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Posted: |
Jun 25, 2018 - 10:56 AM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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If this thread gets more than twelve views, I'll buy you all a pint. One pint to share amongst all of you.
Now, you see, I'm a bit of a dunderheid, and not at all brainy, so I don't really know an awful lot about anything. But I recently became aware of Maya Deren's films, and although all you film scholars will be throwing your hands up in horror at my discovering her at this late stage, well so be it. Others can perhaps make me feel better by saying "Never heard of her".
And, to add nutmegs to dunderheidedness, I've only seen one of her films. Perhaps her most well-known one, MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, made in 1943. And I thought it was great. Loved it! So I intend to explore her filmography further. Anyway, to get to the bleedin' point, there are multiple versions of MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON up on the Tube. The majority of them have new scores added fairly recently, but I'm discounting them in order to focus on three in particular.
Exhibit 1: https://youtu.be/bRLJaueDWFI
This begins with a bit of New Orleans jazz over the opening credits. The rest is mostly silent, with just ambient sounds. There's quite an effective use of plink-plonk music edited in sparingly - and even what sounds exactly like half a second of Herrmann's PSYCHO at the 11:10 mark - for a threatening scene involving a knife. What ruins the whole thing though is a kind of whooshing musical effect that accompanies the frequent appearance and inexplicable disappearance of everyday objects (basically a key and a knife). This is real Rentaghost stuff, and cheapens the whole movie.
Exhibit 2: https://youtu.be/0uufBvE93MM
I think this was the way Deren originally shot the film. It has no musical score whatsoever, just ambient sounds. My favourite, and curiously it's the only one of the three I watched that actually had dialogue. The"man" is heard to say "Hi"... In the other versions he opens his mouth but emits no sound. So, one word of dialogue and no music. Yes, this is the best in my nutmeggian opinion.
Exhibit 3: https://youtu.be/H0tDufAxI2I
This one has a score by Japanese composer Teiji Ito. Apparently it was Maya Deren herself who decided, way after the film was made, that it needed music, so she asked Teiji Ito to do it. He would also become her third and final husband. She died at the age of 44, hardly a year after their marriage. I don't think the music works. It's simply not needed, and although it's about as far from the Hollwood sound as you can get, it still seems to me like a bad, and odd, decision. Thankfully the Rentaghost whooshing effects are gone (see Exhibit 1), but Ito "replaces" them with some authentic Japanese percussion hits, which don't do the film justice either. Some bamboo flutes and droning effects cover the rest of it.
Nah, it's Exhibit 2 for me. Any thoughts?
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Hey Graham,
I'll be one of your twelve! I adore Meshes - I first saw it when I was 20, when my film course did a module on avant-garde cinema... it was the only thing I enjoyed! (I literally drove a pencil into my leg twice to maintain conciousness during Michael Snow's Wavelength. And Godard. So much effing Godard.)
But Meshes immediately dove under my skin. There's just something about it - you can feel the heat of the sun in those opening shots, and knowing it was going on in the suburban area of Hollywood in that classic time as so many other studio films. And then the imagery of course - not least the simple but stunning mirror-in-cloak apparition.
For me, I have to see it as I first saw it, which is with the Ito score. I didn't know any other version existed for a long time, but it always worked for me - the incongruity of the style yet another thing I loved about Meshes. (The effects in the version you prefer are well done, but sound too pronounced for my liking - the key is bouncing in a different atmosphere than the photography for me.) But damn, what a stunning work it is, still!
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My understanding was that Deren had shot and edited Meshes silent, and that only the Ito score was added later. I was unaware of any other soundtrack that was added to the film. To the best of my knowledge, the Ito score is the only soundtrack “approved” by Deren herself.
I have seen the film both silent (which is easy enough for a YouTube viewer to replicate) as well as with the Ito score; I found it more unsettling with the music, as much for how not “in sync” it seems to be as the nature of the music itself.
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Posted: |
Jun 26, 2018 - 10:37 AM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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86 views and counting! (Half of them were actually me correcting my spelling.)
Simon, thanks for that story about your first exposure to the film. It grabbed me too, and I'm far too old to be grabbed by anything, tee hee.
Josh, yeah, I think I mentioned in my original post that the version with the Ito score was the only one endorsed by Maya Deren herself... but I'll come back to that.
Thor, have you had a look at anything by her yet?
Here's a quick summary of my earlier post, plus an idiotic "Eureka!" moment from me. You won't believe it.
Exhibit 1 is the version I first saw (yesterday). Of course, it was brilliant, but I hated those whooshing sound effects for the "magical transformation" moments. I've since watched it again, and yes, the ambient sounds of the wind and the sea are quite well done, but the footsteps and other "real" sounds are way too exaggerated. The subtle musical score is better than Ito's, for me. Still intrigued by that literally half-second burst of PSYCHO at the moment I highlighted earlier. Could it really be a half-second of PSYCHO shattering the silence?
