The Silent Dream of Maya Deren

Transcript

Welcome to Dream Auguries. Tonight, for our seventh episode, we're going to explore another example of the connection between cinema and dreams.

Maya Deren is another filmmaker who has beautifully captured the jump cuts and dislocations of Dream Logic. As Wikipedia reports, for the Ukrainian-born Eleonora Derenkowska, the function of film “was to create an experience” and her short, 15-minute film At Land is an exquisite, SILENT experience in black and white.

Unfortunately, the label “experimental filmmaker” (which Wikipedia repeats) has, I think, limited the reach of her work. Shot just a year before the end of World War II, At Land was written, directed, produced, edited and features Deren herself with camerawork by Hella Hamon and Alexander Hamid. The film also features a silent appearance by the composer John Cage.

Tonight, we're going to try something a little different. We have a link to the silent version in the notes for this podcast, so you can watch the film.

Or, if you prefer, you can listen to this narration of images as they unfold onscreen and perhaps see the movie in your mind's eye, to listen and follow it as if it was a dream. This narration also gives you a sense of how Deren juxtaposed images and created disorienting transitions -- from, say, a beach to a long table at a dinner party. Let us know what you think of this kind of narration....

The film opens with waves crashing onto the shore. As one wave rolls back, Deren is revealed lying on the beach – but immediately something shifts. The waves roll back but IN REVERSE as if they are being drawn away from her now that she’s been left on the shore.

As we cut back from the surf to a close-up, we see her eyes are fully open – looking at us. Or is she looking at the waves, which now retreat backwards more and more forcefully. Her gaze then moves to birds flying overhead as if she’s seeing them for the first time. Or is she conjuring them?

She reaches up and grabs the sea-worn roots of a fallen tree that was not there in the opening shot. She pulls herself up. She continues reaching up, her hands caressing the smooth driftwood. Her eyes peering out of gaps in the roots. She climbs higher, hand over hand... UNTIL we see her hands rise above edge of a tablecloth where a single empty glass sits.

She pulls herself into a room beneath a large chandelier. Smoke rises into the light as the camera pans back down to reveal a table full of men and women in formal dress at a dinner party.

Deren watches the guests from her place at the end of the table. She's peering just above the tablecloth. None of them notice her as she pulls her chin onto the table, beside the empty glass.

The camera cuts back to complete the climb of her bare feet over the driftwood from that other dimension and into the room.

But when we cut back to her bare knees on the tablecloth, she is now immersed in a thick, leafy forest.

Then back to her crawling hand over hand across the tablecloth and past the indifferent diners.

Back and forth between diners and forest, she makes her way toward a man at the end of the table who keeps his eyes averted from hers.

Closer and closer, hand over hand she crawls past the men and women who are smoking cigarettes.

Until the man at the end of the table – and the chess board on which he is focused – fill the screen.

But just as she reaches him, just as she comes through the foliage, he leaves the table.

Everyone gets up and leaves the table, leaving her alone with the chess pieces she manipulates with her mind.

The images play on, and you can see them in our link: a chess piece floating down a stream, a silent conversation with a mysterious man who leads her to a house where sheets cover the furniture – and cover the body of mustachioed man. His eyes are open but is he dead?

His eyes follow her as she moves around him – to go explore the empty house.

Stepping out the front door, she finds herself suddenly atop a high rocky outcropping. Barefoot she steps from one rocky peak to another and then, seemingly exhausted, slides down the hard incline, until she reaches the beach again….

Looking back, she sees what was once stone is a lattice of wood and steel, smoother textures.

 As she walks away, the sandy hills echo one of the opening shots of her hip as she lay upon the beach.

From a high promenade above the beach, we see her, still barefoot, now gathering stones as she walks. She is gathering them in her dark, striped dress, until overburdened with her load, she stumbles and drops them.

Suddenly, she looks toward the water – and sees at the water’s edge, two women – a blonde and a brunette – playing chess. The blonde (manipulating the White players) makes a move, and the brunette (with the opposing Black players) definitively swats away a pawn with her queen.

In close-up, we see Deren’s eyes following the back and forth of the match. The women continue their conversation.

Suddenly Deren is behind both women, stroking their hair. They lean back savoring the touch.

Meanwhile, their hands continue the game on the board. The hands expertly putting each other in Check in spite of the distracting head massage. And then, just as one is about to announce CHECKMATE….

Deren reaches down and snatches away a white pawn.

Suddenly there are two Derens – the one who lingers stroking the hair, and the other who has stolen the pawn and runs down the beach. (It’s as if one Deren has distracted the women the pull of her crime.)

One Deren watches the other make her way back down the beach, then back to the house – still with the chess piece – then back to the dining room table, then back to driftwood – as if the whole film is running backwards.

Our last image is a slow pan up her footprints in the sand to her running at the water’s edge, both hands held up. The pawn clasped in one hand as the waves steadily crash. Unceasing.

We'll end here with a final reflection.... The title card for this film has the word (SILENT) in parenthesis, under: AT LAND. Maya Deren appears to be making a clear statement about how the film and images should be viewed.

And yet, finding a "silent" version among the composers who have attempted to give it a soundtrack is a challenge. Something about these images, about the story of this woman taking control of "the game" has inspired composers for decades. 

We hope this film serves as kindling or starter fluid for your own dreams.

Dream Auguries is a weekly reflection series for insomniacs, lucid dreamers, oracles and soothsayers, magicians and conjurors of all kinds. It's bonus content for the film, Dreaming Grand Avenue, now streaming on cable, written and directed by Hugh Schulze. Our theme music was composed and performed by Tony Scott-Green and sound design by Kevin O'Rourke.