fbpx
Wikipedia

Jonas Mekas

Jonas Mekas (Lithuanian: [ˈjonɐs ˈmækɐs]; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema".[1] Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide.[2]

Jonas Mekas
Mekas in 1971
Born(1922-12-24)December 24, 1922
Semeniškiai, Lithuania
DiedJanuary 23, 2019(2019-01-23) (aged 96)
New York City, U.S.
NationalityLithuanian-American
Alma materUniversity of Mainz
Occupations
  • Poet
  • filmmaker
  • artist
Years active1954–2019
MovementAvant-garde cinema
SpouseHollis Melton
Children2
AwardsLithuanian National Prize (1995)
Signature

Mekas was active in New York City, where he co-founded Anthology Film Archives, The Film-Makers’ Cooperative, and the journal Film Culture. He was also the first film critic for The Village Voice.[3]

In the 1960s, Mekas launched anti-censorship campaigns in defense of the LGBTQ-themed films of Jean Genet and Jack Smith, garnering support from cultural figures including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag.

Mekas mentored and supported many prominent artists and filmmakers, including Ken Jacobs, Peter Bogdanovich, Chantal Akerman, Richard Foreman, John Waters, Barbara Rubin, Yoko Ono, and Martin Scorsese. He helped launch the writing careers of the critics Andrew Sarris, Amy Taubin, and J. Hoberman.

Historian Michael Casper has written about Mekas's work editing two far-right, collaborationist newspapers under the Nazi occupation of Lithuania during World War II.[4][5][6]

Early life

Mekas was born in Semeniškiai, the son of Elzbieta (Jašinskaitė) and Povilas Mekas on December 24, 1922.[7][8] As a teenager, he attended the Biržai Gymnasium in Biržai, Lithuania.[9] From 1941 to 1942, living under Nazi occupation, he edited, and published in, Naujosios Biržų žinios, founded by the far-right, anti-semitic[10] Lithuanian Activist Front.[11][12] From 1943 to 1944, he edited, and published in, Panevėžio apygardos balsas, a weekly local newspaper published by the fascist[13] Lithuanian Nationalist Party [lt].[14][15]

In 1944, Mekas left Lithuania with his brother, Adolfas Mekas. They attempted to reach neutral Switzerland by means of Vienna, with fabricated student papers arranged by their uncle.[16] Their train was stopped in Germany, and they were both imprisoned in a labor camp in Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg, for eight months. The brothers escaped and hid on a farm near the Danish border for two months until the end of the war. After the war, Mekas lived in displaced persons' camps in Wiesbaden and Kassel. From 1946 to 1948, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. By the end of 1949 his brother and he had both secured sponsorship through a job in Chicago and emigrated to the United States. When they arrived, the two decided to settle in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex 16mm camera and began recording moments of his life.

He discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel's pioneering Cinema 16, and he began curating avant-garde film screenings at Gallery East on Avenue A and Houston Street and at the Film Forum series at Carl Fisher Auditorium on 57th Street.[17]

Career

In 1954, Mekas and his brother Adolfas founded the journal Film Culture, and in 1958 he began writing his "Movie Journal" column for The Village Voice. In 1962, he co-founded The Film-Makers' Cooperative, and in 1964 the Filmmakers' Cinematheque, which eventually became Anthology Film Archives, one of the world's largest and most important repositories of avant-garde film. Along with Lionel Rogosin, he was part of the New American Cinema movement. He was a close collaborator with artists such as Marie Menken,[18] Andy Warhol,[19] Nico, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, John Lennon,[20] Salvador Dalí, and fellow Lithuanian George Maciunas.

Mekas gave the film Heaven and Earth Magic its title in 1964/65.

In 1964, Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for showing Flaming Creatures (1963) and Jean Genet's Un Chant d'Amour (1950). He launched a campaign against the censorship board, and for the next few years continued to exhibit films at the Filmmakers' Cinematheque, the Jewish Museum, and the Gallery of Modern Art. From 1964 to 1967, he organized the New American Cinema Expositions, which toured Europe and South America, and in 1966 joined the 80 Wooster Fluxhouse Coop.

 
Mekas in 1977

In 1970, Anthology Film Archives opened on 425 Lafayette Street as a film museum, screening space, and library, with Mekas as its director. Mekas, along with Stan Brakhage, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, James Broughton, and P. Adams Sitney, began the ambitious Essential Cinema project at Anthology Film Archives to establish a canon of important cinematic works. Mekas's legs appeared in John Lennon and Yoko Ono's experimental film Up Your Legs Forever (1971).[21]

As a filmmaker, Mekas' own output ranged from his early narrative film Guns of the Trees (1961) to "diary films" such as Walden (1969); Lost, Lost, Lost (1975), Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), Zefiro Torna (1992), and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000), which have been screened at festivals and museums around the world. Mekas' diary films offered a new perspective to the genre and portrayed the cinematic avant-garde scene of the 1960s.

Mekas expanded the scope of his practice with his later works of multi-monitor installations, sound immersion pieces and "frozen-film" prints. Together they offer a new experience of his classic films and a novel presentation of his more recent video work. His work has been exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennial, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, the Ludwig Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, the Jewish Museum, and the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center.

 
Mekas in 2011

In 2007, Mekas released one film every day on his website, a project he entitled "The 365 Day Project."[22] The online diary is still ongoing on Jonas Mekas' official website. It was celebrated in 2015 with a show titled "The Internet Saga" which was curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi at Palazzo Foscari Contarini on the occasion of the 56th Venice Biennale of Visual Arts.

Beginning in the 1970s, Mekas taught film courses at the New School for Social Research, MIT, Cooper Union, and New York University.

