Watch Maya Deren’s Unfinished 1943 Occult Movie

Maya Deren was an experimental filmmaker probably best known for her dreamlike first film MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON and the unforgettable documentary DIVINE HORSEMEN: THE LIVING GODS OF HAITI.

Here are the shots taken for an unfinished film called WITCH’S CRADLE (1943). The silence, repetition of takes, and slates between shots add an element of strangeness to a film that is already plenty eerie and weird. As with so many experimental films of the time, it seems to be from a much later era. If you saw these same images shot on a camcorder with Cabaret Voltaire music underneath, you could easily believe it was from 1983 instead. The man here is played by Marcel Duchamp, by the way. Enjoy.