View source for Meshes of the Afternoon

{{short description|1943 silent short film}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Meshes of the Afternoon
| image          = Meshes of the Afternoon 1.png
| caption        = Maya Deren in ''Meshes of the Afternoon''
| director       = {{plainlist|
* [[Maya Deren]]
* [[Alexandr Hackenschmied]]
 }}
| producer       = Maya Deren
| writer         = Maya Deren
| starring       = {{plainlist|
* Maya Deren
* Alexandr Hackenschmied
 }}
| cinematography = Alexandr Hackenschmied
| editing        = Maya Deren
| music          = [[Teiji Ito]] (added in 1959)<ref name=Robert>{{cite book |last1=Robertson |first1=Robert |title=Cinema and the Audiovisual Imagination: Music, Image, Sound |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aAJqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA77  |publisher=I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.|location=London; New York |date=2015 |page=73 |isbn=9781780767178 |access-date=9 January 2016}}</ref>
| released       = {{film date|1943}}
| runtime        = 14 minutes
| country        = United States
| budget         = {{US$|275}}
| language       = silent
| gross          = 
}}
'''''Meshes of the Afternoon''''' is a 1943 American [[experimental film|experimental]] [[silent film|silent]] [[short film]] directed by and starring wife-and-husband team, [[Maya Deren]] and [[Alexandr Hackenschmied]].

The film was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] in 1990 due to its cultural and historical significance.

The film is in the [[public domain]] in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1928 and 1977 and without a copyright notice.

==Plot==
[[File:Meshes of the Afternoon (1943).webm|thumb|left|thumbtime=10|''Meshes of the Afternoon'' (without the music added in 1959).]]

A woman ([[Maya Deren]]) notices someone on the street as she walks back to her home. She enters her room and falls asleep in a chair. As soon as she drifts off, she experiences a dream in which she repeatedly tries to chase a mysterious hooded figure with a mirror for a face but is unable to catch it. With each failed attempt, she re-enters her house and encounters numerous household objects, including a key, a bread knife, a flower, a telephone, and a [[phonograph]]. The woman follows the hooded figure to her bedroom, where she sees the figure hide the knife under a pillow. Throughout the film, she witnesses multiple versions of herself, each representing fragments of the dream she has already experienced.

In one instance, the woman attempts to kill her sleeping body with the knife but is abruptly awakened by a man ([[Alexandr Hackenschmied]]). The man leads her to the bedroom, and she realizes that everything she saw in the dream was actually happening. She notices that the man’s posture resembles that of the hooded figure when it hid the knife under the pillow. She tries to injure him but fails.

Towards the end of the film, the man walks into the house and sees a broken mirror being dropped onto wet ground. He then finds the woman in the chair, who was previously asleep but is now dead.

The film’s narrative is circular, repeating several motifs: a flower on a long driveway, a falling key, an unlocked door, 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. Through creative editing, distinct camera angles, and slow motion, the surrealist film portrays a world in which it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from illusion.

==Background and production==
The film was the product of Deren and Hackenschmied's desire to create an [[avant garde|avant-garde]] personal film that dealt with complex psychology, like the [[surrealist]] films ''[[Un Chien Andalou]]'' (1929) and ''[[L'Age d'Or]]'' (1930) by [[Salvador Dalí]] and [[Luis Buñuel]].

Deren and Hackenschmied, who changed his name to Alexander Hammid in 1942, 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. Other sources claim that Hammid's role in the creation of ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' is mainly as cameraperson. Deren made extensive storyboards for all of her films, including camera movements and camera effects. She wrote about these techniques in professional filmmaking magazines. The ideas and execution of the film are mostly attributable to Deren. Hammid also acknowledged Deren as the sole creator of ''Meshes of the Afternoon''.<ref name="Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture"/>