Additionally, Mekas was a writer and published his poems and prose in Lithuanian, French, German, and English. His work has been translated into English by the Lithuanian-American poet Vyt Bakaitis in such collections as Daybooks: 1970-1972 (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2003) and a bilingual anthology of modern Lithuanian verse, Gyvas atodūsis/Breathing Free, poems (Lietuvos, 2001). Mekas published many of his journals and diaries, including I Had Nowhere to Go: Diaries, 1944–1954 and Letters from Nowhere, as well as articles on film criticism, theory, and technique. In 2007, the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center was opened in Vilnius.

One of Mekas' last exhibitions, "Notes from Downtown," took place at James Fuentes Gallery on the Lower East Side in 2018.[23] Mekas's last work, Requiem, premiered posthumously at The Shed in New York City on November 1, 2019. The 84-minute video was commissioned by The Shed and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. It screened in tandem with a performance of Verdi's Requiem, conducted by Teodor Currentzis and performed by the musicAeterna orchestra.[24]

In 2018, Ina Navazelskis, an oral historian at the National Institute for Holocaust Documentation, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interviewed Mekas for their Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive. There, he discussed his memories of World War II[25]

"Jonas Mekas: The Camera Was Always Running", the filmmaker's first retrospective in the United States, was organized by Guest Curator Kelly Taxter and on view at the Jewish Museum in the spring of 2022.[26]

German filmmaker Peter Sempel has made three films about Mekas' works and life, Jonas in the Desert (1991), Jonas at the Ocean (2004), and Jonas in the Jungle (2013).

Personal life

Mekas married Hollis Melton in 1974. They had two children, a daughter, Oona, and a son, Sebastian.[27] His family is featured in Jonas's films, including Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty.

Mekas died at his home in Brooklyn on January 23, 2019, at the age of 96.[28][29]

Mekas is the subject of a documentary, Fragments of Paradise, which premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.[30] The film received the award for Best Documentary on Cinema at the Festival.[31]

Controversy over World War II activities

Mekas long maintained that, while working for local newspapers, he also clandestinely-transcribed BBC broadcasts in support of the underground. In 2018, an article in the New York Review of Books by historian Michael Casper challenged Mekas's versions of his wartime activities. Casper claims that Mekas participated "in an underground movement in Biržai that supported the 1941 Nazi invasion of Soviet Lithuania" and worked for "two ultranationalist and Nazi propaganda newspapers, until he fled Lithuania in 1944."[32] Casper noted that Mekas's publications in these newspapers were not anti-Semitic.

At the time, art critic and historian Barry Schwabsky penned a letter to the editor criticizing Casper's essay. He and Casper had an exchange of letters in the New York Review of Books.[33]

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website biography of Mekas maintains that he participated in both the anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi undergrounds.[34]

Following the 2022 exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, Casper published an article entitled "World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum" in Jewish Currents. There, he argued that the "art world at large remains deeply invested in the story of Mekas the anti-Nazi," thus perpetuating revisionism not only erasing his roles, but casting him as an anti-Nazi hero.[35]

In an article for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Casper's charges against the Jewish Museum, journalist Asaf Shalev also pointed out that a two different memos were circulated among the museum employees to dismiss Casper's article.[36] Kelly Taxter, the guest curator of the exhibit, responded to Casper's historical research by saying that "the tone of these emails is often aggressive." This was based on emails shared by the Mekas family, which Shalev also had access to, although Shalev wrote that "Nothing on there looked to me like Casper was bullying Mekas or that Mekas get bullied."[37]

Sovietologist Robert van Voren voiced criticisms of Casper's articles. Saulius Sužiedėlis argued, “The review format of the articles allowed Casper to present judgements without the burden of buttressing his allegations with relevant sources and requisite detail. The resulting narrative turns Jonas Mekas’s life as a young man into something that it was not.”[38][39][40]

The film scholars J. Hoberman and B. Ruby Rich have shown support for Casper's findings.[41][42] In an article in Film Quarterly, B. Ruby Rich stated that, upon Casper's article, "The wagons started circling immediately to protect a sacred figure of the avant-garde."[43]

In 2023, Casper discussed his research on Mekas at length in an interview with Lithuanian journalist Karolis Vyšniauskas.[44]

Awards and honors

 
Mekas on a 2022 stamp of Lithuania

Filmography

Source:[55]

