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[Piano: Classical]
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This is like Holy Grail of cinema.
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These are where
Maya kept her films...
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00:01:20,613 --> 00:01:23,013
and actually there are films inside...
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00:01:23,116 --> 00:01:26,108
and we don't even know
what they are.
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This is one of the archives where...
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one can still make discoveries,
and one can get...
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excited and in ecstasy!
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[Chuckles]
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There may be some very
interesting discoveries.
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This is the first picture
I took of Maya.
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It must have been a few days
after we met in Hollywood.
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It's already faded a little.
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00:02:55,775 --> 00:02:58,300
I was fascinated by her face.
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00:03:01,314 --> 00:03:03,214
kind of exotic.
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00:03:11,324 --> 00:03:13,315
Maya wasn't always Maya.
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00:03:13,426 --> 00:03:15,917
She used to be called Eleanora.
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00:03:17,163 --> 00:03:21,395
Her mother used to call her
Elinka in Russian.
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00:03:21,501 --> 00:03:24,993
She confided in me that
she was unhappy about her name...
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00:03:25,104 --> 00:03:27,834
and she asked me once
to find a name for her.
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00:03:27,941 --> 00:03:32,071
So I just went to a library
and looked through a lot ofbooks...
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mainly books on myhology.
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00:03:35,682 --> 00:03:38,708
I came across the name Maya
in different connections...
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00:03:38,818 --> 00:03:41,252
for instance, with water.
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00:03:41,354 --> 00:03:46,155
But Maya also was the name
of mother of Buddha.
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00:03:46,259 --> 00:03:49,057
In Hinduism, Maya was
the name of a goddess...
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00:03:49,162 --> 00:03:51,528
who holds a veil
in front of our eyes...
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00:03:53,032 --> 00:03:56,024
a veil of illusion,
which prevents us from seeing...
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the spiritual reality behind it.
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[Maya Deren] I was a poet
before I was a filmmaker...
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00:04:25,331 --> 00:04:27,231
and I was a very poor poet...
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00:04:27,333 --> 00:04:30,268
because I thought
in terms of images.
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00:04:30,370 --> 00:04:34,329
What existed as essentially
a visual experience in my mind...
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00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:37,273
poetry was an effort
to put it into verbal terms.
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00:04:37,377 --> 00:04:40,312
When I got a camera in my hand,
it was like coming home.
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00:04:40,413 --> 00:04:43,473
It was like doing what I always
wanted to do without the need...
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00:04:43,583 --> 00:04:46,416
to translate it into a verbal form.
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00:06:25,017 --> 00:06:26,917
[Woman]
She could have been a dancer...
39
00:06:27,019 --> 00:06:29,249
but that would have taken
full-time work with us.
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00:06:29,355 --> 00:06:33,951
And so, she stayed being
a kind of a personal secretary.
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00:06:34,060 --> 00:06:36,119
You know, that sort of thing.
42
00:06:38,998 --> 00:06:44,095
I had to keep my eye
on Maya at times, you know...
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00:06:44,203 --> 00:06:47,468
because I don't think I had
a star complex at all...
44
00:06:47,573 --> 00:06:50,098
but I had to remind her
now and then...
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we were in Hollywood
to begin...
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00:06:53,946 --> 00:06:56,437
kind of a new career
for the company.
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00:06:56,549 --> 00:07:01,816
Frequently I would ask some of
the Hollywood people to come in.
48
00:07:01,921 --> 00:07:05,448
And Maya was wonderful
at meeting them at the door...
49
00:07:05,558 --> 00:07:09,153
and introductions and seating them,
and so forth and so on.
50
00:07:09,262 --> 00:07:12,663
But the gleam in her eye...
51
00:07:12,765 --> 00:07:16,462
when the drummers took their positions
and began to play, you know...
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00:07:16,569 --> 00:07:20,767
And we'd have our exercise.
Always the drums we were.
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00:07:20,873 --> 00:07:26,038
Well, Maya had a habit of...
She was extremely well built as far...
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00:07:26,145 --> 00:07:30,047
robust, you know...
and she'd sit there.
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00:07:30,149 --> 00:07:35,280
Usually her-her little simple frocks were
quite low cut, in the front anyway.
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00:07:35,388 --> 00:07:37,879
And after a while
she couldn't stand it...
57
00:07:37,990 --> 00:07:40,720
and you could just feel it
growing and growing in her.
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00:07:40,827 --> 00:07:43,295
And she turned, I remember...
Her favorite thing was to say...
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"How can you sit still?"
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You know? And then
she'd start in on this sort.
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00:07:49,569 --> 00:07:51,469
I was wild,
because I had to find...
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Little by little, I had to
stop it, of course.
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I couldn't have that at all
with these impresarios.
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00:07:57,310 --> 00:08:01,474
But who knows? Maybe she helped us
get our Hollywood position.
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The drums really took her over.
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She was possessed by rhythm.
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00:08:20,833 --> 00:08:23,734
And you could see it without drums,
without sound or anything else...
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00:08:23,836 --> 00:08:26,964
and in the way
she handled her body.
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00:08:30,409 --> 00:08:35,073
[Deren] If I did not live in a time when
the film was accessible to me as a medium...
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00:08:35,181 --> 00:08:37,706
I would have been a dancer,
perhaps, or a singer.
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00:08:37,817 --> 00:08:40,911
My reason for creating them is
almost as if I would dance...
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except this is a much more
marvelous dance.
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It's because in film,
I can make the world dance.
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Actually, this picture
was not planned for the film.
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I just made it
in a spur of the moment.
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I liked the reflections of the trees...
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in the glass in front of her.
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Later on we used to call it
my Botticelli picture...
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because it reminded us
of Italian Renaissance.
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00:09:38,544 --> 00:09:42,776
And this one was taken
in New York...
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00:09:42,882 --> 00:09:47,717
with our cat, Glamour Girl,
that came with us from Hollywood.
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00:09:50,356 --> 00:09:54,759
This was our apartment
in Greenwich Village in Morton Street.
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We had kind of a studio apartment.
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00:10:12,311 --> 00:10:14,643
We used it a lot...
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as a location for shooting.
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It had very nice light.
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Large windows to the south.
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And our cats were with us,
of course.
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Maya loved cats.
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00:10:42,775 --> 00:10:45,005
Maya liked mirrors very much...
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and used the idea of a mirror
often in her writing.
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Also, the film ends
with a broken mirror.
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Maya was born Eleanora Derenkowski...
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beautiful name... in 1917...
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the year of the Russian revolution,
in Russia...
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in kiev, the great, great capital
of the Ukraine.
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00:11:51,610 --> 00:11:54,738
She came out of
a very privileged situation.
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MostJews did not live in the cities...
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but there were
a good number of them.
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00:11:59,285 --> 00:12:02,584
What was special about the Derens,
the Derenkowskies...
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00:12:02,688 --> 00:12:05,714
is that both parents were
so very highly educated...
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particularly her father,
who was a psychiatrist.
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00:12:08,761 --> 00:12:11,161
And they then emigrated
several years later...
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as manyJews did,
to New York.
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I do know how very deeply,
profoundly...
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Maya loved her father
and was influenced by him.
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[Deren]
I am not greedy.
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I do not seek to possess
the major portion of your days.
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I am content if,
on those rare occasions...
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whose truth can be stated
only by poetry...
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you will perhaps recall an image...
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even only the aura of my films.
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[Man] She came from the sea.
If you've ever seen her film At Land...
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she comes out of the sea.
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In her mind,
she was a sea creature.
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00:15:30,429 --> 00:15:32,897
Maya's bedroom
was an underwater world.
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00:15:32,998 --> 00:15:36,263
It was like a grotto under the sea...
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00:15:36,368 --> 00:15:39,929
and it was full of very beautiful objects...
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00:15:40,039 --> 00:15:42,564
shells, coral...
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00:15:42,675 --> 00:15:46,441
and on the ceiling, there was
a very unusual large painting...
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of underwater creatures.
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00:15:48,747 --> 00:15:51,409
And in the normal light,
you would see that...
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00:15:51,517 --> 00:15:53,417
but when the lights
were turned off...
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it turned out it was painted
with phosphorescent paint...
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00:15:56,922 --> 00:16:00,915
and so suddenly it came to life
with different colors...
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00:16:01,026 --> 00:16:04,860
and you really felt as if
you were under the sea at night...
