1. RESEARCH OBJECT AND PROBLEM

Considering the achievements of filmmaker Maya Deren, the following project seeks to understand the relationships between her film work, the Romantic movement and the sphere of modernism.

Challenging the artist's own assertions, by presenting herself in opposition, conceptual elements common to the movement and, in particular, to Schlegel's search for a “modern mythology” are identified. A reading that directs her work towards the continuity and unfolding of an aesthetic current not yet associated with the artist.

In the possibility of historical unfolding of the ideas initiated in the Romantic period, indicated as the 18th century, approximate elements can be considered in the modern period. This is what Michael Lõwy and Robert Sayre suggest in “Révolte et Mélancolie” (Sayre and Löwey, 1992), where the fundamental and common principles of Romanticism are exposed, in the face of the heterogeneity and contradictions inherent to the movement.

Starting from the critique of Aufklarüng, the rational and scientific thought presented by the Enlightenment and supported by the ideology of the rising bourgeois class, several currents would develop from a cultural crisis, generated by the loss of the symbolic reading of the world. They would culminate in a response to the loss of human qualities, knowledge and specific previous experiences. Faced with instrumental rationalization and quantification, they would affirm subjectivity. Faced with the disenchantment of the world, the imaginary, the possibility of other possible worlds, and the look in Nostalgia to the past as an exemplary model of the values ​​sought (Sayre and Löwey, 1992, p. 31, 32).

Deren, like the Romantics, will affirm the poetic. In his “Cinema of Poetry” (Cine-Poem), he will seek non-rational, non-logical expressiveness. This is constituted in the superposition of images, like the verses of a poem. He calls it a “Vertical” structure in the form of an “Anagram” and defends it as a theory of cinema (Deren, 1946 apud Sitney, 2000, p. 171). He affirms a rupture with the representation of reality, defining the function of the work of art as a poetic insertion in the real plane for the process of transformation of reality. As influences for these ideas he cites Jean Cocteau, in his thought for poetry, and

TE Hulme on the relationship between art and morality (Deren, 1946, p. 15, 51).

Another point of convergence with romanticism is the appropriation of forms and thoughts from pre-capitalist and non-Western societies. Having influence from

Modern anthropology, in direct dialogue with professionals and with a specific interest in mythology and ritual, would incorporate African and Asian elements. In romanticism, there is a strong orientalist tendency. Relating it to the characteristics of modern times, it points to the universality and timelessness of individual and social movements in the permanence and similarity of attributes between eras. There are the documentaries Divine Horseman The Living Gods of Haiti, in contact with the Haitian community that practices Vodou, the religion to which he converted, and the unfinished documentary in which he associates mythology and children's games of his contemporaneity (Sullivan, 2001, p. 207).

He would propose what he calls Ritualistic Form or Ritual Cinema. The conclusions will be the defining terms of the form and figurative field articulated between the fictional works At Land and Ritual in Transfigured Time, taking scientific research into the imaginary field. He suggests as defining elements: the depersonalization of the artist in anonymity; the realization within pre-established codes; the insertion into a mythological sphere; and a stylized form that distinguishes it from reality, making it timeless, linked to eternity. The film itself is seen as a ritualistic movement that provokes a rupture in temporality and, as a consequence, the progress of reality.

For want of a better term which can refer to the quality which the art forms of various civilizations have in common, I suggest the word ritualistic.[...] It creates fear, for example, by creating an imaginative, often mythological experience which, by containing its own logic within itself, has no reference to any specific time or place, and is forever valid to all time and place1 (Deren, 1946, p. 19, 20).

These elements converge specifically with two Romantic authors, Schlegel and Schelling. The first in the defense of a Modern Mythology and the second in the universality between cultures (Lowy; Sayre, 1992, p. 50, 51). Considering the first author, in Rede über die neue Mythologie (translated as “Discourse on the New Mythology” (Schlegel, 1994), Schlegel expresses the convergence between mythology and poetry, as a form for modernity. In the allegory, the human dimensions that surpass reason would be manifested, leading to the deep sensitive dimension. Mythology as a poetic reading of the world would be the path to

1 “For lack of a better term that can refer to the quality that the art forms of various civilizations have in common, I suggest the word ritualistic. (...) It creates fear, for example, by creating an imaginative, often mythological experience, which, because it contains its own logic within itself, does not refer to any specific time or place, and is eternally valid for all times and places.” (Deren, 1946, p. 19,20, our translation)

creation of a new realism. He sees in poetry another or new path of thought, overcoming the philosophical and scientific system.

I will come to my point. I say that our poetry lacks a center, as mythology did for the ancients, and that everything essential in which modern poetic art owes to the ancient lies in these words: we have no mythology.” [...] The new mythology must, on the contrary, be elaborated from the deepest depths of the spirit; it must be the most artificial of all works of art (Schlegel, 1994, p. 53).

