Maya Deren - Incomplete Control

Sarah Keller

ISBN 10: 0231162219 / ISBN 13: 9780231162210

Published by Columbia University Press Jan 2015, 2015

About this Item

Neuware - Maya Deren (1917-1961) was a Russian-born American filmmaker, theorist, poet, and photographer working at the forefront of the American avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Influenced by Jean Cocteau and Marcel Duchamp, she is best known for her seminal film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), a dream-like experiment with time and symbol, looped narrative and provocative imagery, setting the stage for the twentieth-centurys groundbreaking aesthetic movements and films.

Seller Inventory # 9780231162210

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Maya Deren - Incomplete Control
• Publisher: Columbia University Press Jan 2015
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231162219
• ISBN 13: 9780231162210
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 228W x 151H x 13D millimeters 228 millimeters width by 151 millimeters height by 13 millimeters depth
• Weight: 391 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Maya Deren (1917–1961) was a Russian-born American filmmaker, theorist, poet, and photographer working at the forefront of the American avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Influenced by Jean Cocteau and Marcel Duchamp, she is best known for her seminal film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), a dream-like experiment with time and symbol, looped narrative and provocative imagery, setting the stage for the twentieth-century's groundbreaking aesthetic movements and films.

Maya Deren assesses both the filmmaker's completed work and her numerous unfinished projects, arguing Deren's overarching aesthetic is founded on principles of incompletion, contingency, and openness. Combining the contrasting approaches of documentary, experimental, and creative film, Deren created a wholly original experience for film audiences that disrupted the subjectivity of cinema, its standards of continuity, and its dubious facility with promoting categories of realism. This critical retrospective reflects on the development of Deren's career and the productive tensions she initiated that continue to energize film.

About the Author

Sarah Keller is assistant professor of Art and cinema studies at the University of Massachusetts–Boston. She is coeditor, with Jason Paul, of Jean Epstein: Critical Essays and New Translations.