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00:16:04,964 --> 00:16:08,730
surrounded by the other
creatures of the sea.
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00:16:08,834 --> 00:16:13,464
It was an apartment
oflove and ofbeauty.
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00:16:13,572 --> 00:16:15,665
It was predominantly blue.
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00:16:15,774 --> 00:16:17,935
That was her favorite color.
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[Deren]
What I do in my films...
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is very...
oh, I think very distinctively...
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00:16:37,863 --> 00:16:39,797
I think they are
the films of a woman...
134
00:16:39,898 --> 00:16:43,925
and I think that their characteristic
time quality...
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00:16:44,036 --> 00:16:46,766
is the time quality
of a woman.
136
00:16:46,872 --> 00:16:49,340
I think that the strength of men...
137
00:16:49,441 --> 00:16:51,932
is their great sense of immediacy.
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00:16:52,044 --> 00:16:55,639
They are a "now'"creature...
139
00:16:55,748 --> 00:16:59,548
and a woman has strength to wait,
because she's had to wait.
140
00:16:59,651 --> 00:17:02,484
She has to wait nine months
for the concept of a child.
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00:17:02,588 --> 00:17:06,786
Time is built into her body
in the sense ofbecomingness.
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00:17:06,892 --> 00:17:11,056
And she sees everything
in terms of it being...
143
00:17:11,163 --> 00:17:13,063
in the stage ofbecoming.
144
00:17:13,165 --> 00:17:16,896
She raises a child knowing
not what it is at any moment...
145
00:17:17,002 --> 00:17:19,596
but seeing always the person
that it will become.
146
00:17:19,705 --> 00:17:22,003
Her whole life
from her very beginning...
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00:17:22,107 --> 00:17:25,338
it's built into her...
is the sense of becoming.
148
00:17:25,444 --> 00:17:29,710
Now, in any time form,
this is a very important sense.
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00:17:29,815 --> 00:17:34,946
I think that my films putting
as much stress as they do...
150
00:17:35,054 --> 00:17:38,546
upon the constant
metamorphosis...
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00:17:38,657 --> 00:17:40,887
one image is always
becoming another.
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00:17:40,993 --> 00:17:43,985
That is, it is what is happening
that is important in my films...
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00:17:44,096 --> 00:17:45,996
not what is at any moment.
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00:17:46,098 --> 00:17:48,430
This is a woman's time sense...
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00:17:48,534 --> 00:17:53,233
and I think it happens more in my films
than in almost anyone else's.
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00:18:23,836 --> 00:18:26,304
Hella Heyman was
a young still photographer...
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00:18:26,405 --> 00:18:28,373
living in Los Angeles.
158
00:18:28,474 --> 00:18:31,534
She was very close friends with
a woman named Galka Scheyer.
159
00:18:31,643 --> 00:18:34,407
And Galka was an art dealer.
160
00:18:34,513 --> 00:18:39,109
She worked with the paintings
of four important...
161
00:18:39,218 --> 00:18:42,847
and rather unknown painters
at that time in America...
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00:18:42,955 --> 00:18:47,517
and that was klee, Feininger,
kandinsky and Jawlenski.
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00:18:47,626 --> 00:18:52,222
She was also... Galka...
a friend of Maya and Sasha.
164
00:18:52,331 --> 00:18:55,858
And that's how the friendship
between the three started.
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00:18:55,968 --> 00:18:59,096
Galka was the focal point,
in a certain sense.
166
00:18:59,204 --> 00:19:01,604
Hella came to New York
at a certain period...
167
00:19:01,707 --> 00:19:04,471
and stayed with Maya and Sasha
in Morton Street.
168
00:19:04,576 --> 00:19:09,206
And at that point,
At Land was germinating.
169
00:19:09,314 --> 00:19:12,408
And as always in Maya's films...
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00:19:12,518 --> 00:19:14,986
one person did not have
one function.
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00:19:15,087 --> 00:19:17,487
One person did
as much as was needed.
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00:19:17,589 --> 00:19:21,958
Hella was camerawoman,
coached by Sasha, incidentally...
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00:19:22,060 --> 00:19:25,325
grip, actress, whatever.
174
00:19:25,430 --> 00:19:28,092
In the scene in At Land
at the beach...
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00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:30,225
where there is a chess game
going on...
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00:19:30,335 --> 00:19:33,668
the human counterparts for those,
the black and the white figure...
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00:19:33,772 --> 00:19:37,936
Hella is the black-haired woman
in that chess game.
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00:19:38,977 --> 00:19:41,673
They remained friends for quite
a long while... in fact...
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00:19:41,780 --> 00:19:45,443
until the divorce
between Sasha and Maya...
180
00:19:45,551 --> 00:19:49,282
and eventually the marriage
of Sasha and Hella.
181
00:20:29,995 --> 00:20:32,691
[Deren] I intended it almost
as a myhological statement...
182
00:20:32,798 --> 00:20:35,164
in the sense that
folktales are myhological...
183
00:20:35,267 --> 00:20:37,963
archetypal statements.
184
00:20:38,070 --> 00:20:41,130
The girl in the film
is not a personal person.
185
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:43,640
She's a personage.
186
00:21:00,525 --> 00:21:05,155
[Arsham] Maya had several projects
that were for some reasons abandoned.
187
00:21:05,264 --> 00:21:07,960
And the one that most
interested me...
188
00:21:08,066 --> 00:21:11,524
was to be a film about
children's games.
189
00:21:11,637 --> 00:21:14,606
For her, it was...
190
00:21:14,706 --> 00:21:16,765
the ritual
involved in these games.
191
00:21:16,875 --> 00:21:18,775
And they are very ritualistic...
192
00:21:18,877 --> 00:21:21,846
and full of the kind of gesture
that has specific meaning.
193
00:21:21,947 --> 00:21:26,407
And to learn from Maya...
194
00:21:26,518 --> 00:21:29,385
that this was universal
was a revelation.
195
00:21:29,488 --> 00:21:32,218
I was a New York street kid. I knew
nothing about what was happening...
196
00:21:32,324 --> 00:21:34,224
elsewhere in the world.
197
00:21:34,326 --> 00:21:38,456
But I played
with great affection...
198
00:21:38,563 --> 00:21:42,124
hopscotch, jump rope,
jacks...
199
00:21:42,234 --> 00:21:46,261
Jacks is a game... It certainly has
different names elsewhere in the world...
200
00:21:46,371 --> 00:21:50,432
but it was played, for example,
by my mother in Russia as a young girl.
201
00:22:03,522 --> 00:22:06,457
[Woman]
She was unusually dressed for those days.
202
00:22:06,558 --> 00:22:09,459
I think she was just a woman
ahead of her time...
203
00:22:09,561 --> 00:22:14,931
because many years later, I would often see
somebody dressed just exactly like her...
204
00:22:15,033 --> 00:22:17,160
even think maybe it was she...
205
00:22:17,269 --> 00:22:22,730
until she turned around and then
realized that this was... this was her style.
206
00:22:22,841 --> 00:22:26,038
The clothes were this-this...
207
00:22:26,144 --> 00:22:28,704
European style
of embroidered blouse...
208
00:22:28,814 --> 00:22:31,078
that could be worn
off the shoulder...
209
00:22:31,183 --> 00:22:34,482
and it was like
folksy folk clothes...
210
00:22:34,586 --> 00:22:36,611
with always...
with a long dirndl skirt.
211
00:22:36,722 --> 00:22:40,249
It may be that she had
the-the body type...
212
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:44,489
of sort of like heavy, heavy hips
and heavy legs...
213
00:22:44,596 --> 00:22:47,963
and certainly that kind of skirt
looked much better on her.
214
00:22:48,066 --> 00:22:51,934
And her hair, of course...
She did have very curly hair...
215
00:22:52,037 --> 00:22:56,599
which, instead of cutting it off,
as most of us would have done...
216
00:22:56,708 --> 00:22:58,608
shejust let it be.
217
00:22:58,710 --> 00:23:02,146
So � la the '60s,
with flower children and stuff.
218
00:23:02,247 --> 00:23:05,216
In other words, she really
looked like a flower child...
219
00:23:05,317 --> 00:23:08,115
but this was not
the '60s, this was the '40s.
220
00:23:59,671 --> 00:24:02,435
[Hammid] Since Maya had
her own experience with dancing...