That mythlogy is today, an imaginative exercise for us, should not obscure the reality it had for those who lived by it. And since the greater part of knowledge of primitive societies was a mythological knowledge, the art was an art of knowledge2 (Deren, 1946, p. 15).

As a romantic, Schlegel outlines the sources for the origin of the new mythology: the look at antiquity, which must be overcome; like Deren, the look at the mythology of other cultures; the artificiality and the clash of contradictions, which would lead to universality linked to the absolute romantic ideal (Schlegel, 1994, p. 55). Although the author is not directly linked to idealism, the approximations may point to the origin of her thought.

To the modern character of his mythology, Deren responds with the impossibility of a perception according to that of the ancients, language being a function of the mediation of other perceptive instruments, generated by modern industrial technology. He distinguishes the modern primitive artist from the ancient primitive artist, distant in time but united by a common source.

The reality which we must today extend the large fact which we must comprehend, just as the primitive artist comprehend and extend his own reality-is the relativism which the airplane, the radio and the new physics has made a reality of our lives. [...] We cannot shirk this responsibility by using, as a point of departure, the knowledge and state of mind of some precedent period of history3 (Deren, 1946, p. 17).

As a modernist, it sees the possibility of artificiality in the technical and linguistic means of cinema, of manipulating time and space that are distinct from reality and open to imaginative creation. We see the example of the perceptive distinctions between times and the permanence of

2 "The fact that mythology is today an imaginative exercise for us should not obscure the reality it had for those who lived it. And, as the greater part of the knowledge of primitive societies was mythological knowledge, art was an art of knowledge." (Deren, 1946, p. 15, our translation)

3 The reality we must understand today, and the great fact we must understand—just as the artist

primitive man understood and extended his own reality - it is the relativism that has become an integral part of our lives due to the airplane, the radio, and modern physics. (...) We cannot avoid this responsibility by using, as a starting point, the knowledge or the mentality of some earlier period of history . (Deren, 1946, p. 17, our translation)

ideas, in Schlegel painting, with the metaphor of the arabesque figure (Pacquet, 2006, p. 2), while the great imagery language of his time, in contrast to Deren's choice of cinema. In his reflections, Schlegel's romantic hieroglyphic form (Schlegel, 1994, p. 54) transforms into the modern anagram (Deren, 1946, p. 5), the symbolic construction begins to operate through different factors.

Deren would construct a set of attempts to reconstitute the mythical sphere in the field of modernity, thus updating Schlegel's ideas. However, the filmmaker would not be isolated. Elements of direct approximation between Maya Deren and authors such as André Breton, in the search for a mythological creation for the future; Katherine Dunham, as an influence of anthropology and dance with a view to the rites of African peoples; and Jean Cocteau, considering the defense of mythology in poetic cinema, are identified.

Specifically, a network of influences can be seen through direct contact between the authors. Breton and Duhan are said to have influenced the filmmaker on her trip to Haiti. Duhan, in addition to being a dancer, was an anthropologist by training and made several documentary films investigating body practices in African societies in Central America (Free to Dance Excerpts Featuring Katherine Dunham, 8'33", documentary). One of these societies was Vodou itself, in Haiti. Deren was Duhan's assistant, through whom she would have had contact with African dance.

Breton had also visited the island previously, but, as he was French, he was not allowed to delve into the community’s rites, giving Deren the mission of unraveling them (Bernal, 2018, p. 80). Between them, the dialogue is also established by the constructive strategy. His book Arcanum 17 would be a project to construct this new mythology (which he calls the “New Myth”), consisting of the combination of several previous images, symbols and mythological narratives (Löwy; Sayre, 1992, p. 217). Its function would be the social revolution through mental transformation, also approaching Hulme: “Dans quelle mesure pouvons-nous choisir ou adopter, et imposerr un mythe en rapport avec la société que nos jugeons désirable?” 4 (Löwy; Sayre, 1992, p. 220, 221). Although Deren differentiates himself from surrealism, denying pure automatism by giving a lyrical and dramatic charge to his cinema (SITNEY, 2002, p.14), the similarities instigate investigation.

4 "To what extent can we choose or adopt, and impose a myth regarding the society we consider desirable?" (Löwey; Sayre, 1992, p. 220, 221, our translation)

Bernal confirms the influences of Dunham and Breton, adding a third author outside of Deren’s direct circle, Pierre Mabille – “in 1945 he had organized an exhibition by the Cuban Wifredo Lam in Puerto Príncipe and for the catalogue of said exhibition he wrote a text entitled La manigua en where he made reference to voodoo practices in Haiti” (Bernal, 2018, p. 80). He also describes the interest as a practice of opposition to the cultural sphere generated by Nazism, rooted in the articulation of symbols and references from Greco-Roman mythology.

Thus, joint research activity is suggested. It is worth asking whether it constitutes another moment of the romantic problematic or one with specific characteristics of its time, and whether it is possible to define, as the elaboration of a program, a rationalized and schematized attitude, to be defined around the notion of Modern Mythology.

