Jonas Mekas

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Jonas Mekas (Lithuanian: [jons mks]; born December

24,[1] 1922) is a Lithuanian American filmmaker, poet and Jonas Mekas
artist who has often been called "the godfather of American
avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in
museums and festivals worldwide.[2]

Contents
1 Biography
2 Jonas Mekas in culture
3 Awards and honors
4 Filmography
5 Personal life
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links

Born December 24, 1922

Biography Semenikiai, Lithuania
Nationality Lithuanian/American
In 1944, Mekas left Lithuania because of war. En route, his
Known for Cinema
train was stopped in Germany and he and his brother,
Adolfas Mekas (19252011), were imprisoned in a labor Movement Avant-garde cinema
camp in Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg, for eight months.
The brothers escaped and were detained near the Danish border where they hid on a farm for two months until
the end of the war. After the war, Mekas lived in displaced person camps in Wiesbaden and Kassel. From 1946
to 1948, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother
to the U.S., settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed the money
to buy his first Bolex 16mm camera and began to record moments of his life. He discovered avant-garde film at
venues such as Amos Vogels pioneering Cinema 16, and he began curating avant-garde film screenings at
Gallery East on Avenue A and Houston Street, and a Film Forum series at Carl Fisher Auditorium on 57th
Street.

In 1954, together with his brother Adolfas Mekas, he founded Film Culture, and in 1958, began writing his
Movie Journal column for The Village Voice. In 1962, he co-founded Film-Makers' Cooperative and the
Filmmakers' Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the worlds
largest and most important repositories of avant-garde film. He was part of the New American Cinema, with, in
particular, fellow film-maker Lionel Rogosin. He was a close collaborator with artists such as Andy Warhol,
Nico, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Salvador Dal, and fellow Lithuanian George Maciunas.

In 1964, Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for showing Flaming Creatures (1963) and Jean Genets Un
Chant dAmour (1950). He launched a campaign against the censorship board, and for the next few years
continued to exhibit films at the Film-makers Cinemathque, 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 80 Wooster Fluxhouse Coop.
In 1970, Anthology Film Archives opened on 425 Lafayette Street as a film museum, screening space, and a
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.

As a film-maker, Mekas' own output ranges 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, which have been
screened extensively at festivals and museums around the world.

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, and the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts
Center.

In the year 2007, Mekas released one film every day on his website, a project he entitled "The 365 Day
Project."[3] 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.

Since the 1970s, he has taught film courses at the New School for Social Research, MIT, Cooper Union, and
New York University.

Mekas is also a well-known Lithuanian language poet and has published his poems and prose in Lithuanian,
French, German, and English. He has published many of his journals and diaries including "I Had Nowhere to
Go: Diaries, 19441954," and "Letters from Nowhere," as well as articles on film criticism, theory, and
technique. On November 10, 2007, the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center was opened in Vilnius.

Jonas Mekas in culture

The German fillmmaker 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).

Awards and honors

Guggenheim Fellowship (1966)
Creative Arts Award, Brandeis University (1977)
Mel Novikoff Award, San Francisco Film Festival (1989)
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)
International Documentary Film Association Award, Los Angeles (1997)
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)
Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Award (2007)
Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (2008)[4]
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)
George Eastman Honorary Scholar Award (2011)
'Carry your Light and Believe' Award, Ministry of Culture, Lithuania (2012
 Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, Ministry of Culture, France (2013)

Filmography
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 (196465)
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 (197172)
Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)
In Between: 19648 (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 (1969/1985)
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 (19662001)
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) - 285 minutes
Remedy for Melancholy (2000)
Ein Maerchen (2001)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn (19502003)
Mozart & Wien and Elvis (2000)
Travel Songs (19671981)
Dedication to Leger (2003)
Notes on Utopia (2003) 30 min,
Letter from Greenpoint (2004)
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.
Sleepless Nights Stories (Premiere at the Berlinale 2011) - 114 minutesz
My Mars Bar Movie (2011)
Correspondences: Jos Luis Guerin and Jonas Mekas (2011)
Reminiszenzen aus Deutschlan (2012)
Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man (2012) - 68 minutes[5]

Personal life
He married Hollis Melton in 1974. They had two children, a daughter (Oona) and a son (Sebastian).[6] His
family is featured in Jonas' films such as "Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man".

See also
Adolfas Mekas
Vyt Bakaitis
Cinema of Lithuania
Anthology Film Archives
Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center
Barbara Rubin

Notes
1. 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 (http://ww
w.peoplesarchive.com/browse/movies/3794/en//).
2. "Interview: Jonas Mekas by Modestas Mankus" (https://ourculturemag.com/2017/04/18/interview-jonas-
mekas/). Our Culture Mag. Our Culture Mag.
3. Short Films Coming Soon to an iPod Near You (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=64
39426), 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.
4. "Reply to a parliamentary question" (http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/AB/AB_10542/imf
name_251156.pdf) (pdf) (in German). p. 1879. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
5. "Scenes from the Life of a Happy Man... The Films of Jonas Mekas" (http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/20
16decfeb/mekas.html). Harvard Film Archive. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
6. "Jonas Mekas Film and Videography" (http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/experimental-cinema-17/mekas_
filmo/). Retrieved 12 February 2017.

References
Hans-Jrgen 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 Mekass Diary Films: A Chronotopic Anlisis of
Lost, Lost, Lost, Biography, vol. 29, n. 1, winter 2006, pp. 5573,
<http://dspace.unav.es/dspace/bitstream/10171/3268/1/Art%20Mekas%20Biography%20publicado.pdf>.
Fashion Film Festival presents "The Internet Saga", http://fashionfilmfestivalmilano.com/it/jonas-mekas/

External links
Jonas Mekas on IMDb
Jonas Mekas' website
A Conversation between Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage
The New York Times: Jonas Mekas Refuses to Fade
 Interview with Interview Magazine
Interview with 3:AM Magazine
Jonas Mekas "The Internet Saga", Venice
The Anthology Film Archives
Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center
Jonas Mekas in conversation with the Brooklyn Rail
Jonas Mekas poetry in English
A short documentary about Jonas Mekas (29mn)
Jonas Mekas tells his life story at Web of Stories
Jonas Mekas' DVDs : https://web.archive.org/web/20131129045726/http://www.re-
voir.com/boutique/category.php?id_category=47
"To Barbara Rubin With Love" by Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas at the Serpentine Gallery 2012

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This page was last edited on 24 June 2017, at 16:49.

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