AN ANAGRAM OF IDEAS ON ART, FORM AND FILM SAV Oe ealPUBLISHER'S NOTE ‘Maya Doren's for 16 mm. films have slready won considerable acclaim, Convinced that there was poetry in the camera, she defted all commercial production conventions and started to make ‘lms with only ordinary amateur equipment. Her first, MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943), was made with her husband Alexander _Hammid, whose films— FORGOTTEN VILLAGE, CRISIS, HYMN OF THE NATIONS (Toscanini) and others reveal also that devotion to the poctry of vision which formed ‘the common ground of their collaboration. When other work claimed his time, Maya Deren went on by herself — conceiving, producing, directing, acting, (being unable to afford actors) photographing (when she was not in the scene) and cutting. ‘Throngh all the trials of such shoe-string production, which in- cluded carrying equipment for miles to the location, she had only the assistance of another woman, Hella Heyman, as camerawoman. Yet three more films were made: AT LAND, A STUDY IN CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA (with Talley Boatty( and RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME, thus proving that fine ‘ims could be made ‘‘for the price of the lipstick in a single Hollywood production." Her heroic persistence has just been rewarded by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Moreover, the reputation of the films has spread so ‘that performances at the Provincetown Playhouse were completely sold out and they have also beon shiown in colleges and musoums throughout the country. In this pamphlet Maya Deren’s approach to film reflects not the limited scope of a professional craftsman, but a broad cultural background—a profound interest not only in esthetics generally and in psychological insight, but in physics and the sciences as well, Russian-born, daughter of a psychiatrist, Maya Deren attended Syracuse University, where she first became interested in film, and received her B.A. from New York University and her MA. from Sinith College, both degrees in literature. This is Number 9 of the “OUT- CAST” Series of Chapbooks issued by Oscar Baradinsky at the Alicat Book Shop, 287 South Broadway, Yonkers 5, N.Y. The edition con sists of 750 copies offered for sale. Titles of other “OUTCAST” chap- books will be found on the back cover.AN ANAGRAM OF IDEAS ON ART, FORM AND FILM CONTENTS OF ANAGRAM by MAYA DEREN A BC ew ¢ Sz Zs §S 22 £2 @2 So Ps af Z s 28 zo THE STATE OF NATURE 1 1 1 a A| is THE ‘CHARACTER OF MAN Page7 | Page 18 ‘THE MECHANICS OF NATURE 2 2 grueng a|2n THE METHODS OF MAN Page 11 | Page 2I THE INSTRUMENT OF 3a 33 DISCOVERY and Page 14 | Page 26 THE INSTRUMENT OF INVENTION 1946 THE ALICAT BOOK SHOP PRESS Yonkers, New York i lla