Exhibit 2 is the one I love most, and have now watched it eight times (Exhibit 1 got four viewings, and Exhibit 3 got two). Everything is just perfect in this. The subtle ambience of the birds singing, the gathering wind blowing, the not-overdone footfalls, the distant sound of the breaking mirror-window. There's even a very unsettling sigh, or groan, when Maya goes all bendy backwards over the stairs. Intriguing how the male figure has the one word of dialogue, and it's only got two letters - "Hi"!
Exhibit 3 is the one with the Ito score. Yes, it's the only version endorsed by Deren, but I don't like it. I find it distracting. The sounds of the waves, the wind, and the birds are enough. Ito's score made my mind wander from the stunning imagery. That's OK if you're watching a terrible Jerry Goldsmith-scored film, where it's better to just close your eyes and listen to the score, eyes averted from the screen. But that's not the case here. Sorry, I didn't like it.
And now the Eureka moment of complete caveman thickness. Hey wait, so I prefer Exhibit 2 over the others because it's the way Deren originally conceived it? Eh, no. That can't be true. This was a SILENT film you nutmeg! No birdsong, no wind in the trees, no waves, no nothing. So, whoever later added those effects was some kind of genius, and nothing to do with Maya. I did watch it with the sound down - that would be Exhibit 4 - and I felt it needed something, but not music. It's curious... I haven't looked into this in detail, but according to the source you consult, Deren asked Ito to contribute a score in either 1952, 1953 or 1959. Even at the earliest, it would still have been nine years after making the film. So she took a long time making up her mind there.
So I found a new film-maker that I'm going to follow. What I don't want to do (yet) is to read up on her life and what her films "mean". That may come later, but I was swept away by MESHES without knowing anything about it at all. In my "research" regarding Ito's score, I unavoidably glanced at things saying that she was totally opposed to the European surrealists, for example, but I don't want to know any of that. I'm going to watch all her films. I might not even bother reading up on her life in case it spoils the illusion. But we'll see.
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If this thread gets more than twelve views, I'll buy you all a pint. One pint to share amongst all of you.
Now, you see, I'm a bit of a dunderheid, and not at all brainy, so I don't really know an awful lot about anything. But I recently became aware of Maya Deren's films, and although all you film scholars will be throwing your hands up in horror at my discovering her at this late stage, well so be it. Others can perhaps make me feel better by saying "Never heard of her".
And, to add nutmegs to dunderheidedness, I've only seen one of her films. Perhaps her most well-known one, MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, made in 1943. And I thought it was great. Loved it! So I intend to explore her filmography further. Anyway, to get to the bleedin' point, there are multiple versions of MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON up on the Tube. The majority of them have new scores added fairly recently, but I'm discounting them in order to focus on three in particular.
Exhibit 1: https://youtu.be/bRLJaueDWFI
This begins with a bit of New Orleans jazz over the opening credits. The rest is mostly silent, with just ambient sounds. There's quite an effective use of plink-plonk music edited in sparingly - and even what sounds exactly like half a second of Herrmann's PSYCHO at the 11:10 mark - for a threatening scene involving a knife. What ruins the whole thing though is a kind of whooshing musical effect that accompanies the frequent appearance and inexplicable disappearance of everyday objects (basically a key and a knife). This is real Rentaghost stuff, and cheapens the whole movie.
Exhibit 2: https://youtu.be/0uufBvE93MM
I think this was the way Deren originally shot the film. It has no musical score whatsoever, just ambient sounds. My favourite, and curiously it's the only one of the three I watched that actually had dialogue. The"man" is heard to say "Hi"... In the other versions he opens his mouth but emits no sound. So, one word of dialogue and no music. Yes, this is the best in my nutmeggian opinion.
Exhibit 3: https://youtu.be/H0tDufAxI2I
This one has a score by Japanese composer Teiji Ito. Apparently it was Maya Deren herself who decided, way after the film was made, that it needed music, so she asked Teiji Ito to do it. He would also become her third and final husband. She died at the age of 44, hardly a year after their marriage. I don't think the music works. It's simply not needed, and although it's about as far from the Hollwood sound as you can get, it still seems to me like a bad, and odd, decision. Thankfully the Rentaghost whooshing effects are gone (see Exhibit 1), but Ito "replaces" them with some authentic Japanese percussion hits, which don't do the film justice either. Some bamboo flutes and droning effects cover the rest of it.
Nah, it's Exhibit 2 for me. Any thoughts?
Deren is fantastic. I now almost always teach Meshes in my avant garde unit when I teach the university's introductory film studies courses. I find that the film works especially well paired with Bunuel/Dali's Un Chien Andalou, as it often works as a feminist critique of that film's latent misogyny. In terms of the soundtrack, I tend go back and forth between using Exhibit 2 and Exhibit 3, but I'm not sure I have a hard preference for either - in ideal scenarios where we actually have some time, I show them both and have the students compare the two.
