Jonas Mekas
Birth: Dec. 24, 1922 (Semeniskiai, Lithuania)
Official Website: JonasMekas.com
Major Works: A Letter From Greenpoint (2005)
As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000)
Zefiro Torna or Scenes From the Life of Scenes From the Life of George Maciumas (1992)
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1985)
Scenes of the Life Of Andy Warhol (1982)
Paradise Not Yet Lost (a/k/a Oona’s Third Year) (1979)
Notes For Jerome (1978)
In Between: 1964-68 (1978)
Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972)
Walden (1969)
Notes on the Circus (1966)
Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (1964)
The Brig (1963)
Guns of the Trees (1961)
Notes: Excerpted from official bio:
[Jonas Mekas] has been one of the leading figures of American avant-garde filmmaking or the “New American Cinema,” as he dubbed it in the late ’50s, playing various roles: in 1954, he became editor and chief of Film Culture; in 1958 he began writing his “Movie Journal” column for the Village Voice; in 1962 he co-founded the Film- Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) and the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde films. His own output ranging from narrative films (Guns of the Trees, 1961) to documentaries (the Brig, 1963) and to “diaries” such as Walden (1969); Lost, Lost, Lost, (1975); Reminiscences of a Voyage to Lithuania, (1972); Zefiro torna, (1992) and As I was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2001) have been screened extensively at festivals and museums around the world.
Most recently, the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center was established in Vilnius, Lithuania and exhibitions will focus on art and film collections by Mekas and his friend and artistic collaborator George Maciunas, founder of the Fluxus art movement. Opening in late 2007, the Center will house an extensive avant-garde film archive and library and has plans to build a Fluxus Research Institute.
Other Resources: IMDB: Profile
Bad Lit: Posts
Senses of Cinema: Interview; Profile
The Vilinius: Interview
More Milk Yvette: Retrospective Review
Camouflage Lenses: Appreciation
Amazon: Movie Journal: The Rise of the New American Cinema
Video: Jonas Mekas talks about Underground Cinema. Part I
[...] The Guide’s only been live for a few days now and there’s still not that much content on there yet, but I’m excited to be working on it, so I wanted to announce it sooner than later. Right now, I’m focusing on entering “the classics” alternating with more modern fare. (Although, the most “modern” films are from 1999.) Also, it didn’t seem right to start another underground film site without beginning it with Jonas Mekas, so he was my first entry. [...]
[...] retrospectives of the “Beat Cinema” movement of the ’60s, which includes films by Jonas Mekas, Ron Rice, Robert Frank, John Cassavetes, William S. Burroughs and more; and a two-night program of [...]
[...] also, I remember a couple years ago I was reading the transcript of an old discussion between Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage where they were hopeful about a future world where every home had an 8mm [...]
[...] other underground film on the list is Lost Lost Lost by Jonas Mekas. Although this collage diary film was completed just a year earlier than Eraserhead in 1976, it [...]
[...] screened, there will be a live discussion with Cameron, plus filmmaker and friend of Clarke’s Jonas Mekas; and film critic-programmer Cullen [...]