  • Guns of the Trees (1962)
  • Film Magazine of the Arts (1963)
  • The Brig (1964) - 65 minutes
  • Empire (1964)
  • Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (1964)
  • Report from Millbrook (1964–65)
  • Hare Krishna (1966)
  • Notes on the Circus (1966)
  • Cassis (1966)
  • The Italian Notebook (1967)
  • Time and Fortune Vietnam Newsreel (1968)
  • Walden (Diaries, Notes, and Sketches) (1969) - 3 hours
  • Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1971–72)
  • Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)
  • In Between: 1964–8 (1978)
  • Notes for Jerome (1978)
  • Paradise Not Yet Lost (also known as Oona's Third Year) (1979)
  • Street Songs (1966/1983)
  • Cups/Saucers/Dancers/Radio (1965/1983)
  • Erik Hawkins: Excerpts from "Here and Now with Watchers"/Lucia Dlugoszewski Performs (1983)
  • He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1969/1986)
  • Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol (1990)
  • Mob of Angels/The Baptism (1991)
  • Dr. Carl G. Jung or Lapis Philosophorum (1991)
  • Quartet Number One (1991)
  • Mob of Angels at St. Ann (1992)
  • Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (1992)
  • The Education of Sebastian or Egypt Regained (1992)
  • He Travels. In Search of... (1994)
  • Imperfect 3-Image Films (1995)
  • On My Way to Fujiyama I Met... (1995)
  • Happy Birthday to John (1996) - 34 minutes
  • Memories of Frankenstein (1996)
  • Birth of a Nation (1997)
  • Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (1997)
  • Letter from Nowhere – Laiskas is Niekur N.1 (1997)
  • Symphony of Joy (1997)
  • Song of Avignon (1998)
  • Laboratorium (1999)
  • Autobiography of a Man Who Carried His Memory in His Eyes (2000)
  • This Side of Paradise (1999) - 35 minutes
  • Notes on Andy's Factory (1999)
  • Mysteries (1966–2001)
  • As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) - 285 minutes
  • Remedy for Melancholy (2000)
  • Ein Maerchen (2001)
  • Williamsburg, Brooklyn (1950–2003)
  • Mozart & Wien and Elvis (2000)
  • Travel Songs (1967–1981)
  • Dedication to Leger (2003)
  • Notes on Utopia (2003) 30 min
  • Letter from Greenpoint (2004)
  • The Definition of Insanity (film) (2004) (as Dr. Mekas)
  • 365 Day Project (2007), 30 hours in total
  • Notes on American Film Director: Martin Scorsese (2007), 80 minutes.
  • Lithuania and the Collapse of USSR (2008), 4 hours 50 minutes.
  • I Leave Chelsea Hotel (2009), 4 minutes
  • WTC Haikus (2010)
  • Sleepless Nights Stories (Premiere at the Berlinale 2011) - 114 minutes
  • My Mars Bar Movie (2011)
  • Correspondences: José Luis Guerin and Jonas Mekas (2011)
  • Reminiszenzen aus Deutschland (2012)
  • Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man (2012) - 68 minutes[56]
  • Requiem (2019) - 84 minutes[57]

References

  1. ^ Needham, Alex (January 23, 2019). "Jonas Mekas, titan of underground filmmaking, dies aged 96". The Guardian. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
  2. ^ "Interview: Jonas Mekas by Modestas Mankus". Our Culture Mag. Our Culture Mag. April 18, 2017.
  3. ^ . September 21, 2017. Archived from the original on September 21, 2017. Retrieved September 18, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. ^ Casper, Michael. "I Was There | Michael Casper". The New York Review of Books 2022. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
  5. ^ "World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum". Jewish Currents. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  6. ^ Vyšniauskas, Karolis. "Correcting the Record: Michael Casper on Jonas Mekas | NARA". nara.lt. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
  7. ^ Mekas' passport shows December 23, 1922, the date sometimes listed as his "official" date of birth; however, he was actually born on December 24, 1922, as he confirms in this video interview April 4, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ^ "Parodos - Maironio lietuvių literatūros muziejus". maironiomuziejus.lt.
  9. ^ "Mekas, Jonas | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  10. ^ Stasiulis, Stanislovas (February 2020). "The Holocaust in Lithuania: The Key Characteristics of Its History, and the Key Issues in Historiography and Cultural Memory". East European Politics and Societies and Cultures. 34 (1): 261–279. doi:10.1177/0888325419844820. S2CID 204480888.
  11. ^ Tapinas, Laimonas (1997). Žurnalistikos Enciklopedija (in Lithuanian). Vilnius: Pradai. p. 355.
  12. ^ "Jonas Mekas". www.vle.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  13. ^ Saulius, Sužiedėlis (2012). "Memories of Blood: Some Aspects of Lithuanian Responses to the Holocaust" (PDF). Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung. 21: 214–236.
  14. ^ Tapinas, Laimonas (1997). Žurnalistikos Enciklopedija (in Lithuanian). Vilnius: Pradas. p. 373.
  15. ^ "Jonas Mekas". www.vle.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  16. ^ Mekas, Jonas (2017). I had nowhere to go. Leipzig. ISBN 978-3-95905-146-0. OCLC 982432242.
  17. ^ Brody, Richard (April 21, 2016). "Jonas Mekas, Champion of the "Poetic" Cinema". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  18. ^ "Jonas Mekas, I find a kindred spirit in Marie Menken, Web of Stories". Retrieved January 7, 2022.
  19. ^ "Jonas Mekas, Serpentine Gallery, London". The Independent. Archived from the original on June 14, 2022. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  20. ^ "The private world of '60s legends". CNN Style. November 14, 2017. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  21. ^ Jonathan Cott (July 16, 2013). Days That I'll Remember: Spending Time With John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Omnibus Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-78323-048-8.
  22. ^ Short Films Coming Soon to an iPod Near You, All Things Considered, November 5, 2006. Producer Ben Shapiro reports on a plan by filmmaker Jonas Mekas to make short films available as a podcast.
  23. ^ Bloch, Mark (September 4, 2018). "Jonas Mekas: Notes from Downtown". The Brooklyn Rail.
  24. ^ Requiem - The Shed
  25. ^ "Oral history interview with Jonas Mekas - Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". collections.ushmm.org. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  26. ^ Heinrich, Will (March 17, 2022). "The Avant-Garde Filmmaker Who Tried to Tell the Truth". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  27. ^ "Jonas Mekas Film and Videography". Retrieved February 12, 2017.
  28. ^ "Jonas Mekas, avant-garde filmmaker and iconic New Yorker, dies at 96". BrooklynVegan.
  29. ^ Weber, Bruce (January 23, 2019). "Jonas Mekas, 'Godfather' of American Avant-Garde Film, Is Dead at 96". The New York Times. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
  30. ^ "Fragments of Paradise - Our Films - Kunhardt Films". www.kunhardtfilms.com. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
  31. ^ Roxborough, Scott (September 10, 2022). "Sackler Documentary 'All the Beauty and the Bloodshed' Wins Venice 2022 Golden Lion for Best Film". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 11, 2022.
  32. ^ Casper, Michael. "I Was There | Michael Casper". The New York Review of Books 2022. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  33. ^ Casper, Michael; Schwabsky, Barry. "On Jonas Mekas: An Exchange | Barry Schwabsky". The New York Review of Books 2022. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  34. ^ "Oral history interview with Jonas Mekas - Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". collections.ushmm.org. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  35. ^ "World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum". Jewish Currents. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  36. ^ "Historian accuses NY's Jewish Museum of sanitizing filmmaker's World War II record in new exhibit". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. May 12, 2022. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  37. ^ Shalev, Asaf (May 12, 2022). "Personal account".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  38. ^ "Portrait of a Poet as a Young Man: Jonas Mekas in War and Exile - Journal #129 September 2022 - e-flux". www.e-flux.com. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
  39. ^ Vyšniauskas, Karolis. "Ne tik pripažinti, bet prisipažinti. Apie Holokausto atmintį su Sauliumi Sužiedėliu | NARA". nara.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  40. ^ "Forgotten evil? Jonas Mekas and the trauma of the Holocaust – opinion". lrt.lt. May 2, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2022.
  41. ^ "J. Hoberman – Why I cannot review Jonas Mekas's Conversations with Film-Makers". Retrieved July 20, 2022.
  42. ^ "A Deer in the Headlights". Film Quarterly. September 14, 2018. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
  43. ^ "A Deer in the Headlights". Film Quarterly. September 14, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2022.
  44. ^ Vyšniauskas, Karolis. "Correcting the Record: Michael Casper on Jonas Mekas | NARA". nara.lt. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  45. ^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Jonas Mekas".
  46. ^ "San Francisco International Film Festival (1992)". IMDb. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  47. ^ "Jonas Mekas: LIFE GOES ON…I KEEP SINGING – Art in America Guide". Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  48. ^ "1997 Preservation & Scholarship Award: Jonas Mekas". International Documentary Association. November 1, 1997. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  49. ^ "REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA | Cinematheque". www.cia.edu. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  50. ^ "Jonas Mekas | Movie and Film Awards". AllMovie. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  51. ^ "Reply to a parliamentary question" (PDF) (in German). p. 1879. Retrieved November 27, 2012.
  52. ^ "Guggenheim Museum Announces Winners For Rob Pruitt's 2010 Art Awards". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  53. ^ Low, Stuart. "Prizes announced for cinema, photography". Democrat and Chronicle. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  54. ^ "Jonas Mekas Receives The Order Of Arts And Letters". frenchculture.org. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  55. ^ "Jonas Mekas". IMDb. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  56. ^ . Harvard Film Archive. Archived from the original on February 12, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2017.
  57. ^ "Requiem Film Screenings - the Shed".