221
00:24:02,541 --> 00:24:05,510
she wanted to use film
to express...
222
00:24:05,610 --> 00:24:08,408
dance ideas in a new way...
223
00:24:08,513 --> 00:24:12,108
by using the film technique
of editing...
224
00:24:12,217 --> 00:24:14,685
to free the dancer
from gravity...
225
00:24:14,786 --> 00:24:17,346
so that the dancer
would seem to be floating...
226
00:24:17,456 --> 00:24:19,515
by his own power.
227
00:24:19,624 --> 00:24:22,889
In New York, she found a young dancer,
Talley Beatty...
228
00:24:22,994 --> 00:24:27,055
who was willing
to cooperate for free.
229
00:24:27,165 --> 00:24:31,295
In it we used slow motion...
230
00:24:31,403 --> 00:24:35,897
and then we hired a cheap
16-millimeter slow-motion camera...
231
00:24:36,007 --> 00:24:38,066
and used that.
232
00:24:54,726 --> 00:24:58,594
[Deren] It isn't a problem
of choreographing a dancer.
233
00:24:58,697 --> 00:25:01,029
It's a problem of choreographing
whatever it is...
234
00:25:01,132 --> 00:25:03,100
that you have in that frame...
235
00:25:03,201 --> 00:25:05,761
including the space...
236
00:25:05,871 --> 00:25:09,102
the trees, the animate
or even inanimate objects.
237
00:25:09,207 --> 00:25:14,008
And at that moment,
this is where the film choreographer...
238
00:25:14,112 --> 00:25:17,343
departs a little bit
from the dance choreographer...
239
00:25:17,449 --> 00:25:19,610
and that is what
I attempted to do...
240
00:25:19,718 --> 00:25:22,710
in A Study in Choreography
for Camera.
241
00:25:22,821 --> 00:25:26,814
I retitled it, actually,
Pas de Deux...
242
00:25:26,925 --> 00:25:29,519
because what happens there is that
although you see only one dancer...
243
00:25:29,628 --> 00:25:33,189
the camera is as partner
to that dancer...
244
00:25:33,298 --> 00:25:37,758
and carries him
or accelerates him...
245
00:25:37,869 --> 00:25:40,429
as a partner would do
to the ballerina...
246
00:25:40,539 --> 00:25:43,406
making possible progressions
and movements...
247
00:25:43,508 --> 00:25:46,773
that are impossible
to the individual figure.
248
00:26:51,509 --> 00:26:56,037
Everything that Maya did
in any ofher other films is there...
249
00:26:56,147 --> 00:26:59,981
the condensation, the intensity...
250
00:27:00,085 --> 00:27:04,317
and perfection as a...
as a film like a poem...
251
00:27:04,422 --> 00:27:06,515
something that goes...
252
00:27:09,361 --> 00:27:12,489
Maya said the prose is
narrative-horizontal...
253
00:27:12,597 --> 00:27:14,895
and poetry, song is vertical.
254
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,834
It reaches detail after detail
after detail.
255
00:27:18,937 --> 00:27:21,269
After two minutes
and a half it reaches the point...
256
00:27:21,373 --> 00:27:25,139
that is that intensity from which
it cannot go any further.
257
00:27:25,243 --> 00:27:29,270
Everything is set, exhausted,
the point made, perfect.
258
00:27:29,381 --> 00:27:32,077
[Film Projector Whirring]
259
00:27:54,439 --> 00:27:57,636
[Man] As a kid,
first I got a slide projector.
260
00:27:57,742 --> 00:28:00,267
Then I got a 9 1/2-millimeter
projector.
261
00:28:00,378 --> 00:28:03,609
Then I attended the screenings
of the cine-club...
262
00:28:03,715 --> 00:28:06,980
at the Urania in Vienna.
263
00:28:07,085 --> 00:28:10,179
So it was pretty clear that...
264
00:28:10,288 --> 00:28:13,485
you know,
I was involved with film.
265
00:28:13,591 --> 00:28:16,082
And then what happened was...
266
00:28:16,194 --> 00:28:19,163
when I had to leave Austria...
267
00:28:19,264 --> 00:28:23,132
because Hitler didn't like...
didn't like me...
268
00:28:23,234 --> 00:28:27,068
I came to the United States,
and again...
269
00:28:27,172 --> 00:28:30,664
really, even though
I had to work...
270
00:28:30,775 --> 00:28:34,905
I kept on thinking
about what I could do about film...
271
00:28:35,013 --> 00:28:39,541
and whether it wouldn't be a nice idea
perhaps to start a cine-club.
272
00:28:39,651 --> 00:28:45,487
But then there was this
really, like, a revelation...
273
00:28:45,590 --> 00:28:48,354
namely, there was an announcement
in the papers...
274
00:28:48,460 --> 00:28:52,328
that a woman who I never
had heard of, Maya Deren...
275
00:28:52,430 --> 00:28:56,730
would present her films
at the Provincetown Playhouse.
276
00:28:56,835 --> 00:28:59,099
They had never shown films
before there.
277
00:28:59,204 --> 00:29:02,696
The whole idea of taking over
regular theater...
278
00:29:02,807 --> 00:29:05,071
was very enticing to me.
279
00:29:05,176 --> 00:29:10,239
And I decided that, yes,
I should do the same.
280
00:29:11,549 --> 00:29:14,382
You know, I felt that I was
in the presence, really...
281
00:29:14,486 --> 00:29:17,319
of a new kind of talent...
282
00:29:17,422 --> 00:29:19,617
somebody who had absorbed...
283
00:29:19,724 --> 00:29:25,185
the 20th-century revelations
and achievements...
284
00:29:25,296 --> 00:29:28,322
in terms of dream theory.
285
00:30:03,835 --> 00:30:06,030
Dreams are essentially silent.
286
00:30:06,137 --> 00:30:10,631
This was a very important element
in the films to me...
287
00:30:10,742 --> 00:30:12,437
the silence.
288
00:30:12,544 --> 00:30:16,742
And here was somebody who was able
to represent this dream reality...
289
00:30:16,848 --> 00:30:19,817
this inner reality, on film.
290
00:30:19,918 --> 00:30:21,818
Wonderful.
291
00:30:46,878 --> 00:30:50,609
[Woman] I felt so close with Sasha,
more than with anybody else.
292
00:30:50,715 --> 00:30:53,980
Though Hella and I...
293
00:30:54,085 --> 00:30:58,613
used to sit to the side
and talk about Sasha...
294
00:30:58,723 --> 00:31:02,284
and say that we were gonna marry him.
295
00:31:02,393 --> 00:31:06,887
So then we finally came to the conclusion
that Hella would marry him first...
296
00:31:06,998 --> 00:31:09,728
and then I would marry him
in the next life.
297
00:31:09,834 --> 00:31:13,361
So that was it.
But my recollection of Sasha...
298
00:31:13,471 --> 00:31:15,803
is-is indescribable.
299
00:31:15,907 --> 00:31:20,742
He was such a sweet and gentle soul.
300
00:31:25,650 --> 00:31:30,678
She was so busy and so involved
in the very essence ofliving...
301
00:31:30,788 --> 00:31:35,851
that many things passed her by,
dangerous and otherwise.
302
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,919
And I think that Sasha had...
303
00:31:40,031 --> 00:31:43,967
a more... a more precise way
oflooking at things.
304
00:31:44,068 --> 00:31:47,560
So I think he was a great balance
for her and a great...
305
00:31:47,672 --> 00:31:50,197
a great source
of-of spiritual, you know...
306
00:31:50,308 --> 00:31:53,072
of the true spiritual quality
that one needs...
307
00:31:53,177 --> 00:31:57,011
particularly in a person
of Maya's temperament.
308
00:33:02,814 --> 00:33:06,215
I came from Trinidad
at five years of age...
309
00:33:06,317 --> 00:33:11,084
and later on I found out that Maya had come
from her country at five years of age...
310
00:33:11,189 --> 00:33:13,714
and on a boat also.
311
00:33:13,825 --> 00:33:18,455
So that was a commonality that
might not have been expressed...
312
00:33:18,563 --> 00:33:20,963
but was felt...
313
00:33:21,065 --> 00:33:24,091
by some psychic mean
between the two of us.
314
00:33:31,509 --> 00:33:35,809
And maybe she saw, you know,
in this mirror of one's self...
