Maya Deren Experimental Films

Maya Deren's experimental films show examples of how the camera can be used to bend reality. In her article, she mentions Kodak's slogan, "You push the button, it does the rest," which at the end of the day sums up the camera. However, making films is more than just the click of a button...it's how the juxtaposition of many other images, and the ideas they create in the audience's heads. Deren made a scene at the beach turn into a dinner of some sort, and creates the illusion that the tree at the beach leads to one end of the dinner table. Deren explains that "a leap in the air can be extended by the same technique, but in this case, since the film action is sustained far beyond the normal duration of the real action itself, the effect is one of tension as we wait for the figure to return, finally, to earth," thus producing a different reality than what we would otherwise perceive in our reality.

In At Land, the first scene has the waves rolling out to sea, rather than crashing into the beach. It is merely being played backwards to create that illusion, but it still looks somewhat natural. Seeing the waves filmed and played back in reverse shows us a different perspective. Deren's experimental films succeed in showing different realities that are almost believable.

La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) is a sort of collection of mini-stories that revolve around the journalist Marcello. When he is only a journalist, he lives with simple pleasures, has a simple girlfriend named Emma, and pursues news stories with the same vigor and style as his fellow journalists. Eventually, however, he delves into a much wealthier lifestyle full of excitement, alcohol, sex and a lot of scandals. The bigger picture here was more than just Marcello's adventures though. It was a reflection on how monetary wealth doesn't always mean a happy life. A lot of the rich people were living the sweet life, but weren't necessarily happy. For example, Steiner's suicide and the murder of his children shows how unhappy he truly was. Essentially, the message in the movie was fame and fortune lead to sadness and corruption (of both society and the individual mind). Nino Rota's film score did the whole movie justice too...I've always been a fan of his music, especially his score for The Godfather. La Dolce Vita was long, but went by fast enough to paint the bigger picture for the audience. I can definitely see why the church banned it. Jesus wasn't the helicopter-flying type of guy...but what a great way to start this film! It set the premise up for the party environment!

Last Year at Marienbad

Last Year at Marienbad is a film structured around themes and visuals more than plot. I had some discomfort with how rigid and formal the characters were. I found it interesting that all of the characters used vous instead of tu, which indicates a high level of politeness. However, since the characters lacked depth and development, it seemed fitting that they were so polite. I really like some of the camera techniques though. In one of the first scenes where it is revealed that 'M' might have a relationship with 'A', the camera reflects this perfectly by having 'X' sitting on the left side of the screen, 'M' and 'A' on the right side, and a chair in between them. Costumes also played an interesting role in the film. Since it was black and white, the characters were wearing either dark clothing or light clothing. It seemed like at moments in which 'A' was trying to plea innocence, she had a white dress on. However, as soon as she decided to engage in 'X's plot, she was back in a black dress. All of the men wore only black too.

In general, I couldn't really pull much more away from this film due to it's lack of plot and character development. It was still visually intriguing!