Further reading

  • Hans-Jürgen Tast (Hrsg.) "As I Was Moving. Kunst und Leben" (Schellerten/Germany 2004) (z.m.a.K.), ISBN 3-88842-026-1.
  • Efren Cuevas, "The Immigrant Experience in Jonas Mekas's Diary Films: A Chronotopic Análisis of Lost, Lost, Lost", Biography, vol. 29, n. 1, winter 2006, pp. 55–73, .
  • Fashion Film Festival presents "The Internet Saga",
  • Roslyn Bernstein & Shael Shapiro, Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo, www.illegalliving.com published by the Jonas Mekas Foundation.
  • Steven Watson, "Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties" Pantheon Books, 2003
  • Michael Casper, "I Was There". New York Review of Books, June 7, 2018.[3]
  • Robert van Voran (May 2, 2021). "Forgotten evil? Jonas Mekas and the trauma of the Holocaust – opinion". lrt.lt. Retrieved April 28, 2022.
  • Inesa Brašiškè, Lukas Brasiskis, and Kelly Taxter, Jonas Mekas: The Camera Was Always Running. New York and New Haven: Jewish Museum and Yale University Press. 2022. ISBN 978-0-300-25307-8
  • Michael Casper, "World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum". Jewish Currents, April 21, 2022.[4]
  • Saulius Sužiedėlis, “Portrait of a Poet as a Young Man: Jonas Mekas in War and Exile”. e-flux Journal, Issue #129, September 2022.[5]
  • Ivanov, Maksim. Jonas Mekas' Diary Films in: Lithuanian Cinema: Special Edition for Lithuanian Film Days in Poland 2015, Auksė Kancerevičiūtė [ed.]. Vilnius: Lithuanian Film Centre, 2015. ISBN 6099574409.

External links

  • Jonas Mekas' website
  • The Anthology Film Archives
  • Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center
  • A Conversation between Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage
  • Interview with Interview Magazine
  • Interview with 3:AM Magazine
  • Jonas Mekas "The Internet Saga", Venice
  • Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
  • Jonas Mekas interview with Our Culture Mag
  • Jonas Mekas in conversation with the Brooklyn Rail
  • Jonas Mekas tells his life story at Web of Stories
  • "To Barbara Rubin With Love" by Jonas Mekas
  • Jonas Mekas addresses his war time activities.
  • Jonas Mekas at the Serpentine Gallery 2012

