Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a short experimental film directed by husband and wife team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular, and repeats a number of psychologically symbolic images, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean. Image File history File links culled from promo photo edited File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Maya Deren Maya Deren (April 29, 1917 – October 13, 1961), born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Teiji Ito (surname Ito; b. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ... Maya Deren Maya Deren (April 29, 1917 – October 13, 1961), born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Death, personified is an anthropomorphic figure or a fictional character who has existed in mythology and popular culture since the earliest days of storytelling. ...

Background and production

The film was the product of Deren's and Hammid's desire to create an avant garde personal film that dealt with devastating psychological problems, like the French avant-garde films of the 1920s such as Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou.^{[citation needed]} Deren's use of symbolism in her films relates to her father's preoccupation with psychology and her desire to appeal to her father's interests.^{[citation needed]} The Love of Zero 35 mm film by Robert Florey 1927 Avant-garde (pronounced ) in French means front guard, advance guard, or vanguard. ... Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domènech Marquis of Pubol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), popularly known as Salvador Dalí, was a Spanish artist and one of the most important painters of the 20th century. ... Luis Buñuel Portolés (February 22, 1900 – July 29, 1983) was a Spanish-born filmmaker who worked mainly in Mexico and France, but also in his native country and the United States. ... = Luis Buñuel | writer = Luis Buñuel Salvador Dalí | starring = Pierre Batcheff Simone Mareuil Luis Buñuel Salvador Dalí Jaime Miravilles | music = | cinematography = Albert Duverger Jimmy Berliet | editing = Luis Buñuel | released = June 6, 1929 | runtime = 16 min. ...

Deren and Hammid wrote, directed and performed in the film. Although Deren is usually credited as its principal artistic creator, filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who knew the couple, has claimed in his book Film at Wit's End that Meshes was in fact largely Hammid's creation, and that their marriage began to suffer when Deren received more credit. Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) Stan Brakhage (January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American filmmaker. ...

The original print had no score. However, a musical score influenced by classical Japanese music was added by Deren's third husband, Teiji Ito, in 1959. For many outsiders, Japanese music is associated entirely with cheap, disposable bubblegum pop, of which there is plenty. ... Teiji Ito (surname Ito; b. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Analysis

In the early 1970s, J. Hoberman claimed that Meshes of the Afternoon was a commentary on film noir.^{[citation needed]} The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979. ... J. Hoberman (Jim Hoberman) is the lead film critic for The Village Voice. ... This still from The Big Combo (1955) demonstrates the visual style of film noir at its most extreme. ...

Acclaim

The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. ... The National Film Registry is the registry of films selected by the United States National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. ...

Influence

The dreamlike (or nightmarish) atmosphere of Meshes has influenced many subsequent films, notably David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997); Wendy Haslem of the University of Melbourne's Cinema Studies department wrote about the parallels: David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana) is an American filmmaker. ...

Maya Deren was a key figure in the development of the New American Cinema. Her influence extends to contemporary filmmakers like David Lynch, whose film Lost Highway (1997) pays homage to Meshes of the Afternoon in his experimentation with narration. Lynch adopts a similar spiraling narrative pattern, sets his film within an analogous location and establishes a mood of dread and paranoia, the result of constant surveillance. Both films focus on the nightmare as it is expressed in the elusive doubling of characters and in the incorporation of the “psychogenic fugue,” the evacuation and replacement of identities, something that was also central to the voodoo ritual. [1]

In 1993, two different videos were made for Milla Jovovich's song "Gentleman Who Fell." The second, filmed in black-and-white, is an obvious pastiche of Meshes of the Afternoon. David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana) is an American filmmaker. ... Lost Highway is a 1997 psychological thriller directed by David Lynch. ... Milla (Militza) Jovovich (Serbian: Милица Јововић/Milica Jovović, Ukrainian: Мілла Йовович/Mіlla Jovovič; born December 17, 1975) is an American supermodel, actress, musician, singer, and fashion designer. ... The word pastiche describes a literary or other artistic genre. ...