Maya Deren: Deren to be Different

Yea, tacky title name, but it's the best I could think of. First impressions when I first started watching The Very Eye of Night, I automatically was reminded of the opening sequence of Final Fantasy VII, seen below:

However, the video quickly changed when the music and the dancers entered. The whole time, it had this ethereal feeling to it as if I were in a trance or a dream. I suppose I'm not the most deep-intellectual-thinker so I may not be able to appreciate a piece like this as some would. I mean it is avant-garde and not supposed to be widely accepted, but more as a means to challenge the rules of society. On that note, I can say for one thing I have never seen anything quite like that, besides the FF7 opening sequence, which I'd love to talk more about, but this blog is not about Final Fantasy VII.






Maya Deren, indeed, challenged American standards of cinema and made the effort to as a matter of fact. She was very dissatisfied with Hollywood's monopoly over what an "artistic" piece was supposed to be like. Thus, that's what makes her so distinct in her pieces, and you can really see the motive behind each of her pieces. It's people like this that steer the ship into new lands, leading the way for new frontiers, and I am all for it. No matter how avant-garde it may be, I think it's a great way for our culture to grow, and that it should.

The Very Eye of Night Response

Maya Deren's, "The Very Eye of Night" serves as a fundamental building block for the genre of experimental film, or the Avante-garde form of art.Deren superimposes two forms of video over one another and creates an effect that may have wowed audiences when it was first released. Deren uses this non-narrative film to give the audience a feeling of dancing in space, without spending a huge budget on sets and props, seen in Melies' A Trip to the Moon. While I can appreciate the history of this film but as film enthusiast and filmmaker, I'm not particularly fond of this work. While I enjoy many different forms of art and film, it felt dry. For it's time it is a great film, but to todays standards in visual projection production it doesn't come close in todays market. Overall, a good introduction to a genre of film that doesn't necessarily derive meaning in film or rather, contain a complex narrative. It simply serves a purpose to be visually and aesthetically pleasing to those who view it. And who knows, maybe you can derive your own meaning.

Responding to “The Very Eye of Night”

Hello everyone,

On a personal level, I, long mired in the monotonous nature of my academic discipline of History, have never truly grasped the feel of cinematic art, or ever gained a full appreciation for its movements and paradigms. To me art was another historical fact, an expression of the timeline meant only to prove a historical pattern and nothing more. So, I must honestly profess that this class has truly opened a whole new interesting world for me to explore. Maya Deren’s work was, at first pass, unimpressive to a mind unfamiliar with experimental cinematography. I found its lack of a structured narrative unappealing. Coming from History structure and narrative was all I knew, but somehow Deren’s work managed to intrigue me the more I watched it. I found myself enthralled by the dancers overlaid on the moving star field, and their ghostlike forms and repetitive dances coupled with rhythmic procession gave the work a very primordial feel. It reminded me of primitive cultural beliefs of spirits amongst the heavens. Mind you, when I say “primitive”, I am not trying to be little the work, but rather I mean to say that it speaks to our natural human tendency to be fascinated by the mysterious and almost spiritual nature of the night. The work became a theme or motif in it of itself; without the need of structured narrative or the like. While I could also comment about the technical aspects of the work such the dancers being shown in photographic negative, the overlaid images, and likewise, it was more the impact of the film that interested me as a projection designer. Patricia Moran noted that it was important that “Space/time, projection and experiential: sentient and feeling, visible and visionary are part of the experience.”, and I believe Deren’s work is a great example of these aspects of the theory behind the “VJ” and “VJing”. I am truly thankful for being in this class because of what I am being exposed to, and though I may be elementary in my observations of artistic work, I can certainly appreciate the impact.

-Nathan D.

Maya Deren "The Very Eye of Night"

While watching this video in class, I was awed by the simplicity of the video. With todays computers we can do much of what she did with a few simple keystrokes. And yet it was such a feat for her to hand cut the film and by hand do all the animation of the stars and dancers. There was a distinct hand made feel to it that made it actually more interesting then when we use computers to pull off the same effects. The computer is more mechanical and it does things more precisely; you could see the random shaking in her hands.

It was an engaging video that captured my attention.