jonas, mekas, this, article, external, links, follow, wikipedia, policies, guidelines, please, improve, this, article, removing, excessive, inappropriate, external, links, converting, useful, links, where, appropriate, into, footnote, references, september, 20. This article s use of external links may not follow Wikipedia s policies or guidelines Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references September 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Jonas Mekas Lithuanian ˈjonɐs ˈmaekɐs December 24 1922 January 23 2019 was a Lithuanian American filmmaker poet and artist who has been called the godfather of American avant garde cinema 1 Mekas work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide 2 Jonas MekasMekas in 1971Born 1922 12 24 December 24 1922Semeniskiai LithuaniaDiedJanuary 23 2019 2019 01 23 aged 96 New York City U S NationalityLithuanian AmericanAlma materUniversity of MainzOccupationsPoet filmmaker artistYears active1954 2019MovementAvant garde cinemaSpouseHollis MeltonChildren2AwardsLithuanian National Prize 1995 SignatureMekas was active in New York City where he co founded Anthology Film Archives The Film Makers Cooperative and the journal Film Culture He was also the first film critic for The Village Voice 3 In the 1960s Mekas launched anti censorship campaigns in defense of the LGBTQ themed films of Jean Genet and Jack Smith garnering support from cultural figures including Jean Paul Sartre Simone de Beauvoir Norman Mailer Susan Sontag Mekas mentored and supported many prominent artists and filmmakers including Ken Jacobs Peter Bogdanovich Chantal Akerman Richard Foreman John Waters Barbara Rubin Yoko Ono and Martin Scorsese He helped launch the writing careers of the critics Andrew Sarris Amy Taubin and J Hoberman Historian Michael Casper has written about Mekas s work editing two far right collaborationist newspapers under the Nazi occupation of Lithuania during World War II 4 5 6 Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Personal life 4 Controversy over World War II activities 5 Awards and honors 6 Filmography 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksEarly life EditMekas was born in Semeniskiai the son of Elzbieta Jasinskaite and Povilas Mekas on December 24 1922 7 8 As a teenager he attended the Birzai Gymnasium in Birzai Lithuania 9 From 1941 to 1942 living under Nazi occupation he edited and published in Naujosios Birzu zinios founded by the far right anti semitic 10 Lithuanian Activist Front 11 12 From 1943 to 1944 he edited and published in Panevezio apygardos balsas a weekly local newspaper published by the fascist 13 Lithuanian Nationalist Party lt 14 15 In 1944 Mekas left Lithuania with his brother Adolfas Mekas They attempted to reach neutral Switzerland by means of Vienna with fabricated student papers arranged by their uncle 16 Their train was stopped in Germany and they were both imprisoned in a labor camp in Elmshorn a suburb of Hamburg for eight months The brothers escaped and hid on a farm near the Danish border for two months until the end of the war After the war Mekas lived in displaced persons camps in Wiesbaden and Kassel From 1946 to 1948 he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz By the end of 1949 his brother and he had both secured sponsorship through a job in Chicago and emigrated to the United States When they arrived the two decided to settle in Williamsburg Brooklyn Two weeks after his arrival he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex 16mm camera and began recording moments of his life He discovered avant garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel s pioneering Cinema 16 and he began curating avant garde film screenings at Gallery East on Avenue A and Houston Street and at the Film Forum series at Carl Fisher Auditorium on 57th Street 17 Career EditIn 1954 Mekas and his brother Adolfas founded the journal Film Culture and in 1958 he began writing his Movie Journal column for The Village Voice In 1962 he co founded The Film Makers Cooperative and in 1964 the Filmmakers Cinematheque which eventually became Anthology Film Archives one of the world s largest and most important repositories of avant garde film Along with Lionel Rogosin he was part of the New American Cinema movement He was a close collaborator with artists such as Marie Menken 18 Andy Warhol 19 Nico Allen Ginsberg Yoko Ono John Lennon 20 Salvador Dali and fellow Lithuanian George Maciunas Mekas gave the film Heaven and Earth Magic its title in 1964 65 In 1964 Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for showing Flaming Creatures 1963 and Jean Genet s Un Chant d Amour 1950 He launched a campaign against the censorship board and for the next few years continued to exhibit films at the Filmmakers Cinematheque the Jewish Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art From 1964 to 1967 he organized the New American Cinema Expositions which toured Europe and South America and in 1966 joined the 80 Wooster Fluxhouse Coop Mekas in 1977 In 1970 Anthology Film Archives opened on 425 Lafayette Street as a film museum screening space and library with Mekas as its director Mekas along with Stan Brakhage Ken Kelman Peter Kubelka James Broughton and P Adams Sitney began the ambitious Essential Cinema project at Anthology Film Archives to establish a canon of important cinematic works Mekas s legs appeared in John Lennon and Yoko Ono s experimental film Up Your Legs Forever 1971 21 As a filmmaker Mekas own output ranged from his early narrative film Guns of the Trees 1961 to diary films such as Walden 1969 Lost Lost Lost 1975 Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania 1972 Zefiro Torna 1992 and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty 2000 which have been screened at festivals and museums around the world Mekas diary films offered a new perspective to the genre and portrayed the cinematic avant garde scene of the 1960s Mekas expanded the scope of his practice with his later works of multi monitor installations