SOURCE: A review of Meditation on Violence, in Monthly Film Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 654, July, 1988, pp. 216-17.

In the following review, Rees discusses how the changes in film style in Deren's Meditation on Violence match the changes in the film's action.

Against a blank studio wall, a half-naked Chinese boxer performs in two traditional modes. To a solo flute, balletically flowing movements (Wu-tang) are captured by similarly fluid camerawork. This turns into a more erratic and jagged movement (Shaolin), reflected in the abrupt editing for the boxer's jabs and kicks. A drum is added to the flute, the music and action quicken, until the boxer makes a jump-cut leap to a flat rooftop where, now armed and in a warrior's robes, he enacts dramatic swordplay to the sound of rapid drumbeats. At his climactic jump, midway through this section and at the apex of the film, the boxer is...