315
00:33:35,913 --> 00:33:39,815
that she saw this particular person
when she came into this country.
316
00:33:39,917 --> 00:33:43,944
Because coming here
at that young age...
317
00:33:44,055 --> 00:33:47,149
unless you have experienced it,
you don't know what it is.
318
00:33:47,258 --> 00:33:49,488
Everything is new to you...
319
00:33:49,594 --> 00:33:52,654
and everything is
so frightening to you...
320
00:33:52,764 --> 00:33:57,326
people, the places, the way people talk,
the way they act.
321
00:33:57,435 --> 00:34:02,737
And then you had to speak English
to become an American.
322
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:07,903
And that was the goal:
that you'd become American, you know.
323
00:34:35,339 --> 00:34:39,742
I don't remember any written material...
324
00:34:39,844 --> 00:34:42,472
that she gave to prepare.
325
00:34:42,580 --> 00:34:45,845
She talked, as usual,
and she used words...
326
00:34:45,950 --> 00:34:48,077
to bring forth a certain
choreography.
327
00:34:48,186 --> 00:34:52,213
But then she had a-a very
experienced dancer in Frank...
328
00:34:52,323 --> 00:34:54,655
and then she allowed us
to move freely.
329
00:35:38,536 --> 00:35:43,530
And many people feel
that death is a release...
330
00:35:43,641 --> 00:35:46,007
and you go into something else.
331
00:35:46,110 --> 00:35:48,544
I had no feelings about that.
332
00:35:48,646 --> 00:35:51,444
There was never
any question in my mind.
333
00:35:51,549 --> 00:35:55,849
All I can think about
was the absolute abyss of death.
334
00:35:55,953 --> 00:35:58,478
After death, to me,
there is just nothing.
335
00:35:58,589 --> 00:36:03,959
I think it was the scenes where
she had sort of a running in it.
336
00:36:04,061 --> 00:36:05,961
That's what I felt like doing.
337
00:36:06,063 --> 00:36:09,191
I felt, if I couldjust outrun death...
338
00:36:09,300 --> 00:36:13,430
if I couldjust get away from it,
the whole thought of it.
339
00:36:13,538 --> 00:36:16,803
And I also remember that if you...
340
00:36:16,908 --> 00:36:19,502
wash your face...
341
00:36:19,610 --> 00:36:22,272
you can wash away the memories.
342
00:36:22,380 --> 00:36:24,780
But that is pure myth.
343
00:36:24,882 --> 00:36:28,784
Because I've washed my face
to all end of time...
344
00:36:28,886 --> 00:36:30,854
and death was always there in me.
345
00:37:18,135 --> 00:37:21,730
So that was the easiest part...
346
00:37:21,839 --> 00:37:24,501
of any ritual
or any dance scene...
347
00:37:24,609 --> 00:37:28,602
that Maya might have wanted
for me to totally express...
348
00:37:28,713 --> 00:37:31,773
and that...
that was a ritual in time...
349
00:37:31,882 --> 00:37:33,975
and in death to me.
350
00:37:38,623 --> 00:37:41,751
[Singing In French]
351
00:37:57,074 --> 00:38:00,168
[Guitar]
352
00:38:04,749 --> 00:38:10,016
...I got stones in my head
I got pebbles in my bed.
353
00:38:10,121 --> 00:38:14,649
...I got stones in my head
I got pebbles in my bed.
354
00:38:14,759 --> 00:38:19,287
...In my head they pound
In my bed they rattle.
355
00:38:19,397 --> 00:38:23,891
...In my head they pound
In my bed they rattle.
356
00:38:24,001 --> 00:38:26,526
...Can't you hear'em.
357
00:38:26,637 --> 00:38:29,037
...Hear'em.
358
00:38:29,140 --> 00:38:31,472
...Stones in my bed.
359
00:38:33,511 --> 00:38:37,971
...I got stones in my bed
I got pebbles in my head.
360
00:38:38,082 --> 00:38:42,712
...I got stones in my head
I got pebbles in my bed.
361
00:38:42,820 --> 00:38:47,757
...In my head they rattle
In my head they drown.
362
00:38:47,858 --> 00:38:52,625
...In my bed they rattle
In my head they pound.
363
00:38:52,730 --> 00:38:54,857
...Can't you hear'em.
364
00:38:54,965 --> 00:38:57,297
...Stones.
365
00:38:57,401 --> 00:38:59,426
...Stones.
366
00:39:01,939 --> 00:39:04,134
[Vocalizing]
367
00:39:20,091 --> 00:39:25,154
...Stones and pebbles.
368
00:39:25,262 --> 00:39:27,230
...Pebbles.
369
00:39:27,331 --> 00:39:29,492
...Stones.
370
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,966
[Vocalizing]
371
00:39:46,283 --> 00:39:49,684
...Stones and pebbles...
372
00:39:51,589 --> 00:39:55,923
In 1946, when Maya applied
for a Guggenheim grant...
373
00:39:56,026 --> 00:39:59,792
this was the first time
anybody in film had applied for it.
374
00:39:59,897 --> 00:40:02,331
Joseph Campbell...
375
00:40:02,433 --> 00:40:06,733
Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson,
all the people she knew...
376
00:40:06,837 --> 00:40:11,297
who were important in their worlds
wrote letters for her in support of her.
377
00:40:11,409 --> 00:40:16,108
And there was a marvelous, marvelous party
in celebration of the Guggenheim.
378
00:40:16,213 --> 00:40:20,149
And she then used the money
to go to Haiti.
379
00:40:20,251 --> 00:40:23,618
Uh, Mead and Bateson had shot...
380
00:40:23,721 --> 00:40:27,919
very, very special footage in Bali
having to do with trance...
381
00:40:28,025 --> 00:40:32,792
and this interested Maya enormously,
and of course Haiti is quite famous for this...
382
00:40:32,897 --> 00:40:35,695
and that is why she went to Haiti.
383
00:40:37,067 --> 00:40:41,026
Maya used the device
that was being used...
384
00:40:41,138 --> 00:40:44,630
at the time that she was filming...
a wire recorder.
385
00:40:44,742 --> 00:40:48,178
Aportable piece of equipment.
Quite heavy. Very delicate.
386
00:40:48,279 --> 00:40:51,840
But she could afford it,
so when it came time...
387
00:40:51,949 --> 00:40:54,440
to go to prepare equipment
to go to Haiti...
388
00:40:54,552 --> 00:40:56,952
she was very, very happy
to take this along.
389
00:40:57,054 --> 00:41:00,148
She recorded a great deal
of Haitian music.
390
00:41:00,257 --> 00:41:03,385
She also used it at home.
And at her parties, by the way...
391
00:41:03,494 --> 00:41:07,328
this was often what she would play...
the Haitian music on her wire recorder.
392
00:41:07,431 --> 00:41:11,197
[Man Singing In Foreign Language]
393
00:41:12,736 --> 00:41:14,829
[Drums Beating]
394
00:41:33,023 --> 00:41:35,890
Well, I'll tell you,
my first reaction...
395
00:41:35,993 --> 00:41:39,326
was annoyance, you know...
396
00:41:39,430 --> 00:41:42,593
because she had had
the advantage...
397
00:41:42,700 --> 00:41:45,328
of all my correspondence.
398
00:41:45,436 --> 00:41:49,532
Also, she didn't relate to me
as she should have.
399
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:51,631
I got over that, because...
400
00:41:51,742 --> 00:41:54,302
I saw that she was a serious person...
401
00:41:54,411 --> 00:41:57,346
and was received by Haitians.
402
00:41:57,448 --> 00:42:00,508
In 1 936,
when I went to the West Indies...
403
00:42:00,618 --> 00:42:04,076
it was partly as an anthropologist
and partly as a dancer.
404
00:42:04,188 --> 00:42:08,750
And for a while I had a very rough time
holding those two things together.
405
00:42:08,859 --> 00:42:13,922
My interest in Haiti was not only dance,
but it was the Vodoun.
406
00:42:22,673 --> 00:42:24,868
But then I knew what I had to do.
407
00:42:24,975 --> 00:42:27,876
I wanted to see
what the foot movements were...
408
00:42:27,978 --> 00:42:31,778
and the hip movements and the various things
that would make up what they brought...
409
00:42:31,882 --> 00:42:35,818
what their ancestors had brought
from Africa to the Caribbean.
410
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,286
And this comes across quite well.