sound immersion pieces and frozen film prints Together they offer a new experience of his classic films and a novel presentation of his more recent video work His work has been exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennial PS1 Contemporary Art Center the Ludwig Museum the Serpentine Gallery the Jewish Museum and the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center Mekas in 2011 In 2007 Mekas released one film every day on his website a project he entitled The 365 Day Project 22 The online diary is still ongoing on Jonas Mekas official website It was celebrated in 2015 with a show titled The Internet Saga which was curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi at Palazzo Foscari Contarini on the occasion of the 56th Venice Biennale of Visual Arts Beginning in the 1970s Mekas taught film courses at the New School for Social Research MIT Cooper Union and New York University Additionally Mekas was a writer and published his poems and prose in Lithuanian French German and English His work has been translated into English by the Lithuanian American poet Vyt Bakaitis in such collections as Daybooks 1970 1972 Portable Press at Yo Yo Labs 2003 and a bilingual anthology of modern Lithuanian verse Gyvas atodusis Breathing Free poems Lietuvos 2001 Mekas published many of his journals and diaries including I Had Nowhere to Go Diaries 1944 1954 and Letters from Nowhere as well as articles on film criticism theory and technique In 2007 the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center was opened in Vilnius One of Mekas last exhibitions Notes from Downtown took place at James Fuentes Gallery on the Lower East Side in 2018 23 Mekas s last work Requiem premiered posthumously at The Shed in New York City on November 1 2019 The 84 minute video was commissioned by The Shed and Festspielhaus Baden Baden It screened in tandem with a performance of Verdi s Requiem conducted by Teodor Currentzis and performed by the musicAeterna orchestra 24 In 2018 Ina Navazelskis an oral historian at the National Institute for Holocaust Documentation United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interviewed Mekas for their Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive There he discussed his memories of World War II 25 Jonas Mekas The Camera Was Always Running the filmmaker s first retrospective in the United States was organized by Guest Curator Kelly Taxter and on view at the Jewish Museum in the spring of 2022 26 German filmmaker Peter Sempel has made three films about Mekas works and life Jonas in the Desert 1991 Jonas at the Ocean 2004 and Jonas in the Jungle 2013 Personal life EditMekas married Hollis Melton in 1974 They had two children a daughter Oona and a son Sebastian 27 His family is featured in Jonas s films including Out takes from the Life of a Happy Man and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty Mekas died at his home in Brooklyn on January 23 2019 at the age of 96 28 29 Mekas is the subject of a documentary Fragments of Paradise which premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival 30 The film received the award for Best Documentary on Cinema at the Festival 31 Controversy over World War II activities EditMekas long maintained that while working for local newspapers he also clandestinely transcribed BBC broadcasts in support of the underground In 2018 an article in the New York Review of Books by historian Michael Casper challenged Mekas s versions of his wartime activities Casper claims that Mekas participated in an underground movement in Birzai that supported the 1941 Nazi invasion of Soviet Lithuania and worked for two ultranationalist and Nazi propaganda newspapers until he fled Lithuania in 1944 32 Casper noted that Mekas s publications in these newspapers were not anti Semitic At the time art critic and historian Barry Schwabsky penned a letter to the editor criticizing Casper s essay He and Casper had an exchange of letters in the New York Review of Books 33 The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum s website biography of Mekas maintains that he participated in both the anti Soviet and anti Nazi undergrounds 34 Following the 2022 exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York Casper published an article entitled World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum in Jewish Currents There he argued that the art world at large remains deeply invested in the story of Mekas the anti Nazi thus perpetuating revisionism not only erasing his roles but casting him as an anti Nazi hero 35 In an article for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Casper s charges against the Jewish Museum journalist Asaf Shalev also pointed out that a two different memos were circulated among the museum employees to dismiss Casper s article 36 Kelly Taxter the guest curator of the exhibit responded to Casper s historical research by saying that the tone of these emails is often aggressive This was based on emails shared by the Mekas family which Shalev also had access to although Shalev wrote that Nothing on there looked to me like Casper was bullying Mekas or that Mekas get bullied 37 Sovietologist Robert van Voren voiced criticisms of Casper s articles Saulius Suziedelis argued The review format of the articles allowed Casper to present judgements without the burden of buttressing his allegations with relevant sources and requisite detail The resulting narrative turns Jonas Mekas s life as a young man into something that it was not 38 39 40 The film scholars J Hoberman and B Ruby Rich have shown support for Casper s findings 41 42 In an article in Film Quarterly B Ruby Rich stated that upon Casper s article The wagons started circling immediately to protect a sacred figure of the avant garde 43 In 2023 Casper discussed his research on Mekas at length in an interview with Lithuanian journalist Karolis Vysniauskas 44 Awards and honors Edit Mekas on a 2022 stamp of Lithuania Guggenheim Fellowship 1977 45 Creative Arts Award Brandeis University 