-night-0?pid=23860 |website=cinematheque.qc.ca |publisher=Cinematheque |access-date=18 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304062704/https://www.cinematheque.qc.ca/fr/programmation/projections/film/very-eye-night-0?pid=23860 |archive-date=4 March 2021 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
|-
!scope="row"|''[[Season of Strangers]]''
|1959
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|also known as ''Haiku Film Project'', unfinished
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Zeitgeist/>
|-
!scope="row" style="background:#FFFFCC;" |''[[Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti]]''
|1985
|{{yes}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|{{no}}
|Original footage shot by Deren (1947–1954); reconstruction by [[Teiji Itō|Teiji and Cherel Itō]]
|style="text-align:center;"|<ref name=Senses/>
|}

==Discography==

===Vinyl LPs===
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto;"
|-
! Year!! Artist!! Title!! Label!! Notes
|-
| '''1953''' ||Maya Deren ||''Voices of Haiti''||[[Elektra Records]]||Design [cover]: [[Teiji Itō]]; recorded during ceremonials near Croix-des-Missions and [[Pétion-Ville]], Haiti<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.discogs.com/Maya-Deren-Voices-Of-Haiti/release/5205313 |title=Maya Deren – Voices Of Haiti |website=Discogs |access-date=24 March 2015}}</ref>
|-
| '''1978''' ||''Unknown'' ||''Meringues and Folk Ballads of Haiti''||[[Lyrichord Discs]]||Recorded by Maya Deren<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.discogs.com/Unknown-Artist-Divine-Horsemen-The-Voodoo-Gods-Of-Haiti/release/4501924 |title=Meringues And Folk Ballads Of Haiti |website=Discogs |year=1980 |access-date=24 March 2015}}</ref>
|-
| '''1980''' ||''Unknown'' ||''Divine Horsemen: The Voodoo Gods of Haiti''||[[Lyrichord Discs]]||Recorded by Maya Deren; design [cover]: Teiji Itō; liner notes: Cherel Ito<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.discogs.com/Unknown-Artist-Divine-Horsemen-The-Voodoo-Gods-Of-Haiti/release/4501924 |title=Divine Horsemen - The Voodoo Gods Of Haiti |year=1980 |publisher=Discogs.com |access-date=24 March 2015}}</ref>
|}

== Written works ==
Deren was also an important film theorist. 
* Her most widely read essay on film theory is probably ''An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film'', Deren's seminal treatise that laid the groundwork for many of her ideas on film as an art form (Yonkers, NY: Alicat Book Shop Press, 1946).
* Her collected essays were published<ref>{{cite book |url=https://www.mcphersonco.com/cs.php?f[0]=shh&sl[br][NR]=9&sl[br][SR]=2&sl[br][cgID]=5&pdID=142 |title=Essential Deren: Collected Writings on Film |publisher=McPherson & Co |year=2005 |isbn=0-929701-65-8 |access-date=August 24, 2015}}</ref> in 2005 and arranged in three sections:
# ''Film Poetics'', including: Amateur versus Professional, Cinema as an Art Form, An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film, Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality
# ''Film Production'', including: Creating Movies with a New Dimension: Time, Creative Cutting, Planning by Eye, Adventures in Creative Film-Making
# ''Film in Medias Res'', including: A Letter, Magic is New, New Directions in Film Art, Choreography for the Camera, Ritual in Transfigured Time, Meditation on Violence, The Very Eye of Night.
* ''Divine Horsemen: Living Gods of Haiti'' was published in 1953 by Vanguard Press (New York City) and [[Thames & Hudson]] (London), republished under the title of ''The Voodoo Gods'' by Paladin in 1975, and again under its original title by McPherson & Company in 1998.

==See also==
*[[List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1946]]
*[[Women's cinema]]

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Works cited==
*Brody, Richard (November 16, 2022). "How Maya Deren Became the Symbol and Champion of American Experimental Film". ''The New Yorker''. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
*Deren, Maya.  Edited by Bruce R. McPherson. New York: McPherson & Company, 2005.
*Keller, Sarah. "Frustrated Climaxes: On Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and Witch’s Cradle." ''Cinema Journal'' 52, no. 3 (Spring 2013): 75-98.
*Nichols, Bill, ed. ''Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde''. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2001.
*{{cite book |last=Soussloff |first=Catherine M. |chapter=Maya Deren Herself |title=Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde |editor-last=Nichols |editor-first=Bill |publisher=University of California Press |year=2001 |isbn=0520227328 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9790520227322 |url-access=registration |access-date=February 29, 2020}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Library resources box|by=yes|viaf= 59193774 }}
*{{IMDb name|220305|Maya Deren}}
*[http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/avantbib.html#deren Deren bibliography (via UC Berkeley)]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100102102021/http://bombsite.com/issues/81/articles/2509 Martina Kudláček (director of "In the Mirror of Maya Deren") by Robert Gardner BOMB 81/Fall 2002]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110210090847/http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/archives-cc/app/details.php?id=7652&return=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bu.edu%2Fphpbin%2Farchives-cc%2Fapp%2Fbrowse.php%3Fletter%3DD%26sort_column%3Dcomposite_name%26sort_direction%3DASC%26per_page%3D10%26offset%3D20%26set_page%3Dnext Maya Deren Collection] at [[Boston University]]'s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100117034755/http://fullposter.com/snippets.php?snippet=347#topic ''Divine Horsemen'' (book): excerpts]
*[https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/maya-deren-meshes-of-the-afternoon Article on Maya Deren: seven films that guarantee her legend] 
*[https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/deren-maya Maya Deren biography from Jewish Women's Archive]
*[https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/OCTO_a_00188 Journal from MIT ''Seeing the Invisible: Maya Deren's Experiments in Cinematic Trance'']
*[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/200649 Maya Deren Biography from Project MUSE]
*Hammer, Barbara. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTU7_tkyK8 "Meshes with Maya Deren."] Online at European Graduate School Video Lectures, 2011. Accessed January 28, 2023.

{{Maya Deren}}
{{Modernism}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deren, Maya}}
[[Category:1917 births]]
[[Category:1961 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American actresses]]
[[Category:20th-century American women artists]]
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:American women experimental filmmakers]]
[[Category:American female dancers]]
[[Category:American film actresses]]
[[Category:Film directors from New York City]]
[[Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:American Voodoo practitioners]]
[[Category:American women film directors]]
[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]
[[Category:Jewish American film people]]
[[Category:Film theorists]]
[[Category:Haitian Vodou]]
[[Category:Jewish American actresses]]
[[Category:Jewish women writers]]
[[Category:Jewish American artists]]
[[Category:Artists from Syracuse, New York]]
[[Category:American women animators]]
[[Category:Dancers from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Drug-related deaths in New York City]]
[[Category:International School of Geneva alumni]]