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Posted: |
Jun 26, 2018 - 2:21 PM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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bobb, we're at more than 120 views! If it's any consolation to you, all the Basil Kirchin threads usually get less than your John Scotts, unless I actively participate, calling you all nutmegs for not agreeing with my assessment of him.
Pedestrian - Ah, so you teach film? I've no idea about anything, but I wonder if you've inadvertantly misread some of my previous rabbits. Whatever the case, you have raised a doubt in my tiny head. You say that in class you switch between "Exhibit 2" and "Exhibit 3". Exhibit 3 is the one with the Ito score which Deren asked for years after making the film. But don't forget that what I named "Exhibit 2" is the one with no score at all, but with extremely effective use of ambient sound, plus that one word of dialogue. If you look at my earlier comments, that's the version I originally thought was the way Deren had made it in 1943. Then I changed my mind when I realised that the original was COMPLETELY silent, no score, no ambient sound. Is that right? Are you showing the "completely silent" one - which I labelled "Exhibit 4" - plus the Ito-scored one, or the one with sound effects, Exhibit 2, which I since became to believe was of unknown origin?
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bobb, we're at more than 120 views! If it's any consolation to you, all the Basil Kirchin threads usually get less than your John Scotts, unless I actively participate, calling you all nutmegs for not agreeing with my assessment of him.
Pedestrian - Ah, so you teach film? I've no idea about anything, but I wonder if you've inadvertantly misread some of my previous rabbits. Whatever the case, you have raised a doubt in my tiny head. You say that in class you switch between "Exhibit 2" and "Exhibit 3". Exhibit 3 is the one with the Ito score which Deren asked for years after making the film. But don't forget that what I named "Exhibit 2" is the one with no score at all, but with extremely effective use of ambient sound, plus that one word of dialogue. If you look at my earlier comments, that's the version I originally thought was the way Deren had made it in 1943. Then I changed my mind when I realised that the original was COMPLETELY silent, no score, no ambient sound. Is that right? Are you showing the "completely silent" one - which I labelled "Exhibit 4" - plus the Ito-scored one, or the one with sound effects, Exhibit 2, which I since became to believe was of unknown origin?
Ah, yeah I must have misread - I switch between total silence and the Ito score (which in some ways makes it an entirely different film!).
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Yes, all of Deren's film's were originally silent.
There was a DVD collection of her work that came out a couple of years ago and went out of print right away, I was able to rent it but I never found a copy to buy.
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Posted: |
Jun 28, 2018 - 11:14 AM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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Teiji Ito's score for MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON was apparently released. Here it is.
https://youtu.be/kmrZ6aDAYVg
I think there might be a bit of repetition there, because it's almost as long as the film, and even the scored version had plenty of stretches of silence. I must insist on my nutmeggian opinion that I don't like this music in the film (sorry Maya -that's your fault), and I don't like it as a standalone listen. I'm all for music which challenges us, but this just gets on my tits.
I did watch - yet again- the completely silent version of MESHES. Itdrew me in a lot more this time, and I actually picked up on little visual touches which had eluded me before, or at least had become distorted through viewing the film with the Ito score, or even the illigitemate one with the ambient sounds.
So, in order to flog a dead donkey into a necrophile state of frenzy, I'll summarize my aforementioned summary posted the other day -
My favourite is what I called in my first post "Exhibit 2". Just sound effects. Bastardization, approved by nobody except me.
Second favourite is just any of the versions with the sound turned down, silent as initially conceived.
Least favourite is the one with the Ito score.
That makes me feel really idiotic, like if there were a poll asking, "Which version of LEGEND do you prefer - the one with the Jerry Goldsmith score, or the one with the Tangerine Dream score?" And I answer, "The fan-made YouTube upload with the tracked-in library cues by Basil Kirchin". Actually, that might be my real answer.
Thank the lord that MESHES is the only one of Deren's films where she herslf endorsed a score. I'd hate to fanny around with the rest of her fimography watching "with and withouts". Oh but wait - my favourite MESHES was the one that she had nothing to do with. Bah humbug, I'm going to plough ahead and watch them all with the sound down and that's that.
Next one is an "unfinished" thing about a demon or something. Then there's that quite famous one of her on a beach. Oh, and I'm looking forward to the one that hasn't got any people in it, just cats. I think she might have one or two short dance films too. I'll probably skip the three-thousand hours of voodoo drumming she recorded on tape.
But I've gone and made it sound as if I don't even like the films of Maya Deren now. I do, I've only seen one so far and it's MESHES IN THE AFTERNOON and it's bloody brilliant.
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