The original print had no score. However, a musical score influenced by classical [[Japanese music]] was added in 1959 by Deren's third husband, [[Teiji Ito]].<ref name=Robert /><ref name=Senses>{{cite journal |url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/deren-2/ |title=Great Directors: Maya Deren |first=Wendy |last=Haslem |journal=Senses of Cinema |issue=23 |date=12 December 2002 |access-date=19 June 2011}}</ref><ref name=Zeitgeist>{{cite web |url=http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/films/inthemirrorofmayaderen/presskit.pdf |title=In the Mirror of Maya Deren |website=Zeitgeist Films |access-date=19 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606075957/http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/films/inthemirrorofmayaderen/presskit.pdf |archive-date=June 6, 2013 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

In 1990, ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in the second year of voting. In 2015 the BBC named the film the 40th greatest American movie ever made.<ref name="bbc">[http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150720-the-100-greatest-american-films "The 100 Greatest American Films"], [[BBC|BBC Culture]], July 20, 2015.</ref> In 2022, it was voted the 16th greatest film of all time in the ''[[Sight & Sound]]'' poll.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Greatest Films of All Time |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time |access-date=2 December 2022 |website=bfi.org.uk}}</ref>

==Analysis==
In the early 1970s, [[J. Hoberman]] claimed that ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' was "less related to European surrealism" and more related to "Hollywood wartime ''[[film noir]]''".<ref name=village>{{cite book |last1=Hoberman |first1=J. |title=The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yHcIp0sa6MkC&pg=PA171 |publisher=[[Wiley & Sons]] |location=Hoboken, NJ |date=2007 |page=171 |isbn=9780471787815 |access-date=9 January 2016}}</ref>

Deren explained that ''Meshes'' "...is concerned with the interior experiences of an individual. It does not record an event which could be witnessed by other persons. Rather, it reproduces the way in which the subconscious of an individual will develop, interpret and elaborate an apparently simple and casual incident into a critical emotional experience."<ref name=dvd>{{cite AV media |people=Deren, Maya (director) |title=Maya Deren: experimental films |medium=DVD |location=New York |date=2002 |publisher=Mystic Fire Video}}</ref>

===Lewis Jacobs's discussion===
<!-- This section has been ported from the Maya Deren biography page as it is more appropriate to the article on the film itself. -->

{{Original research|section|date=December 2022}}

Writing about ''Meshes of the Afternoon'', Lewis Jacobs credits Maya Deren with being the first film maker since the end of [[World War II]] to "inject a fresh note into experimental film production".<ref name=Jacobs>{{cite journal |last1=Jacobs |first1=Lewis |title=Experimental Cinema in America (Part Two: The Postwar Revival) |journal=Hollywood Quarterly |date=Spring 1948 |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=278–292 |doi=10.2307/1209699 |jstor=1209699}}</ref>

Further in his discussion of experimental cinema in postwar America, Jacobs says the film "attempted to show the way in which an apparently simple and casual occurrence develops subconsciously into a critical and emotional experience. A girl comes home one afternoon and falls asleep. In a dream she sees herself returning home, tortured by loneliness and frustration and impulsively committing suicide. The story has a double climax, in which it appears that the imagined, the dream, has become real.”<ref name=Jacobs />

Deren uses specific cinematic devices in this film to convey deeper meaning. In a particular scene, Deren is walking up a normal set of stairs, and each time she pushes against the wall, it triggers the camera to move in that direction, almost as if the camera is part of her body. As she pulls herself up the last stair, the top of the stairs leads her to a window in her bedroom, which breaks the expectations of the viewer. In doing so, Deren destroys the normal sense of time and space. There is no longer a sense of what space she is in, nor for how long it was there. Deren constantly asks the viewer to pay attention and remember certain things by repeating the same actions over and over with only very subtle changes.

A recognizable trait of Deren's work is her use of the subjective and objective camera. For instance, shots in ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' cut from Deren looking at an object, to Deren's point of view, looking at herself perform the same actions that she has been making throughout the film. This conveys the meaning of Deren's dual personality or ambivalent feelings towards the possibility of suicide. It is Lewis Jacobs's opinion that "the film is not completely successful, it skips from objectivity to subjectivity without transitions or preparation and is often confusing."<ref name=Jacobs /> An example of Jacobs's comment would be when Deren cuts to her point of view, which normally is an objective shot, but in this POV shot she is watching herself, which is subjective. The viewer cannot expect Deren's POV shot to contain herself.

