The American Avant Garde

For starters, I would have to agree with Kyle. Let’s face it Maya Deren is easily one of the most beautiful women that has ever existed. On top of that, she can act, direct, write and edit. Can you say one woman wonder? Out of her films that we viewed, I would have to say that Meshes in the Afternoon was by far my favorite. Something about the variety of interpretations it suggests and the correlation of the sound and the action really caused this film to stand out to me. Along with her colleague Kenneth Anger’s works, Maya Deren’s films seem to portray an aspect of the American identity. Their works follow a sort of manifest destiny in which they expand the world of cinema rather than the borders of the United States. Both Deren and Anger were able to embrace the teachings of past film moguls while also adding their own respective personalities to their works. For instance, the pieces from both filmmakers that we saw were teeming with sexuality, yet it was different from the blatant pining showcased in The Seashell and the Clergyman or the apparent foulness of Un Chien AndalouI, which I must admit that I probably still don’t completely understand.