411
00:42:38,389 --> 00:42:40,414
And then, of course,
as I got into it...
412
00:42:40,524 --> 00:42:43,857
I had to see what god
behaved in what way...
413
00:42:43,961 --> 00:42:46,555
and what god
danced in a certain way...
414
00:42:46,664 --> 00:42:49,224
when the devotee became possessed.
415
00:42:49,333 --> 00:42:51,426
[Chicken Clucking]
416
00:42:53,804 --> 00:42:56,830
[Man] Voodoo is an African word
meaning "spirit. '"
417
00:42:56,941 --> 00:42:59,808
It is a general name for all deities.
418
00:42:59,910 --> 00:43:02,242
It came down to Haiti
with slavery.
419
00:43:02,346 --> 00:43:04,644
It's more than a religion.
420
00:43:04,748 --> 00:43:08,684
That is to say,
it's a set of beliefs and practices...
421
00:43:08,786 --> 00:43:12,187
which deal with the spiritual forces
of the universe...
422
00:43:12,289 --> 00:43:14,416
and attempt to keep the individual...
423
00:43:14,525 --> 00:43:17,892
in harmonious relation with them
as they affect his life.
424
00:43:30,274 --> 00:43:33,971
Haiti is very well known
for the Voodoo island...
425
00:43:34,078 --> 00:43:37,206
but it's all the Caribbean Islands.
426
00:43:37,314 --> 00:43:42,581
All practice it, but it's much purer
there than in Africa, probably.
427
00:43:42,686 --> 00:43:45,348
But it was very useful
for the independence of Haiti...
428
00:43:45,456 --> 00:43:48,323
when the slaves were plotting
against their masters.
429
00:43:48,425 --> 00:43:51,019
There was a big ceremony
that was done...
430
00:43:51,128 --> 00:43:53,653
especially to gather
all of them together...
431
00:43:53,764 --> 00:43:57,222
to make the decision
that they were gonna start fighting...
432
00:43:57,334 --> 00:43:59,700
until they won their freedom.
433
00:43:59,803 --> 00:44:02,237
So it had a very strong...
434
00:44:02,339 --> 00:44:05,331
part to play in the revolution
of the slaves...
435
00:44:05,442 --> 00:44:08,900
until they became
independent in 1 804.
436
00:44:21,592 --> 00:44:24,117
[People Clamoring]
437
00:44:54,224 --> 00:44:56,385
The book that she had written,
Divine Horsemen...
438
00:44:56,493 --> 00:44:59,690
is really one of the best
that I have seen.
439
00:44:59,797 --> 00:45:03,426
For some reason,
I myselfbeing Haitian...
440
00:45:03,534 --> 00:45:07,937
when I read the book I wonder, because
how did she accumulate this knowledge?
441
00:45:08,038 --> 00:45:11,496
I mean, how did the people
who she was connected with...
442
00:45:11,608 --> 00:45:15,669
how could they open up
so easily to a foreigner...
443
00:45:15,779 --> 00:45:17,679
somebody that they didn't know...
444
00:45:17,781 --> 00:45:21,740
and somebody who was
supposed to be a-a...
445
00:45:21,852 --> 00:45:24,719
you know, who comes,
as you were saying before...
446
00:45:24,822 --> 00:45:28,952
a white person coming to learn
about the culture of the black people?
447
00:45:29,059 --> 00:45:32,051
So it was very strange
when you read this book...
448
00:45:32,162 --> 00:45:34,630
to see how much
they reveal to her.
449
00:45:34,732 --> 00:45:37,826
[Man Singing In Foreign Language]
450
00:45:49,847 --> 00:45:53,146
[Deren] I agree that there are
the forces in the universe...
451
00:45:53,250 --> 00:45:55,343
of which Vodoun speaks...
452
00:45:55,452 --> 00:45:58,216
but there are other religions
which speak of those forces also.
453
00:45:58,322 --> 00:46:02,383
I do find that the manner in which
it operates in practice, ritually...
454
00:46:02,493 --> 00:46:06,953
the interior miracle,
if you will, is very valid.
455
00:46:07,064 --> 00:46:10,124
You see, the Haitians never ask
whether you believe in Vodoun.
456
00:46:10,234 --> 00:46:13,362
They say, do you do it,
do you serve?
457
00:46:16,673 --> 00:46:20,439
[Man] Maya, do you feel that
people in the audience...
458
00:46:20,544 --> 00:46:22,444
Iooking in tonight...
459
00:46:22,546 --> 00:46:25,811
are pretty skeptical, looking askance
at this talk about Voodoo now?
460
00:46:25,916 --> 00:46:28,749
[Deren] Well, I don't think they would be
if theyjust related a little bit...
461
00:46:28,852 --> 00:46:30,979
to things they have
from time to time felt.
462
00:46:31,088 --> 00:46:34,717
For example,
those moments when...
463
00:46:34,825 --> 00:46:37,658
when they forgot themselves
and when everything was clear...
464
00:46:37,761 --> 00:46:40,195
by a certain logic
that was larger than themselves.
465
00:46:40,297 --> 00:46:44,131
Those moments... imagine those
multiplied a thousand times...
466
00:46:44,234 --> 00:46:48,933
so that one's self is really transcended
and everything is clear in another way...
467
00:46:49,039 --> 00:46:51,200
I think one would begin to...
to know what I mean.
468
00:46:51,308 --> 00:46:54,072
I think artistic inspiration
is in that direction.
469
00:46:54,178 --> 00:46:56,612
I think love is in that direction.
470
00:46:56,713 --> 00:47:00,171
The logics oflove are different
than the logics of non-love.
471
00:47:00,284 --> 00:47:03,378
[Singing, Drumming Continues]
472
00:47:26,176 --> 00:47:28,736
[Deren]
It's rather like being overcome...
473
00:47:28,846 --> 00:47:33,283
by a transcendent
and larger force...
474
00:47:33,383 --> 00:47:36,375
and you don't
take to it easily.
475
00:48:52,829 --> 00:48:55,627
[Man] The most personal film
I feel Maya ever made...
476
00:48:55,732 --> 00:48:58,530
and people think it's
a very strange attitude to have...
477
00:48:58,635 --> 00:49:00,796
is her Meditation on Violence.
478
00:49:00,904 --> 00:49:03,134
She doesn't appear in the film...
479
00:49:03,240 --> 00:49:05,231
but-but she is the camera.
480
00:49:05,342 --> 00:49:09,403
She is moving, she is breathing
in relationship to this dancer.
481
00:49:09,513 --> 00:49:12,812
She is composing so that
the one shadow...
482
00:49:12,916 --> 00:49:15,612
or the three shadows
or at times the no shadow...
483
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:18,813
of this dancer against the background
are an integral part of the dance.
484
00:49:18,922 --> 00:49:22,085
Every kind of quality of texture...
485
00:49:22,192 --> 00:49:25,127
is a really felt part of the frame.
486
00:49:25,228 --> 00:49:28,561
And so, I feel,
this is very personal.
487
00:49:28,665 --> 00:49:31,600
[Flute]
488
00:49:55,125 --> 00:49:57,457
[Deren]
Metamorphosis in the large sense...
489
00:49:57,561 --> 00:50:00,223
meant that there
was no beginning and no end.
490
00:50:00,330 --> 00:50:05,393
And indeed I found out from the Chinese boy
who performed the movements here...
491
00:50:05,502 --> 00:50:08,164
that this school ofboxing,
Wu Tang...
492
00:50:08,271 --> 00:50:11,001
is based on The Book of Change...
493
00:50:11,108 --> 00:50:14,339
and that its theory is that...
494
00:50:14,444 --> 00:50:18,938
life is an ongoing process,
constantly...
495
00:50:19,049 --> 00:50:22,416
and that it is based on
a negative-positive...
496
00:50:22,519 --> 00:50:27,252
with constantly a resolution into
another negative and positive and so on.
497
00:50:27,357 --> 00:50:30,758
And so my first problem became
to construct a form...
498
00:50:30,861 --> 00:50:33,329
as a whole,
which would suggest infinity.
499
00:50:33,430 --> 00:50:37,025
Now, the Wu Tang based on
the negative-positive principle...
500
00:50:37,134 --> 00:50:40,001
translates that in physical terms
into the breathing.
501
00:50:40,103 --> 00:50:42,401
And that's why it's called
an interior boxing...