===Joseph Brinton's discussion===
<!-- This section has been ported from the Maya Deren biography page as it is more appropriate to the article on the film itself. -->

In Joseph Brinton's 1947 essay "Subjective Camera or Subjective Audience", he states that "the symbolic picturization of man’s subconscious in Maya Deren’s experimental films suggests that the subjective camera can explore subtleties hitherto unimaginable as film content. As the new technique can clearly express almost any facet of everyday human experience, its development should presage a new type of psychological film in which the camera will reveal the human mind, not superficially, but honestly in terms of image and sound."<ref name=Brinton>{{cite journal |last1=Brinton, III |first1=Joseph P. |title=Subjective Camera or Subjective Audience? |journal=Hollywood Quarterly |date=July 1947 |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=365 |doi=10.2307/1209531 |jstor=1209531}}</ref>

Jacobs' critique that "the film is not completely successful, it skips from objectivity to subjectivity without transitions or preparation and is often confusing", represents one point of view. However, others take the film's approach to be a direct representation on the character's thought patterns in a time of crisis: "Such a film should indeed endow the cinema with a wholly new dimension of subjective experience, permitting the audience to see a human being both as others see him and as he sees himself."<ref name=Brinton />

===Museum of Modern Art===
In the [[Museum of Modern Art]] retrospective (2010), it was suggested that the pieces of the mirror falling into the ocean waves set up ''[[At Land]]'' (1944) as a direct sequel, while Deren's last scene in the latter film (running with her hands up with a chess piece in one of them) is then echoed by a scene in ''[[Ritual in Transfigured Time]]'' (1946) with that character still running.

== Possible influences ==
=== Jean Cocteau ===
''Meshes of the Afternoon'' resembles [[Jean Cocteau|Jean Cocteau's]] 1930 film ''[[Blood of a Poet]]'' in its representation of a subjective point of view. ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' and Cocteau's film also share the same imagery in many instances;{{Example needed|s|date=December 2022}} however, Deren repeatedly claimed to have never seen the film and denied any influence by Cocteau.<ref name="Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture">{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=VeVe A. |last2=Hudson |first2=Millicent |last3=Neiman |first3=Catrina |editor1-last=Melton |editor1-first=Hollis |title=The Legend of Maya Deren: A Documentary Biography and Collected Works |date=1988 |publisher=Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture |location=New York City |isbn=0-911689-17-6 |edition=Volume 1 Part Two}}</ref>

In the fall of 1945, Deren wrote to Victor Animatograph Corp. that she had now seen Cocteau's film multiple times and expressed interest in publishing a commentary on it. The proposed article was never written.<ref name="Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture"/>

=== Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel ===
The work of [[Salvador Dalí]] and [[Luis Buñuel]] has been suggested by some critics as a possible influence.<ref name="Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture"/> Deren reportedly detested this comparison because of the surrealist movement's interest in the entertainment value of its subject more than its meaning.<ref name="Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture"/>

=== Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung ===
Viewers{{Who|date=December 2022}} have attempted to decode the symbolism in the film from a [[Freudian]] or [[Jungian]] point of view to uncover possible messages about identity and sexuality. Deren adamantly objected to those who saw her film as symbolic; for her, the objects in the film were just that, objects "whose value and meaning is defined and confirmed by their actual function in the context of the film as a whole".{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}} Deren wanted her audiences to appreciate the art for its conscious value and spent much of her later career delivering lectures and writing essays on her film theory.<ref name="Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture"/>

==Accolade==
''Meshes of the Afternoon'' won the Grand Prix International for avant-garde film at the 1947 [[Cannes Film Festival]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Peyrière |first=Monique |date=2007 |title=Maya Deren et les sciences sociales: quand le cinéma expérimental prend l'avantage sur le documentaire pour affronter la réalité du monde |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-societes-2007-2-page-41.htm |journal=Sociétés |language=fr |volume=2 |issue=96 |pages=41–50 |doi=10.3917/soc.096.0041 |issn=0765-3697}}</ref>