1977 Mel Novikoff Award San Francisco Film Festival 1992 46 Lithuanian National Prize Lithuania 1995 Doctor of Fine Arts Honoris Causa Kansas City Art Institute 1996 Special Tribute New York Film Critics Circle Awards 1996 Pier Paolo Pasolini Award Paris 1997 47 International Documentary Film Association Award Los Angeles 1997 48 Governors Award from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Maine 1997 Atrium Doctoris Honoris Causa Vytautas Magnus University Lithuania 1997 Represented Lithuania at the 51st International Art Exhibition Venice Biennial 2005 United States National Film Preservation Board selects Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry 2006 49 Los Angeles Film Critics Association s Award 2006 50 Austrian Decoration for Science and Art 2008 51 Baltic Cultural Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the field of Arts and Science 2008 Life Achievement Award at the second annual Rob Pruitt s Art Awards 2010 52 George Eastman Honorary Scholar Award 2011 53 Carry your Light and Believe Award Ministry of Culture Lithuania 2012 Commandeur de l Ordre des Arts et Lettres Ministry of Culture France 2013 54 Filmography EditSource 55 Guns of the Trees 1962 Film Magazine of the Arts 1963 The Brig 1964 65 minutes Empire 1964 Award Presentation to Andy Warhol 1964 Report from Millbrook 1964 65 Hare Krishna 1966 Notes on the Circus 1966 Cassis 1966 The Italian Notebook 1967 Time and Fortune Vietnam Newsreel 1968 Walden Diaries Notes and Sketches 1969 3 hours Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania 1971 72 Lost Lost Lost 1976 In Between 1964 8 1978 Notes for Jerome 1978 Paradise Not Yet Lost also known as Oona s Third Year 1979 Street Songs 1966 1983 Cups Saucers Dancers Radio 1965 1983 Erik Hawkins Excerpts from Here and Now with Watchers Lucia Dlugoszewski Performs 1983 He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life 1969 1986 Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol 1990 Mob of Angels The Baptism 1991 Dr Carl G Jung or Lapis Philosophorum 1991 Quartet Number One 1991 Mob of Angels at St Ann 1992 Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas 1992 The Education of Sebastian or Egypt Regained 1992 He Travels In Search of 1994 Imperfect 3 Image Films 1995 On My Way to Fujiyama I Met 1995 Happy Birthday to John 1996 34 minutes Memories of Frankenstein 1996 Birth of a Nation 1997 Scenes from Allen s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit 1997 Letter from Nowhere Laiskas is Niekur N 1 1997 Symphony of Joy 1997 Song of Avignon 1998 Laboratorium 1999 Autobiography of a Man Who Carried His Memory in His Eyes 2000 This Side of Paradise 1999 35 minutes Notes on Andy s Factory 1999 Mysteries 1966 2001 As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty 2000 285 minutes Remedy for Melancholy 2000 Ein Maerchen 2001 Williamsburg Brooklyn 1950 2003 Mozart amp Wien and Elvis 2000 Travel Songs 1967 1981 Dedication to Leger 2003 Notes on Utopia 2003 30 min Letter from Greenpoint 2004 The Definition of Insanity film 2004 as Dr Mekas 365 Day Project 2007 30 hours in total Notes on American Film Director Martin Scorsese 2007 80 minutes Lithuania and the Collapse of USSR 2008 4 hours 50 minutes I Leave Chelsea Hotel 2009 4 minutes WTC Haikus 2010 Sleepless Nights Stories Premiere at the Berlinale 2011 114 minutes My Mars Bar Movie 2011 Correspondences Jose Luis Guerin and Jonas Mekas 2011 Reminiszenzen aus Deutschland 2012 Out takes from the Life of a Happy Man 2012 68 minutes 56 Requiem 2019 84 minutes 57 References Edit Needham Alex January 23 2019 Jonas Mekas titan of underground filmmaking dies aged 96 The Guardian Retrieved April 2 2019 Interview Jonas Mekas by Modestas Mankus Our Culture Mag Our Culture Mag April 18 2017 I m Like the Last Leaf of A Big Tree A Conversation with Jonas Mekas Village Voice September 21 2017 Archived from the original on September 21 2017 Retrieved September 18 2022 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Casper Michael I Was There Michael Casper The New York Review of Books 2022 ISSN 0028 7504 Retrieved July 20 2022 World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum Jewish Currents Retrieved February 28 2023 Vysniauskas Karolis Correcting the Record Michael Casper on Jonas Mekas NARA nara lt Retrieved February 28 2023 Mekas passport shows December 23 1922 the date sometimes listed as his official date of birth however he was actually born on December 24 1922 as he confirms in this video interview Archived April 4 2009 at the Wayback Machine Parodos Maironio lietuviu literaturos muziejus maironiomuziejus lt Mekas Jonas Encyclopedia com www encyclopedia com Retrieved May 3 2022 Stasiulis Stanislovas February 2020 The Holocaust in Lithuania The Key Characteristics of Its History and the Key Issues in Historiography and Cultural Memory East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 34 1 261 279 doi 10 1177 0888325419844820 S2CID 204480888 Tapinas Laimonas 1997 Zurnalistikos Enciklopedija in Lithuanian Vilnius Pradai p 355 Jonas Mekas www vle lt in Lithuanian Retrieved May 3 2022 Saulius Suziedelis 2012 Memories of Blood Some Aspects of Lithuanian Responses to the Holocaust PDF Jahrbuch fur Antisemitismusforschung 21 214 236 Tapinas Laimonas 1997 Zurnalistikos Enciklopedija in Lithuanian Vilnius Pradas p 373 Jonas Mekas www vle lt in Lithuanian Retrieved May 3 2022 Mekas Jonas 2017 I had nowhere to go Leipzig ISBN 978 3 95905 146 0 OCLC 982432242 Brody Richard April 21 2016 Jonas Mekas Champion of the Poetic Cinema The New Yorker Retrieved May 21 2022 Jonas Mekas I find a kindred spirit in Marie Menken Web of Stories Retrieved January 7 2022 Jonas Mekas Serpentine Gallery London The Independent Archived from the original on June 14 2022 Retrieved November 16 2018 The private world of 60s legends CNN Style November 14 2017 Retrieved November 16 2018 Jonathan Cott July 16 2013 Days That I ll Remember Spending Time With John Lennon amp Yoko Ono Omnibus Press p 74 ISBN 978 1 78323 048 8 Short Films Coming