Women in Windows

What do these 3 photos say to you?

You might know the photo of 20th-century filmmaker Maya Deren where she’s behind a window, glancing past the camera, the palms of her hands open against the glass. It’s from her silent, black and white 16 mm film, Meshes of the Afternoon, which she co-directed and acted in. I’m haunted by its mystery, where the reflection of the trees seems at one with the woman’s thoughts.

Maya Deren, 1943

In 1959 when I was a teenager living in Woodstock NY I was accepted by Deren to be an extra in a film she was making in an old hotel near the center of town. I remember being given a dress to wear and told to walk up a staircase at the back of a large vacant room, to be part of the atmosphere. Looking it up now, I find it was her unfinished film, Season of Strangers. In this photo below I must be standing on the balcony to the right.

From Maya Deren’s unfinished experimental film, Season of Strangers, 1959

To me, a woman in a window invites a story and if I don’t know hers, I’ll make one up. One of my favorite French writers is Colette (1873-1954). Here she is looking out of her window on the Palais-Royal in 1941. I image her having a brief conversation with a friend on the street, that I’ve taken (out of context) from her novel Julie de Carneilhan.

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette in Paris, 1941

“Do you hear that? They were supposed to pick me up at a quarter past eight. It’s turned nine, and there they are kicking up a row on the stairs. Aren’t people awful nowadays? What a crew!”

“Who are they?”

Julie shrugged her shoulders.

“Nobody. Some young friends of mine.”

“Our sort of age?”

She gave him a long, challenging look.

“My dear, would you expect them to be!”

“Well, for Heaven’s sake, drop them for this evening.”

She blushed, and tears came to her eyes.

“No, no, I won’t! Why should I remain all alone when everybody else is having fun? There is a very good film at the Marbœuf and the program changes to-morrow.”

Finally, here’s one more photo of a woman in a window. I can’t remember who took it, or when, or what window it was, but it’s myself some years ago. You can make up your own version of what makes a Wild Woman. I look like I’m thinking about it!

Women in windows offer a kind of inspiration, though it’s not always well defined and sometimes it’s even private. But they always invite you to look inside to find your own meaning for their circumstances.

Maya Deren photo can be found online and in Modern Women; Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz with essays by others, MoMA, NY, 2010

Still from Maya Deren’s film, 1959Season of Strangers

Photo of Colette at her window in Paris is by Pierre Jahan, 1941

My copy of Colette’s Julie de Carneilhan was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 1952, translated from the French

“Wild Woman” photo, property of Deda Edney