Week 4 (July 12 – 18) – Roots of the Underground: Film-makers’ Coop
The Film-Makers’ Cooperative is a non-profit dedicated to experimental and avant-garde cinema; almost all of the most well-known American experimental filmmakers have had works in their catalogue at some point.
“I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick.“
Maya Darden may have only lived to be 44, but when you’re addicted to amphetamines, obsessed with voodoo and in a social circle with people like Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, John Cage and Anaïs Nin, you probably live a couple of lifetimes that normal people just sleep through.
Starring Duchamp, The Witch’s Cradle stands at the crossroads of surrealism, exploring the notion of time and space as witchcraft has always attempted to do. The film unfolds as a series of ritualistic vignettes, eschewing traditional narrative structure for a deeply symbolic, dream-like progression. It centers on an unnamed young woman (Pajorita Matta) who navigates a mysterious, shifting environment alongside an elderly man (Duchamp).
Filled with the repetitive, deliberate motion of a string being woven into complex, spiderweb-like patterns between the characters’ hands, this short film explores how the occult world and our own can become intertwined. Reality itself tends to blur, as we see an exposed human heart, oppressive shadows and unconventional camera angles. The law of the trapezoid — as LaVey said, “I am here, solid as can be, more massive than an ordinary block, but something’s missing, and it bothers you.” — Is that something missing that frustrates and upsets us? In the same way, these angles make us wonder why we’re seeing the mundane in such an extraordinary way.
The Witch’s Cradle was never completed. Despite being shot in 1943, the film remains a collection of footage that, even in its raw state, moves the viewer. The production was filmed at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery in New York City, which lends itself well to the film’s dream world. Isn’t capturing a movie onto celluloid an act of magic in and of itself, capturing a fleeting moment in time or an idea in ember?
Deren’s fascination with ritual is evident in every frame, creating a visual language that relies on instinctual response rather than intellectual decoding. A child’s game becomes so much more, moving past physical rope and becoming a profound symbol.
According to Encyclopedia.com, “During the witchcraft persecutions in Europe, inquisitors were said to have sometimes put an accused witch in a bag, which was then strung up over the limb of a tree and set swinging. When witches learned about this punishment, they experimented with it themselves and found that the sensory deprivation or confusion of senses it caused induced hallucinatory experiences. A similar technique has long been used by shamans and dervishes and is sometimes known as “dervish dangling.” It involves being suspended by a rope tied around the waist. Modern researchers have followed up on this insight and developed, among other devices, the ASCID (Altered States of Consciousness Induction Device). The ASCID was devised by Robert Masters and Jean Houston of the Foundation for Mind Research. This technological-age witches’ cradle is a metal swing in which the subject stands while blindfolded and wearing earplugs. The motion of the swing exaggerates the slightest movement of the occupant. Profoundly altered states of consciousness involving hallucinatory visions and sensations often take place within 20 minutes.“
Even the methods that were used to torture witches can be transformed; you can take what is used against you and transform reality itself. There’s a lot to meditate on within this film, and I look forward to watching it again and again.
You can watch this on YouTube.
