by Timothy Morrise_> I feel like with “The Neon Demon,” there’s a prevalent urge to default to “style over substance” as a means of accounting the film’s value. And that’s not just because of Refn’s unbashed love of halogens or throbbing electronica, it’s really because that’s the most memorable part. How can you ignore the prevelance of style over substance when “The Neon Demon’s” dialogue is so vapid and unsubstantive? Style screams while any pretense of substance recedes into the background
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by Aric HarrisonIn 1943 Maya Deren, a Russian born dancer/choreographer bought a second hand camera and with it she became the mother of Avant-Garde filmmaking. With the help of her cinematographer husband, Alexander Hammid, she gave life to one of the most inspired avant-garde films of all time, and one of the first feminists themed films, Meshes of the Afternoon. In this sixteen-minute nightmare we become part of Deren’s dark and oppressive reality. We watch as time gradually breaks her apart, fragmenting her into multiple dreamlike existences. She is forced to confront herself, her subconscious, and the patriarchal system that she exists in. What we discover is that her personal freedom derives from the separation of herself in life, through death, from the man who has taken her individual liberty away. He has brought her into a home that feels distant to her. She cannot cope. Deren’s contempt for the restrictiveness of her relationship quickly leads her away from sanity. She must reflect herself in order to understand herself.
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ContributorsThe contributors for Cashiers of Cinema are a menagerie of creators devoted to Radical Aesthetics. Meetings are held at the dumpster behind Winkie's. Archives
December 2016
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