That's fair - at best the montage can only suggest more fundamental similarities between the visions of the two filmmakers, it can't fully demonstrate them (which may be a drawback of the short form). My hope for it, beyond serving as a sort of visceral rhythmic experience (which was one of my goals), is that it can serve as an invitation for viewers to dig deeper into the bonds between Deren and Lynch. Both subvert physical reality and blur dream states with waking life in order to reflect psychological trauma and suggest the instability of everyday reality. Specifically, they both employ unique motifs like otherworldly beings overlapping with the appearance of ordinary people, characters gazing at (and harming) their own doubles, and impossible representations of passage through both time and space. I gathered some quotes last summer to explore some of these similarities: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2015/07/across-threshold-with-maya-d...

Also, on a formal note I'm really not a fan of cropping the aspect ratio to make everything blend together, which hurt Carvajal's video in my opinion. This is a heterogeneous body of work and should be treated as such! (In my opinion)

I watched both and found Fiasconaro's video the more compelling. I didn't really know what Caravajal was going for with his video until I read the essay - which may be my fault, but on first view it struck me as a series of loosely-assembled clips without a thematic throughline (other than, "here are some women in Scorsese's films"). Fiasconaro's work, while ostensibly designed to be seen in conjunction with a lecture, functioned quite well on its own, seemed more highly organized, and yet retained an ambiguity because of the lack of narration. I don't know if a particular takeaway was intended, to me but it was not that Scorsese marginalizes women but rather that he effectively portrays abusive and demeaning situations without watering them down. Thanks for discussing these pieces!

"Maybe instead of criticizing people offering free resources, you could simply add to the conversation by sharing your own expertise."'

Yes - credentials are worth about as much as you do with them (or without them).