502
00:50:42,506 --> 00:50:46,442
because the movements are
governed by an interior condition.
503
00:50:46,543 --> 00:50:51,606
And so I determined to treat
the movements as a meditation...
504
00:50:51,715 --> 00:50:56,414
that one circles around an idea
in time terms.
505
00:51:18,075 --> 00:51:21,977
This was the Greenwich Village
of the '40s...
506
00:51:22,079 --> 00:51:27,415
and it was the center
of many artistic activity.
507
00:51:27,517 --> 00:51:30,816
I was just a young man,
fresh out of college.
508
00:51:30,921 --> 00:51:35,620
I was entering the dance field
as an untrained dancer.
509
00:51:35,725 --> 00:51:41,288
However, my background was in
what is now known as martial arts.
510
00:51:41,398 --> 00:51:43,298
I had studied that at home.
511
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:47,234
And so I was moving around
the party circuits...
512
00:51:47,337 --> 00:51:49,567
among the dancers
and the writers.
513
00:51:49,673 --> 00:51:51,800
And my favorite dancer...
514
00:51:51,908 --> 00:51:56,538
a lady by name of Teiko,
introduced me to Maya.
515
00:51:56,646 --> 00:52:00,582
Maya was already working
with body movement.
516
00:52:00,684 --> 00:52:04,916
We met,
and Maya is a very intelligent...
517
00:52:05,021 --> 00:52:07,717
or intellectual person...
518
00:52:07,824 --> 00:52:11,692
but she is also a woman
full of passion...
519
00:52:11,795 --> 00:52:16,994
and she was a woman
with a lot of internal tension.
520
00:52:17,100 --> 00:52:19,728
And we started
with many arguments...
521
00:52:19,836 --> 00:52:21,997
because she hadjust
come back from Haiti...
522
00:52:22,105 --> 00:52:26,667
and she was all involved
with Haitian Voodoo...
523
00:52:26,776 --> 00:52:29,802
and the trance
and the shaman culture.
524
00:52:29,913 --> 00:52:33,314
And I was saying that
in the Chinese context...
525
00:52:33,416 --> 00:52:36,647
it was quite the opposite.
526
00:52:36,753 --> 00:52:40,484
It was the wise man is the one
who controls nature...
527
00:52:40,590 --> 00:52:43,525
rather than allowing nature
to possess.
528
00:52:47,631 --> 00:52:50,498
We were all very poor...
529
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:54,400
so, of course,
we had no special space.
530
00:52:54,504 --> 00:52:59,532
We worked in Maya's small apartment.
531
00:52:59,643 --> 00:53:02,612
We pushed all the furniture
to the kitchen...
532
00:53:02,712 --> 00:53:05,647
and we tried to hang paper...
533
00:53:05,749 --> 00:53:10,311
photographers' paper backgrounds
along the wall...
534
00:53:10,420 --> 00:53:13,287
to give it a clear space.
535
00:53:13,390 --> 00:53:19,329
See, when we want to break out
into aggressiveness...
536
00:53:19,429 --> 00:53:23,331
and into an outburst of power...
537
00:53:23,433 --> 00:53:27,563
a contained space
is no longer appropriate.
538
00:53:27,671 --> 00:53:30,333
So with onejump,
we are high up...
539
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:33,204
and we had the open sky.
540
00:53:33,310 --> 00:53:36,905
And then,
the power can break out...
541
00:53:37,013 --> 00:53:40,505
and directly confront the camera.
542
00:53:40,617 --> 00:53:44,053
She conceived this entire project...
543
00:53:44,154 --> 00:53:48,750
as an emergence
from softness into harshness.
544
00:53:48,858 --> 00:53:53,852
I would simply do exactly
the sequence that I had learned...
545
00:53:53,964 --> 00:53:57,798
and Maya would film it, cut it.
546
00:53:57,901 --> 00:54:02,463
She reedited it,
doubled it, reversed it...
547
00:54:02,572 --> 00:54:07,009
so that it became
a continuous interplay...
548
00:54:07,110 --> 00:54:11,513
between her and the raw movement.
549
00:54:37,974 --> 00:54:40,738
[Deren]
What I wanted to do here was...
550
00:54:40,844 --> 00:54:43,904
have the climax point of paralysis.
551
00:54:44,014 --> 00:54:46,380
And so that is what happens here.
552
00:54:46,483 --> 00:54:50,214
The movement gets
more and more and more violent...
553
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:52,982
and the extreme of violence
tips over...
554
00:54:53,089 --> 00:54:58,356
and goes into its opposite and becomes
a point of paralysis with silence...
555
00:54:58,461 --> 00:55:00,122
right here...
556
00:55:00,230 --> 00:55:03,825
from which the film returned
and is photographed in reverse...
557
00:55:03,933 --> 00:55:06,231
all the way back.
558
00:55:06,336 --> 00:55:09,567
Now, the extraordinary thing about
this type of movement is that...
559
00:55:09,673 --> 00:55:11,607
it's as much in balance
when you see it backwards...
560
00:55:11,708 --> 00:55:14,302
as when you see it forwards.
561
00:55:15,378 --> 00:55:18,836
It took the Chinese to invent
this fight in the fifth century.
562
00:55:34,297 --> 00:55:37,198
[Chao-Li Chi]
The term Tai-Chi literally means...
563
00:55:37,300 --> 00:55:39,461
"the ultimate form."
564
00:55:39,569 --> 00:55:42,504
And what can be an ultimate form?
565
00:55:42,605 --> 00:55:45,506
It's not the most perfect
or most beautiful.
566
00:55:45,608 --> 00:55:48,042
That would be a Western concept.
567
00:55:48,144 --> 00:55:52,547
In China, the ultimate form
is that which has no form.
568
00:55:52,649 --> 00:55:55,550
This is not supposed to be
a paradox...
569
00:55:55,652 --> 00:55:59,850
because what has no form
is when a shape is in motion...
570
00:55:59,956 --> 00:56:02,083
is in constant change.
571
00:56:02,192 --> 00:56:08,131
So that which is in constant motion
contains all possible forms.
572
00:56:14,738 --> 00:56:16,968
[Deren]
Art actually is based on the notion that...
573
00:56:17,073 --> 00:56:20,600
if you would really celebrate
an idea or a principle...
574
00:56:20,710 --> 00:56:22,644
you must think, you must plan...
575
00:56:22,746 --> 00:56:26,375
you must put yourself completely
in the state of devotion...
576
00:56:26,483 --> 00:56:31,045
and not simply give the first thing
that comes to your head.
577
00:56:33,323 --> 00:56:36,383
[Mekas]
I did not want to insult her or provoke her...
578
00:56:36,493 --> 00:56:41,658
by taking, you know,
my Bolex to Maya's parties and filming.
579
00:56:41,765 --> 00:56:45,701
She would have gone into
one ofher rages.
580
00:56:45,802 --> 00:56:48,999
"What-What is this?"you know.
"Where is your script? This is not serious."
581
00:56:49,105 --> 00:56:53,804
Maya was for a very careful,
"be prepared"kind of filming.
582
00:56:53,910 --> 00:56:59,678
She was not for improvisation
or collecting just random footage.
583
00:57:02,919 --> 00:57:08,289
Even if she disapproved of
what was happening already in cinema...
584
00:57:08,391 --> 00:57:12,589
still she was by her activities
as a pioneer...
585
00:57:12,695 --> 00:57:16,426
that invaded and attacked
universities and art institutions...
586
00:57:16,533 --> 00:57:19,195
that you have to show
avant-garde film.
587
00:57:19,302 --> 00:57:24,365
She was a pioneer,
and she broke the first ice.
588
00:57:27,277 --> 00:57:29,837
[Arsham]
Every single thing she said...
589
00:57:29,946 --> 00:57:34,542
was prearranged in her notes,
in her mind.
590
00:57:34,651 --> 00:57:37,950
She used to write things
on little three-by-five index cards...
591
00:57:38,054 --> 00:57:40,921
and carry them with her everywhere.
592
00:57:41,024 --> 00:57:43,925
I mean, she would kill me
if she heard me say this...
593
00:57:44,027 --> 00:57:47,224
but it always made me think
of students of the Talmud...
594
00:57:47,330 --> 00:57:49,195
where you take one sentence
out of the Bible...
595
00:57:49,299 --> 00:57:51,426
and you can write 50 books...
