BackMeshes of the Afternoon
(book in English)
- Type
- Studies
- Subject
- One Film > Meshes of the Afternoon
- Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, avant-garde
- Publishing Date
- 2020
- Publisher
- BFI Publishing
- Collection
- BFI Film Classics
2nd edition - Language
- English
Dimensions
- Physical desc.
- Paperback • 136 pages • 16 €
5.5 x 8.25 inches (14 x 21 cm) - ISBN
- 978-1-8387-1972-2
- User Ratings
(0 vote)Average rating:
0 rating 
= We can do without0 rating 
= Good book0 rating 
= Excellent book0 rating 
= Unique / a referenceYour rating: -
Book Presentation:
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), filmed by Maya Deren and her then husband Alexader Hammid in their bungalow above Sunset Boulevard for a mere $274.90, is the most important film in the history of American avant-garde cinema. The artistic collaboration between Deren and Hammid finds its distorted reflection in the vision of the film's tormented female protagonist. Its focus - through a series of intricate and interlocking dream sequences - on female experience and the domestic sphere links Meshes to the Hollywood melodramas of the period, while its unsettling atmosphere of dread, death and doubles makes it a counter-cinematic cousin to film noir. The film has influenced not only the subsequent history of experimental film, but also on the work of Hollywood auteurs. It is a touchstone of women's film-making, of modern cinema and of modern art. John David Rhodes traces the film's history back into the lives of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, but in particular that of Deren. He reads the film as a culmination of Deren's abiding interest in modernism and her intense engagement in socialist politics. Rhodes argues that while the film remains a powerful point of reference for feminist film-makers and experimentalists, it is also an example of political art in the broadest terms. In his foreword to this new edition, Rhodes reflects upon the film's continuing importance for and influence upon feminist and avant-garde filmmaking.
See the publisher website: BFI Publishing
Previous edition
Meshes of the Afternoon (2011)
Publisher: BFI Publishing
(old edition)(in English)
Subject: One Film > Meshes of the Afternoon
> On a related topic:
Dialogues théoriques avec Maya Deren (2000)
Du cinéma expérimental au film ethnographique
Subject: Director > Maya Deren
L'Homme à la caméra, D. Vertov, 1929 (2009)
Analyse d'une œuvre
Collective dir. Jean-Jacques Marimbert
Subject: One Film > Man with a Movie Camera
Artaud-Dulac, la coquille et le clergyman (2009)
Essai d'élucidation d'une querelle mythique
by Odette Virmaux and Alain Virmaux
(in French and English)
Subject: One Film > The Seashell and the Clergyman
L'homme à la caméra de Dziga Vertov (1990)
Subject: One Film > Man with a Movie Camera
Note: A book on a slightly gray background is a book that is no longer currently published or that may be difficult to find in bookstores. The shown price is that of the book at its release, the price on the second-hand market may be very different.
A book on a beige background is a book published in a language other than French.