The Witches’ Cradle
Maya Deren & Marcel Duchamp, USA, 1943, 12 min

In 1943, DEREN began making a film with Marcel Duchamp, The Witches’ Cradle, which was never completed.

Meshes of the Afternoon
Maya Deren, USA, 1943, 14 min

A short experimental film directed by wife and husband team, MAYA DEREN and ALEXANDER HAMMID. The film’s narrative is circular, and repeats a number of psychologically symbolic images, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean. Through creative editing, distinct camera angles, and slow motion, the surrealist film depicts a world in which it is more and more difficult to catch reality.

***

Marjoe
Howard Smith & Sarah Kernochan, USA, 1972, 88 min

Marjoe was a precocious child preacher with extraordinary talents, who was immensely popular in the American South. His parents earned large sums of money off him up until the point he outgrew his novelty. Marjoe rejoined the ministry as a young adult solely as a means of earning a living, and not as a believer; he spent the next several years using his fame and status as an evangelist to defraud a small fortune out of individuals both through tent revivals and televangelism.

Eventually, Gortner suffered a crisis of conscience and decided to renounce his ways, offering the documentary film crew unrestricted access to him during his final revival tour. The film contains scenes from genuine revival meetings showing Gortner preaching and praying for people, interspersed with footage of Gortner admitting on camera that he was a non-believer and revealing the tactics used by himself and other evangelists to manipulate people. – WIKI

Deliver Us From Evil
Amy J. Berg, USA, 2006, 101 min

The film chronicles Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady, who admitted to having molested and raped approximately 25 children in Northern California between the late 1970s and early 1990s. After being convicted of child molestation and serving seven years in prison, O’Grady was deported to his native Ireland, where Berg interviewed him in 2005.

Additionally, the film presents trial documents, videotaped depositions, and interviews with activists, theologians, psychologists and lawyers which suggest that not only were Church officials aware of O’Grady’s crimes, they actively took steps to conceal them. – WIKI

Din Of Celestial Birds
E. Elias Merhige, USA, 2006, 14 min

The film begins with the phrase « hello and welcome … do not be afraid … be comforted … remember … our origin… » and proceeds to depict the first violent formation of matter from nothingness. Then, after a hyper-accelerated trip through the evolution of life and the earth, the film culminates in the birth of a embryonic pseudo-humanoid that reaches to some unknown source.

It is the second of an unofficial trilogy of experimental films, the preceding film being Begotten (1991), which deals with the Genesis Creation Story.

***

Begotten (1991) by E. ELIAS MERHIGE (June 22, 2011)