596
00:57:51,534 --> 00:57:54,298
based on that one sentence.
597
00:57:54,404 --> 00:57:57,737
That's exactly what Maya did.
598
00:57:57,841 --> 00:58:01,436
Every word,
every possible meaning.
599
00:58:01,544 --> 00:58:04,479
In other words,
she didn't expand what she knew...
600
00:58:04,581 --> 00:58:07,607
but she went down into it.
601
00:58:10,587 --> 00:58:14,489
[Deren] What is important in a motion
picture camera, of course, is its motor.
602
00:58:14,591 --> 00:58:20,029
Just remember that motion picture
is a time form.
603
00:58:20,129 --> 00:58:23,792
Just as the telescope reveals
the structure of matter...
604
00:58:23,900 --> 00:58:28,303
in a way that the unaided eye
can never see it...
605
00:58:28,404 --> 00:58:33,307
so slow motion reveals
the structure of motion.
606
00:58:33,409 --> 00:58:39,006
Events that occur rapidly
so that they seem a continuous flux...
607
00:58:39,115 --> 00:58:43,381
are revealed in slow motion to be
full of pulsations and agonies...
608
00:58:43,486 --> 00:58:47,013
and indecisions and repetitions.
609
00:59:08,978 --> 00:59:13,278
For all her extreme individualism
and many stories about her...
610
00:59:13,383 --> 00:59:15,283
her temperament...
611
00:59:15,385 --> 00:59:19,515
and her need to have things her way...
612
00:59:19,622 --> 00:59:22,250
nevertheless, Maya was an artist...
613
00:59:22,358 --> 00:59:26,055
of great collaborative instincts.
614
00:59:26,162 --> 00:59:28,995
She worked...
in the films that she made...
615
00:59:29,098 --> 00:59:33,296
you would read a whole list
of musicians, dancers...
616
00:59:33,403 --> 00:59:36,372
choreographers, painters...
617
00:59:36,472 --> 00:59:39,498
who were part of her collaboration...
618
00:59:39,609 --> 00:59:43,340
and who inspired her
and whom she inspired.
619
00:59:43,446 --> 00:59:45,914
And The Living Theatre
was part of that...
620
00:59:46,015 --> 00:59:49,382
these interweaving circles
of that time.
621
00:59:49,485 --> 00:59:51,885
And it was a place of encounter...
622
00:59:51,988 --> 00:59:55,856
a place where different spirits...
623
00:59:55,959 --> 00:59:58,427
could set each other on fire.
624
00:59:58,528 --> 01:00:02,464
And Maya was always on fire.
She was a burning person.
625
01:00:02,565 --> 01:00:06,626
She had some intensity that, you know,
that never stopped sizzling.
626
01:00:06,736 --> 01:00:11,002
- She loved at any social gathering to dance...
[Drums]
627
01:00:11,107 --> 01:00:15,305
to exhibit the exuberance ofher body.
628
01:00:15,411 --> 01:00:20,280
When she danced at a party,
everybody felt it as a special kind...
629
01:00:20,383 --> 01:00:22,715
of religious and sexual act at once...
630
01:00:22,819 --> 01:00:27,916
because Voodoo allows for that
kind of tremendous physical commitment.
631
01:00:28,024 --> 01:00:31,050
She's very close
to what Artaud is asking of us...
632
01:00:31,160 --> 01:00:35,460
that we commit our bodies
to the experience in the theater.
633
01:01:47,036 --> 01:01:49,596
[Children Singing In Foreign Language]
634
01:02:37,587 --> 01:02:40,078
[Woman Singing In Foreign Language]
635
01:03:03,579 --> 01:03:06,377
[Singing Continues]
636
01:03:48,958 --> 01:03:50,858
[Deren]
Their Goddess of Love...
637
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:55,988
is a very fascinating
and complex idea.
638
01:03:56,098 --> 01:04:00,364
She is, in fact,
the goddess of all the luxuries...
639
01:04:00,469 --> 01:04:03,404
which are not essential to survival.
640
01:04:03,506 --> 01:04:07,306
She is the Goddess of Love
which, unlike sex...
641
01:04:07,410 --> 01:04:10,402
is not essential to propagation.
642
01:04:10,513 --> 01:04:14,244
She is the muse of the arts.
643
01:04:14,350 --> 01:04:18,047
Now, man can live without it, but he
doesn't live very much as man without it.
644
01:04:18,154 --> 01:04:22,989
It is strange that one would have to go to
an apparently primitive culture such as Haiti...
645
01:04:23,092 --> 01:04:25,390
to find an understanding...
646
01:04:25,494 --> 01:04:28,691
in such exalted terms...
647
01:04:28,798 --> 01:04:31,198
of what the essential feminine...
not female...
648
01:04:31,300 --> 01:04:34,133
feminine role might conceivably be...
649
01:04:34,237 --> 01:04:37,172
that ofbeing everything
which is human...
650
01:04:37,273 --> 01:04:42,108
everything which is more
than that which is necessary.
651
01:04:42,211 --> 01:04:44,202
Taken from this point of view...
652
01:04:44,313 --> 01:04:50,183
there is no reason in the world why women
shouldn't be artists, and very fine ones.
653
01:04:50,286 --> 01:04:52,618
I am a little distressed that...
654
01:04:52,722 --> 01:04:58,217
so few women
have entered the area of film.
655
01:05:19,982 --> 01:05:23,008
[Percussion]
656
01:07:17,233 --> 01:07:20,066
[Singing In Foreign Language]
657
01:07:56,238 --> 01:07:58,536
[Drums, Chanting]
658
01:08:35,544 --> 01:08:38,069
[Horn Blowing]
659
01:09:38,107 --> 01:09:41,508
[Deren]
Possession is the becoming of an identity.
660
01:09:41,610 --> 01:09:45,011
It is not the freeing of one's identity.
661
01:09:45,114 --> 01:09:49,813
It is not people carrying on
in a kind of wild state...
662
01:09:49,919 --> 01:09:52,217
but it is the presence of the gods...
663
01:09:52,321 --> 01:09:54,915
and, as it were,
the materialization...
664
01:09:55,024 --> 01:09:59,552
of divine essences, divine energies
and divine ideas.
665
01:09:59,662 --> 01:10:01,755
[Drums, Chanting]
666
01:11:31,053 --> 01:11:34,022
[Fades]
667
01:12:06,623 --> 01:12:10,457
We'd have these little sort oflike
side conversations, saying...
668
01:12:10,560 --> 01:12:13,028
"That Maya, how is she able...
669
01:12:13,129 --> 01:12:16,724
to get such a young guy
as her lover?"
670
01:12:18,034 --> 01:12:23,700
It was very shocking that there were
1 8 years between them.
671
01:12:43,393 --> 01:12:46,954
If there was a party
or a meeting or anyhing...
672
01:12:47,063 --> 01:12:49,497
a room of people...
and if Maya was in it...
673
01:12:49,599 --> 01:12:51,931
she was the center of attention.
674
01:12:52,035 --> 01:12:55,562
She was quite short,
and you wouldn't quite realize this...
675
01:12:55,672 --> 01:12:58,607
if she was speaking from a podium
or dancing...
676
01:12:58,708 --> 01:13:01,006
because she seemed larger
than she was.
677
01:13:04,247 --> 01:13:08,274
...They got statistics
on about every question.
678
01:13:08,384 --> 01:13:12,081
...Including topics
only Kinsey would mention.
679
01:13:12,188 --> 01:13:16,284
...I can dial to find out
whether I can call to find out time.
680
01:13:16,392 --> 01:13:19,725
...But who's gonna tell me
if you're mine.
681
01:13:19,829 --> 01:13:22,354
...Oh, baby.
682
01:13:22,465 --> 01:13:27,232
...You're a mystery to me.
683
01:13:27,337 --> 01:13:30,534
...They've charted the heart
of the atom...
684
01:13:30,640 --> 01:13:33,507
[Ferguson]
After Teiji came to live with Maya...
685
01:13:33,610 --> 01:13:36,340
she took him to Haiti.
686
01:13:36,446 --> 01:13:39,210
And he heard the drumming and
the various rhyhms and learned them.
687
01:13:39,315 --> 01:13:41,408
Then when they came back
to New York...
688
01:13:41,517 --> 01:13:45,112
they had the idea that they would get
some ofhis friends who were drummers...
