Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

United States

1969

180 Min

Color

English

Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
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CAST Timothy Leary, Ed Emshwiller, Franz Fuenstler, Jack Smith, Mario Montez, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol, Judith Malina, Storm De Hirsch, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Stan Brakhage, Lou Reed, John Cale, Shirley Clarke, Nick Dorsky, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jerome Hill, Ken Jacobs, Peter Kubelka, Naomi Levine, Gregory J. Markopoulos, Adolfas Mekas, Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, Hans Richter, Barbet Schroeder, Harry Smith, P. Adams Sitney, Michael Snow

Poet and hero of the American counter-culture, Jonas Mekas, born in Lithuania in 1922, invented the diary form of film-making. Walden, his first completed diary film, an epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s, is also a groundbreaking work of personal cinema. —Re-Voir

“Jonas Mekas’ films celebrate life. They rise up against the world’s overwhelming commercialism, attempting instead to revive the pleasures of friendship, a first snowfall or the return of Spring. Mekas’s genius stems from his generously including the viewer in his vision of the world, allowing us to (re)discover, in a simple image, the incredible force and necessity of poetry.” —Yann Beauvais

Director

Jonas Mekas

Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in Semeniskiai, Lithuania. He currently lives and works in New York. In 1944, Jonas Mekas and his brother, Adolfas, were taken by the Nazis and imprisoned in a forced labor camp in Nazi Germany for eight months. After the War, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz from 1946-48 and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother to the U.S. settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed the money to buy his first Bolex 16-mm camera and began to record moments of his life. He discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s pioneering cinema 16, and he began screening his own films in 1953. He 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. Recently, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the American Museum of the Moving Image screened Letters from Greenpoint and the Mead Gallery at the University of Warwick, England, Monash University Museum of Art, and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia, held exhibitions for Mekas this past fall. In May 2006, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. held a lecture entitled “meet the artist” and screened Reminisces of a Journey to Lithuania. The Directors Guild of America awarded Anthology Film Archives a DGA Honors recognizing the center’s dedication to preserving the art of cinema. In its annual selection of 25 films, Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania was esteemed by the United States National Film Preservation Board to be selected for preservation at the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. His films were also screened at Art Basel Miami and Mekas was honored at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award ceremony for his significant contribution to American film culture. 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. –jonasmekas.com

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fleurare

4Jan12

Walden could well be the first diary film with many lovely scenes from Mekas' times, but the film does not make me think much. One of the narrating texts is 'RABBIT SHIT'. I can understand why he indulged himself in making this, seemingly a film opposing consumerism. However, it is frustratingly cut and it really becomes ugly in its self-importance.

Wu Yong

27Mar12

"What is the difference between a ‘filmer’ and a filmmaker? Me, I just film my life. I have no plan, no script. I have no idea what I will do with the footage. But filmmakers usually have a script, have an idea, want to make a film. They know, more or less, what that film will be and what they want it to be. They collect material to make that film. I consider they are filmmakers; they make films. They have a program, they have a plan, an idea. I don’t have. I just film."* Pretty much the exact opposite of self-important... No?
fleurare

14Apr12

I guess you are right and you have made me think differently of the film by repeating what the director said. He was just filming his life. But why should we care? The film isn't really enjoyable to watch. At least, I did not care. Some of it was heartwarming. But what I disliked most about the film was how it was so frustratingly cut. He did not need to include everything in his film, but instead he has cut it so it is very difficult to watch.

Wu Yong

27Mar12

Maybe a waltz was played at the wedding and that was the personal, auditory memory of said event... At another one he interrupts action with, "Music played, and played, and played." His approach to sound is just as important as his approach to the visual.