Having verified the relationships in modernism, it is also important to point out the possible developments in the productions made after the period. Sitney demonstrates Deren's influences on Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith and the development of Structural Cinema (Sitney, 2002, p. 27). He names the group in the category “Mythopoiec”, the production of a mythological cinema produced under the influence of Maya Deren.

Other influences are also evident, such as Deren's insertion into contemporary art in the form of installations by Barbara Hammer and the exhibition and performance movements that have taken place in recent years in Brazil. Given the names, it remains to explain the relationships and deepen them in the tracing of a consistent path.

The need for this work is presented in the absence of research that addresses the romantic origins of her work. The approach to date is unprecedented. This is an understandable position given Deren's anti-romantic attitude, which rejects the movement in her writings (Deren, 1946, p. 20). It is also worth verifying whether Schlegel's theories took literary form and to what depth the interpretations materialized in works would relate to the filmmaker's work. Regarding the second modernity, there is a lack of analysis of anthropological documentary sources on the origins of her fictional form, although they are cited - the reading of Duhan's documentary films and the reading of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson's documentary films, as well as the in-depth study of the stylistic relationship between Breton and Deren and, specifically, the work “Arcano 17” .

2. GOALS

2.1- General Objective

In the presentation of convergences, we seek to investigate the validity of establishing an aesthetic modality around the idea of ​​Modern Mythology. To this end, we propose to delve deeper into the issues and agents of romanticism that generate the definition of the term, as well as its achievements and those specific to modernism in a reading of the forms and concepts that characterize them.

Starting from the relationships between Schlegel and Maya Deren, broaden the field of reading in the identification and understanding of other actors that converge towards the definition. Contextualizing the filmmaker in a broad field of relationships with other languages, analyze her work contextualized to the immanent characteristics of other manifestations, explaining the common structuring and discursive movements based on the syncretic reading between cinema, literature and visual arts.

2.2- Specific Objectives

Verify the relationships between the characteristics described in Schlegel's Modern Mythology and Maya Deren's Ritual Cinema and Poetry Cinema. The impact of Modern Mythology in the context of Romanticism and Ritual Cinema in the context of Modernism. The relationships with André Breton's New Myth. Analyze the variations in definitions and applications, whether similar ideas are used to produce similar productions. The variations in the reading of the terms. Identify the impact and reverberation of the idea of ​​Modern Mythology among Romantic and Modern authors, their assimilations and negations. Once the works and authors have been identified, analyze the ways in which the discourse is constituted, how the particularity of the works together generates the definition. The linguistic resources manipulated, the identification of specific syntactic, grammatical structures and figurative fields. Understand how the mythological poetic form is updated or, in the case of a new formula, how the new mythology is constituted. What are the re-articulated myths or what are the new myths or mythological figures of modernity? Verify the subsequent relationships between contemporary artists and those identified in Mythopoiec, and point out the traces of perpetuation of discursive forms and strategies. Considering the origin of the research, seek to survey the artists of the southern axis who appropriated the ideas and contextualized them to their realities.

3. THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL FIELD

For the research stages, we propose Bibliographical Research in search of theoretical definitions, analysis or criticism of works, in formal or informal texts, as well as readings related to French semiotics, a theoretical instrument to be adopted. The articulation between the movements based on the relations established by Löwy and Sayre (1992, p.202-281) associating romanticism with modernism.

For the theoretical instrument, in the field of Greimasian French semiotics, the general considerations of A. J. Greimas on narrativity and plasticity (1984, 2016) are assimilated, as well as those developed by Denis Bertrand (2000) and José Luiz Fiorin (2004) in the literary field, and Jean-Marie Floch (1985) in the visual field. What is proposed is the combination of literary and visual semiotics, appropriate to the works and the theoretical category targeted.

Greimasian semiotics seeks to “explicit, in the form of conceptual construction, the conditions of apprehension and production of meaning [...], the definition of the elementary structure of signification” (Greimas; Courtés, 2016, p. 455) through the relational reading of the different levels of signification, sense-signified-signifier. “Modern Mythology” can be understood as a system of signification with common operations, figurativities and discursivities, a common set of replicas, ruptures, contradictions, continuities that are transformed when thinking about the same object. Recurrences of semantic and syntactic structures and the existence of constructions specific to the set considered can be verified, which can generate a specific reparable model (Greimas, 1966, p.10). Is it possible to outline this model?

As a starting point, we propose the text “Elements for a Theory of Interpretation of Mythic Recital”, by A. J. Greimas (1966), which points out the modes of operation of mythological narrative, that is, of the constitution of its statements, of the grammatical and narrative functions of its elements, in a view of the whole of its structure and of the parts that constitute it. It exposes its specificities, such as the temporal inversion of the statements that causes the inversion of the content and the unity of the structure anchored in the asocial heroic figure. Its characteristics would generate the predictability inherent to myth, the narrative construction in its pre-established form. A basic model for considerations on Modern Mythology.