Soon to an iPod Near You All Things Considered November 5 2006 Producer Ben Shapiro reports on a plan by filmmaker Jonas Mekas to make short films available as a podcast Bloch Mark September 4 2018 Jonas Mekas Notes from Downtown The Brooklyn Rail Requiem The Shed Oral history interview with Jonas Mekas Collections Search United States Holocaust Memorial Museum collections ushmm org Retrieved April 27 2022 Heinrich Will March 17 2022 The Avant Garde Filmmaker Who Tried to Tell the Truth The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved December 19 2022 Jonas Mekas Film and Videography Retrieved February 12 2017 Jonas Mekas avant garde filmmaker and iconic New Yorker dies at 96 BrooklynVegan Weber Bruce January 23 2019 Jonas Mekas Godfather of American Avant Garde Film Is Dead at 96 The New York Times Retrieved December 23 2021 Fragments of Paradise Our Films Kunhardt Films www kunhardtfilms com Retrieved September 10 2022 Roxborough Scott September 10 2022 Sackler Documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed Wins Venice 2022 Golden Lion for Best Film The Hollywood Reporter Retrieved September 11 2022 Casper Michael I Was There Michael Casper The New York Review of Books 2022 ISSN 0028 7504 Retrieved April 26 2022 Casper Michael Schwabsky Barry On Jonas Mekas An Exchange Barry Schwabsky The New York Review of Books 2022 ISSN 0028 7504 Retrieved April 26 2022 Oral history interview with Jonas Mekas Collections Search United States Holocaust Memorial Museum collections ushmm org Retrieved April 27 2022 World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum Jewish Currents Retrieved April 22 2022 Historian accuses NY s Jewish Museum of sanitizing filmmaker s World War II record in new exhibit Jewish Telegraphic Agency May 12 2022 Retrieved May 13 2022 Shalev Asaf May 12 2022 Personal account a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Portrait of a Poet as a Young Man Jonas Mekas in War and Exile Journal 129 September 2022 e flux www e flux com Retrieved September 10 2022 Vysniauskas Karolis Ne tik pripazinti bet prisipazinti Apie Holokausto atmintį su Sauliumi Suziedeliu NARA nara lt in Lithuanian Retrieved July 17 2022 Forgotten evil Jonas Mekas and the trauma of the Holocaust opinion lrt lt May 2 2021 Retrieved April 28 2022 J Hoberman Why I cannot review Jonas Mekas s Conversations with Film Makers Retrieved July 20 2022 A Deer in the Headlights Film Quarterly September 14 2018 Retrieved July 20 2022 A Deer in the Headlights Film Quarterly September 14 2018 Retrieved September 18 2022 Vysniauskas Karolis Correcting the Record Michael Casper on Jonas Mekas NARA nara lt Retrieved January 26 2023 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Jonas Mekas San Francisco International Film Festival 1992 IMDb Retrieved December 19 2022 Jonas Mekas LIFE GOES ON I KEEP SINGING Art in America Guide Retrieved December 19 2022 1997 Preservation amp Scholarship Award Jonas Mekas International Documentary Association November 1 1997 Retrieved December 19 2022 REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA Cinematheque www cia edu Retrieved December 19 2022 Jonas Mekas Movie and Film Awards AllMovie Retrieved December 19 2022 Reply to a parliamentary question PDF in German p 1879 Retrieved November 27 2012 Guggenheim Museum Announces Winners For Rob Pruitt s 2010 Art Awards The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation Retrieved December 19 2022 Low Stuart Prizes announced for cinema photography Democrat and Chronicle Retrieved December 19 2022 Jonas Mekas Receives The Order Of Arts And Letters frenchculture org Retrieved December 19 2022 Jonas Mekas IMDb Retrieved December 19 2022 Scenes from the Life of a Happy Man The Films of Jonas Mekas Harvard Film Archive Archived from the original on February 12 2017 Retrieved February 12 2017 Requiem Film Screenings the Shed Further reading EditHans Jurgen Tast Hrsg As I Was Moving Kunst und Leben Schellerten Germany 2004 z m a K ISBN 3 88842 026 1 Efren Cuevas The Immigrant Experience in Jonas Mekas s Diary Films A Chronotopic Analisis of Lost Lost Lost Biography vol 29 n 1 winter 2006 pp 55 73 1 Fashion Film Festival presents The Internet Saga 2 Roslyn Bernstein amp Shael Shapiro Illegal Living 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo www illegalliving com published by the Jonas Mekas Foundation Steven Watson Factory Made Warhol and the Sixties Pantheon Books 2003 Michael Casper I Was There New York Review of Books June 7 2018 3 Robert van Voran May 2 2021 Forgotten evil Jonas Mekas and the trauma of the Holocaust opinion lrt lt Retrieved April 28 2022 Inesa Brasiske Lukas Brasiskis and Kelly Taxter Jonas Mekas The Camera Was Always Running New York and New Haven Jewish Museum and Yale University Press 2022 ISBN 978 0 300 25307 8 Michael Casper World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum Jewish Currents April 21 2022 4 Saulius Suziedelis Portrait of a Poet as a Young Man Jonas Mekas in War and Exile e flux Journal Issue 129 September 2022 5 Ivanov Maksim Jonas Mekas Diary Films in Lithuanian Cinema Special Edition for Lithuanian Film Days in Poland 2015 Aukse Kancereviciute ed Vilnius Lithuanian Film Centre 2015 ISBN 6099574409 External links EditJonas Mekas website The Anthology Film Archives Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center A Conversation between Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage Interview with Interview Magazine Interview with 3 AM Magazine Jonas Mekas The Internet Saga Venice Senses of Cinema Great Directors Critical Database Jonas Mekas interview with Our Culture Mag Jonas Mekas in conversation with the Brooklyn Rail Jonas Mekas poetry in English Jonas Mekas tells his life story at Web of Stories To Barbara Rubin With Love by Jonas Mekas Jonas Mekas addresses his war time activities Jonas Mekas at the Serpentine Gallery 2012 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Jonas Mekas amp oldid 1148581681, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.