The Very Eye of Night

1958 ""

The Very Eye of Night

6.2 | en | Music

Dancers, shown in photographic negative, perform a series of ballet moves, solos, pas de deux, larger groupings. The dancers glide and rotate untroubled by gravity against a slowly changing starfield background. Their movements are accompanied by music scored for a small ensemble of woodwind and percussion.

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6.2 | en | Music | More Info

Released: May. 03,1958 | Released Producted By: , Country: United States of America Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:

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Maya Deren

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Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "The Very Eye of Night" is one of Maya Deren's longer films at 15 minutes. It is also her last work as writer and director counting her known movies. She was 40 when this one was made here and unfortunately dead 3 years later already. There is not too much to this short movie. We see a starry sky early on and after this introduction ballet dancers appear in the sky. We do not really see their faces though as this one is probably mostly about the aesthetics of dancing and the figures they are presenting. Still Ihave to say this is not really that much content and even starts to drag a bit, even at 15 minutes. It does not get too interesting in the first place. I felt this film looks like it could have been 50 years older maybe, not only because of the black-and-white, but also because of how simple it is. Hands down, some movies from 1898 told more of a story. Really only worth a watch for ballet lovers.

jazzest Inverted images of dancers with fixed outlines move across a starry sky. From the contemporary point of view, The Very Eye of Night, Maya Deren's last finished short, looks like a special effects computer application's tutorial; an innocent use of the "latest" technology comes to look cheap eventually. Probably it is an exercise piece whose experiment would have been developed if she had not passed away three years later.

wildstrawbe The Very Eye of Night is according to some critics Maya Deren's weakest work something that enraged Maya. I do understand why someone would not like this film as much as her first films but I still think it's quite good. The use of a balet that dances with a starry sky in the background (a very surreal picture) wouldn't interest me that much if it wasn't for Teiji Ito's music which is what really makes this film for me.

madsagittarian Too many people short shrift the works of Maya Deren after her "trance" period, when she made films with her first husband Alexander Hammid. Because she changed her filming style entirely does not make her "wrong" for doing so. This, and MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE, are absorbing studies of movement and ritual. The premise of this delicate dream piece is simply a study of ballet movements shot from overhead, as a starry sky is superimposed over their actions. With sparse music by Deren's second husband Teiji Ito, this is a movie which defies filmic space. It is an entrancing piece which transcends the human body into a cosmic form of being. Thoughts to consider: was Teiji Ito the first "ambient" musician?