SOURCE: "The Spacialization and Recuperation of Disorder," in Afterimage, Vol. 15, No. 3, October, 1987, pp. 12-3.

In the following excerpt, Renov discusses Deren's film and writing as "most clearly evok[ing as well as theoriz[ing] the heterotopic effects that have been attributed to the film noir, primarily through their elaboration of the horizontal and vertical axes of meaning potential to cinema."]

The work and writing of Maya Deren most clearly evoke as well as theorize the heterotopic effects that have been attributed to the film noir, primarily through their elaboration of the horizontal and vertical axes of meaning potential to cinema. During a now-famous symposium on the poetic film held in New York City in 1953, Deren described the functioning of these twin paradigms in the meaning construction of the avant-garde film form by relating filmic inscription to literary practice:

The poetic construct arises from the fact … that it is...