689
01:13:45,221 --> 01:13:47,917
and set up a program.
690
01:13:48,024 --> 01:13:52,017
And they took it around
to various community centers...
691
01:13:52,128 --> 01:13:55,620
and would do a demonstration
of Haitian drumming.
692
01:13:55,732 --> 01:13:58,997
One evening when they were practicing
or rehearsing for that...
693
01:13:59,102 --> 01:14:01,036
I got a few rolls of film and some tape...
694
01:14:01,137 --> 01:14:03,435
and did a few shots.
695
01:14:03,539 --> 01:14:06,736
And there was endless coffee
being served.
696
01:14:06,843 --> 01:14:09,471
Maya always was drinking
Medaglia D'Oro coffee.
697
01:14:09,579 --> 01:14:13,447
...You're a mystery to me.
698
01:14:13,549 --> 01:14:17,542
...They can't predict how many babies
will be born and when.
699
01:14:17,654 --> 01:14:20,521
...They can't foretell the path
of the hurricane.
700
01:14:20,623 --> 01:14:24,855
...I've consulted psychiatrists
gypsies, the stars.
701
01:14:24,961 --> 01:14:30,695
...But no one can tell me
what, when or where about you.
702
01:14:30,800 --> 01:14:34,361
...You're a mystery to me.
703
01:14:34,470 --> 01:14:37,928
...Inscrutable you.
704
01:14:38,041 --> 01:14:42,444
...You're a mystery to me...
705
01:14:48,318 --> 01:14:53,051
[Brakhage] So I had the great honor to live
with them as their friend, with her and Teiji.
706
01:14:53,156 --> 01:14:57,354
They took me in like a bird
with a broken wing...
707
01:14:57,460 --> 01:15:01,191
which was not far from what I was,
and sheltered me for several months.
708
01:15:03,599 --> 01:15:06,568
So if this film comes out okay...
709
01:15:06,669 --> 01:15:11,265
as I hope it will,
I will call it Water for Maya.
710
01:15:11,374 --> 01:15:14,866
This is music for the eyes for Maya...
711
01:15:14,977 --> 01:15:16,877
but it's ritual also.
712
01:15:16,979 --> 01:15:20,176
I will have to take it through
to where it is...
713
01:15:20,283 --> 01:15:23,081
that deep sense of water
that's transformative...
714
01:15:23,186 --> 01:15:27,145
that's mysterious,
that's even down to the river Styx.
715
01:15:27,256 --> 01:15:29,622
[Drums, Chanting]
716
01:15:33,863 --> 01:15:37,822
LarryJordon and I were invited to go
to Geoffrey Holder's wedding...
717
01:15:37,934 --> 01:15:42,667
when he was in the
Flower Drum Song byJohn Latouche...
718
01:15:42,772 --> 01:15:44,672
a big Broadway hit of the time.
719
01:15:44,774 --> 01:15:46,935
And they had a big wedding
out on Long Island...
720
01:15:47,043 --> 01:15:50,843
and the P.R. people wanted to make
a lot of advertisement out of it.
721
01:15:50,947 --> 01:15:54,178
And Holder had invited her
as a priestess...
722
01:15:54,283 --> 01:15:56,877
to come and make it
a Haitian wedding.
723
01:15:56,986 --> 01:16:00,387
By the time we arrived,
they had shambled her aside...
724
01:16:00,490 --> 01:16:03,220
and given her a small room
and were not allowing her...
725
01:16:03,326 --> 01:16:08,559
to put up the Vodoun ritual things,
and she went into a rage.
726
01:16:08,664 --> 01:16:11,224
This is what would be called a holy rage...
727
01:16:11,334 --> 01:16:15,668
and it did have the effect of something
that a lot of people don't believe I saw...
728
01:16:15,772 --> 01:16:17,672
but I saw it with my own eyes.
729
01:16:17,774 --> 01:16:20,607
She went into the kitchen...
730
01:16:20,710 --> 01:16:22,610
and she took a refrigerator...
731
01:16:22,712 --> 01:16:26,546
and she hurled it from one corner
of that kitchen to the other.
732
01:16:26,649 --> 01:16:30,608
Now, you know, I've tried to say,
well, how could such a small woman...
733
01:16:30,720 --> 01:16:33,280
Maya of all people,
lift up a refrigerator?
734
01:16:33,389 --> 01:16:36,950
Well, these are people that forget
mothers have lifted up automobiles...
735
01:16:37,059 --> 01:16:39,619
to get them off of their children.
736
01:16:39,729 --> 01:16:44,826
Maya was in a trance of Papa Loco,
the god of ritual...
737
01:16:44,934 --> 01:16:48,927
which was being blasphemed against
at this wedding.
738
01:16:49,038 --> 01:16:50,938
And she had the strength of 1 0.
739
01:16:51,040 --> 01:16:53,770
I mean, maybe she pivoted it on one side,
I don't know how.
740
01:16:53,876 --> 01:16:55,707
But what I saw is I saw...
[Growls]
741
01:16:55,812 --> 01:17:01,079
She's making such growl noises
that were shaking everybody's teeth.
742
01:17:01,184 --> 01:17:04,813
She slammed this refrigerator
up against the other wall...
743
01:17:04,921 --> 01:17:06,821
and broke a lot of dishes.
744
01:17:06,923 --> 01:17:08,857
Everyone went running,
screaming from this kitchen.
745
01:17:08,958 --> 01:17:13,452
Then she was led upstairs as
she went on with these growl noises.
746
01:17:13,563 --> 01:17:16,293
I was then invited up to this room...
747
01:17:16,399 --> 01:17:20,495
and I was quite terrified...
to receive a blessing...
748
01:17:20,603 --> 01:17:23,902
for the pictures that I was taking.
749
01:17:24,006 --> 01:17:28,375
Burning rum was put all over me,
and I didn't know what was happening even.
750
01:17:28,478 --> 01:17:32,972
I thought, this is my only suit, and I was trying
to brush out these blue flames, you know.
751
01:17:33,082 --> 01:17:36,848
Meanwhile, a lot of languages
going on here.
752
01:17:36,953 --> 01:17:39,820
And then I was told later,
"You got a blessing from Papa Loco"...
753
01:17:39,922 --> 01:17:42,049
and I do well believe it.
754
01:17:42,158 --> 01:17:44,183
And one reason I believe it,
however, is because...
755
01:17:44,293 --> 01:17:47,228
once I arrived two hours late
to help Maya Deren...
756
01:17:47,330 --> 01:17:51,562
fold and mail envelopes
for an event that she cared about.
757
01:17:51,667 --> 01:17:56,297
She put a curse on me,
and I did get sick.
758
01:17:56,405 --> 01:18:01,172
And I had reason from another man
that had gone to Haiti that I knew...
759
01:18:01,277 --> 01:18:04,610
Angelo De Benedetto told me,
"The only reason you didn't die...
760
01:18:04,714 --> 01:18:08,946
is because you have
a very powerful blessing of Papa Loco."
761
01:18:09,051 --> 01:18:11,110
So that's the two sides of Maya...
762
01:18:11,220 --> 01:18:15,452
and I benefited from
and suffered from both of them.
763
01:18:15,558 --> 01:18:18,425
And people that, you know,
wanna either make her...
764
01:18:18,528 --> 01:18:20,587
one thing or another thing
or any definitive thing...
765
01:18:20,696 --> 01:18:25,224
are not comprehending one,
the beautiful complexity of this woman...
766
01:18:25,334 --> 01:18:28,235
and two, they are not understanding
artists at all.
767
01:18:28,337 --> 01:18:30,430
She had to be
all these many things...
768
01:18:30,540 --> 01:18:33,134
to be the creative person
that she was...
769
01:18:33,242 --> 01:18:36,678
to do things in cinema that
had never been done before.
770
01:18:36,779 --> 01:18:39,339
In fact, you could say
leaving the word "cinema" out of it...
771
01:18:39,448 --> 01:18:43,475
to effect rituals and moving visual...
772
01:18:43,586 --> 01:18:47,647
moving vision that had
never been done before.
773
01:18:47,757 --> 01:18:52,524
And-And it took
all these powers, you know.
774
01:18:52,628 --> 01:18:56,530
And alas, at some point finally,
you know...
775
01:18:56,632 --> 01:18:59,692
when an artist has powers like this,
he or she...
776
01:18:59,802 --> 01:19:04,296
If t65538
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