==Legacy==
A cloaked, mirror-faced figure appears in John Coney's 1974 [[Sun Ra]] vehicle ''[[Space Is the Place]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Claes |first=Colleen |title=Janelle Monae: Avant-Garde Film Geek ('Tightrope' Video) |url=http://open.salon.com/blog/colleenclaes/2010/04/04/janelle_monae_avant-garde_film_geek_tightrope_video |publisher=Open Salon |access-date=30 September 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120706044921/http://open.salon.com/blog/colleenclaes/2010/04/04/janelle_monae_avant-garde_film_geek_tightrope_video |archive-date=6 July 2012}}</ref>

The dreamlike (or nightmarish) atmosphere of ''Meshes'' has influenced many subsequent films, notably [[David Lynch]]'s ''[[Lost Highway (film)|Lost Highway]]'' (1997). Wendy Haslem of the [[University of Melbourne]]'s Cinema Studies department wrote about the parallels between the two:

<blockquote>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 [[Haitian Vodou|voodoo]] ritual.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/deren-2/ |title=Maya Deren |first=Wendy |last=Haslem |website=[[Senses of Cinema]] |date=December 2002 |access-date=15 December 2017}}</ref></blockquote>

Jim Emerson, the editor of [[RogerEbert.com]], has also noted the influence of ''Meshes'' within David Lynch's film ''[[Inland Empire (film)|Inland Empire]]'' (2006).<ref>{{cite web |last=Emerson |first=Jim |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070125/REVIEWS/701250301 |title=Inland Empire Movie Review & Film Summary (2007) &#124; Roger Ebert |publisher=Rogerebert.suntimes.com |date=2007-01-25 |access-date=2015-08-24}}</ref>

However, Lynch has denied he ever saw the film or even heard of Deren.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Olson |first=Greg |url=http://archive.org/details/davidlynchbeauti0000olso |title=David Lynch : beautiful dark |date=2008 |publisher=Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8108-5917-3|page=600}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lim |first=Dennis |url=http://archive.org/details/davidlynchmanfro0000limd |title=David Lynch : the man from another place |date=2015 |publisher=Boston; New York : New Harvest/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-544-34375-7|page=133}}</ref>

In 2010, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened an exhibition that dealt with Deren's influence on three experimental filmmakers, [[Barbara Hammer]], [[Su Friedrich]] and [[Carolee Schneemann]], as part of a year-long retrospective there on representation of women. Su Friedrich conceived her short film ''[[Cool Hands, Warm Heart]]'' (1979) in direct homage to ''Meshes of the Afternoon'', and used the flower and knife motifs similarly in that film.

[[Kristin Hersh]]'s song "[[Your Ghost]]" is inspired by the film, and the song's music video uses several motifs from the film, including a spinning record, a telephone, and a key on a woman's tongue. Likewise, [[Milla Jovovich]]'s video for "[[Gentleman Who Fell]]" reproduces other motifs such as the mirror-faced figure, the reappearing key, the knife, and the shifting staircase effect.

[[Industrial metal]] pioneers [[Godflesh]] used a still from the film for the cover of their 1994 EP ''[[Merciless (EP)|Merciless]]'', as did [[alternative rock]] band [[Primal Scream]] for their 1986 single "Crystal Crescent".

Experimental electronic artist [[Sd Laika]] used samples from the film's soundtrack for the track "Meshes" on his debut album.<ref>[http://www.whosampled.com/Sd-Laika/Meshes/ "Meshes"]. Who Sampled. Retrieved on 2017-06-22.</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}

* {{AlloCiné title|5995}}
* {{IMDb title|0036154}}
* [https://www.allmovie.com/movie/meshes-of-the-afternoon-am39649 ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' at AllMovie]
* {{TCMDb title|id=2007474}}
* {{Rotten Tomatoes}}

{{Maya Deren}}
{{Alexandr Hackenschmied}}
{{Modernism}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meshes of the Afternoon}}
[[Category:1943 films]]
[[Category:1943 short films]]
[[Category:1940s avant-garde and experimental films]]
[[Category:1940s independent films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:American silent short films]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Films directed by Maya Deren]]
[[Category:Films directed by Alexandr Hackenschmied]]
[[Category:Surviving American silent films]]
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]