Jonas Mekas Film and Videography Senses of Cinema November 2001 Experimental Cinema Issue 17 Compiled by Anthology Film Archives and Pip Chodorov Jonas Mekas: filmmaker, videomaker, film critic, poet, lecturer, curator. Born into a farming family in Lithuania on December 24, 1922. Imprisoned in a forced labour camp in Nazi Germany from 1944-45. Studied philosophy at the University of Mainz from 1946-48. Relocated to the United States on October 29, 1949. Worked in factories in Brooklyn, New York from 1949 to 1950. In 1954, Mekas became editor-in-chief of Film Culture magazine. He was the movie critic for the Village Voice newspaper in New York from 1958-75, and the movie critic for Soho Weekly News newspaper, also in New York, from 1976-77. He was President of New American Cinema Group (Filmmakers Cooperative) from 1961-80, film curator of the Jewish Museum from 1968-71. He taught film at higher education centers including Cooper Union, international Center for Photography, M.I.T., New School for Social Research, New York University. He lectured on film throughout the US, Europe, Asian and South America. He has been Program Director and President of Anthology Film Archives since 1970. He has befriended Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, John Cassavetes, Salvador Dali, Miles Davis, Robert Frank, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Henri Langlois, John Lennon, Norman Mailer, Nico, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Lou Reed, Andy Warhol. He married Holis Melton in 1974 – parents of daughter (Oona) and son (Sebastian). Jonas Mekas films 1962 Guns of the Tree 75′ 1963 Film Magazine of the Arts 20′ 1964 The Brig 68′ 1964 Award Presentation To Andy Warhol 12′ 1965-66 Report from Millbrook 12′ 1966 Cassis 4′ 1966 Hare Krishna 4′ 1966 Notes On the Circus 12′ 1967 The Italian Notebook 15′ 1968 Time & Fortune Vietnam Newsreel 4′ 1969 Walden 180′ 1971-2 Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania 82′ 1949-63/1976 Lost, Lost, Lost 180′ 1966-78 Notes for Jerome 45′ 1964-68/1978 In Between 52′ 1979 Paradise Not Yet Lost (aka Oona’s Third Year) 97′ 1965/1983 Cup/Saucer/Two Dancers/Radio 23′ 1966/1983 Street Songs 11′ 1983 Erick Hawkins: Excerpts From Here and Now With… Lucia Dlugoszewski Performs 6′ 1969-85 He Stands In a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life 160′ 1965-1982/1991 Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections 36′ 1992 The Education of Sebastian or Egypt Regained (video) 1992 Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas 35′ 1993 Mob of Angels (video) 1995 3 Imperfect Three Image Films 6′ 1995 Quartet #1 5′ 1995 Happy Birthday to John 18′ 1996 Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old (video) 5′ 1996 Memories of Frankenstein 1997 Birth of a Nation 80′ 1997 Letters to Friends #1 (video) 88′ 1997 Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (video) 67′ 1997 Symphony of Joy (video) 1999 This Side of Paradise: Fragments of an Unfinished Biography 25′ 2000 As I was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty 320′ 2000 Song of Avignon 8′ 2000 Autobiography of a Man Whose Memory Was In his Eyes
