At Land
Encyclopedia
At Land is a 15-minute silent experimental film
written, directed by, and starring Maya Deren
. It has a dream-like narrative in which a woman, played by Deren, is washed up on a beach and goes on a strange journey encountering other people and other versions of herself. Deren once said that the film is about the struggle to maintain one's personal identity.
The composer John Cage
and the poet and film critic Parker Tyler
were involved in making the film, and appear in the film, which was shot at Amagansett, Long Island
.
The chess pieces begin to move by themselves, and one of the pawn
s falls on the floor. It floats down a waterfall and down a river. The woman chases it, climbing down the hill she had already passed. She then finds herself walking down a forest path; she begins talking and walking with a man, who in total is replaced four times by four different men (the first one is the American surrealist poet, Philip Lamantia
at age 17; the second man is Gregory Bateson
; the third is sound artist and composer John Cage
; and the last one Deren's real-life husband, Alexander Hammid).
She follows the man into a house where all the furniture is covered with white blankets. She opens many doors, and in one room finds a bed on which a man is lying covered in a white blanket as if laid out in death. They stare at each other for some moments; then a cat leaps from her arms, and she turns her back and leaves. After walking through several doors, she finds herself on a hilltop, and climbs down to a dune field.
Walking down the beach, she picks up stones, finding it hard to carry all of them at once. Then she finds two of the women who were at the dinner party in the beginning of the film playing chess on the beach. They are gossiping, having a good time while playing. The woman gets closer and watches them. She caresses their heads gently, making them lose their attention on the game. Then she takes a pawn from the game and runs across the dunes with her arms raised. While she runs, we see other versions of herself, at earlier stages in her journey; her other selves all glance at her. The film's final image is of the woman running down the beach, leaving her footprints behind her.
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
written, directed by, and starring Maya Deren
Maya Deren
Maya Deren , born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s...
. It has a dream-like narrative in which a woman, played by Deren, is washed up on a beach and goes on a strange journey encountering other people and other versions of herself. Deren once said that the film is about the struggle to maintain one's personal identity.
The composer John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
and the poet and film critic Parker Tyler
Parker Tyler
Harrison Parker Tyler, better known as Parker Tyler was an American author, poet, and film critic. Tyler had a relationship with underground filmmaker Charles Boultenhouse from 1945 until his death...
were involved in making the film, and appear in the film, which was shot at Amagansett, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
.
Synopsis
At the beginning of the film, a woman is lying on a beach as if she has been washed up by the ocean. She climbs a tree with some difficulty, but when she finally reaches the top, she finds herself at the end of a long dining room table during a bourgeois dinner party. All the guests ignore her as she drags herself on top of the table and pulls herself across it, trying to reach a man at the opposite end who looks deeply concentrated on a chess game. When she finally gets to the man, he stands up and leaves the table; she looks disappointed and hopeless.The chess pieces begin to move by themselves, and one of the pawn
Pawn
Pawn may refer to:* Pawn , the weakest and most numerous piece in the game* Pawn, another name for a pledge in certain jurisdictions ** Pawnshop/pawnbroker* Pawn , an embeddable programming language...
s falls on the floor. It floats down a waterfall and down a river. The woman chases it, climbing down the hill she had already passed. She then finds herself walking down a forest path; she begins talking and walking with a man, who in total is replaced four times by four different men (the first one is the American surrealist poet, Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia was an American poet and lecturer. Lamantia's visionary poems were ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic which explored the subconscious world of dreams and linked it to the experience of daily life.-Biography:...
at age 17; the second man is Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
; the third is sound artist and composer John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
; and the last one Deren's real-life husband, Alexander Hammid).
She follows the man into a house where all the furniture is covered with white blankets. She opens many doors, and in one room finds a bed on which a man is lying covered in a white blanket as if laid out in death. They stare at each other for some moments; then a cat leaps from her arms, and she turns her back and leaves. After walking through several doors, she finds herself on a hilltop, and climbs down to a dune field.
Walking down the beach, she picks up stones, finding it hard to carry all of them at once. Then she finds two of the women who were at the dinner party in the beginning of the film playing chess on the beach. They are gossiping, having a good time while playing. The woman gets closer and watches them. She caresses their heads gently, making them lose their attention on the game. Then she takes a pawn from the game and runs across the dunes with her arms raised. While she runs, we see other versions of herself, at earlier stages in her journey; her other selves all glance at her. The film's final image is of the woman running down the beach, leaving her footprints behind her.
Further reading
- Feminisms in the Cinema, ed. Laura Pietropaolo and Ada Testaferri. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1995.
- Turim, Maureen. "The Ethics of Form: Structure and Gender in Maya Deren's Challenge to the Cinema", in Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde, ed. Bill Nichols, Berkeley University of California Press, 2001.