DIARIES, NOTES AND SKETCHES: Pieces of Time With Jonas Mekas

Note: this article was originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #9, 2003. This documented a weekend-long retrospective of films by Jonas Mekas, which played for free at Cinematheque Ontario, featuring Mekas himself in attendance for Q&As at each screening. Mekas passed away in 2019 at the age of 96, but in keeping with the time in which it was written, Mekas is still referred to in present tense. This article is broken up over a few pages, as linked below.

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To get to see a bunch of films by the legendary Jonas Mekas, bookended with Q&A sessions, and of all things, free of charge, should be a joyous occasion for any serious supporter of independent cinema. And it was. Still, only days before the living legend was scheduled to appear in town for a lecture and weekend-long screenings of his work, we learned about the passing of another legendary experimental filmmaker, Stan Brakhage. Therefore, one entered the theatre (and by extension, the underground community) with a slight touch of melancholy. In retrospect, this seemed strangely appropriate. For as the images of Mekas’ work unspooled, we were greeted with faces from the past– especially people who now live on through their art.

Jonas and his brother Adolfas were refugees from Lithuania, once occupied by the Nazis, only later to be “liberated” by Communist Russia. Upon the Mekas’ arrival to New York, Jonas became a voice in the independent scene from the 1950s onward, first with his highly influential magazine Film Culture, a writer for The Village Voice (his regular column, Movie Journal, championed experimental films), programmer and archivist of avant-garde film with the Filmmaker’s Cooperative, and finally, when he has time, creator of his own films. Because of his busy schedule, his own style was created out of necessity. His diary films (often spanning two or three hours in length) are comprised of the little snippets of film he has amassed over the years, from those fleeting moments when he brought out his ever-present Bolex to record something. Mekas shares that trait with Andy Warhol– the effort to record everything for later use. (Mekas always carries a pocket Sony tape recorder.) Mind you, their approaches are markedly different. Warhol cinema is presented in real time. Mekas has a distinct visual style which distills a lifetime of memories into fleeting moments- as such, time flies by while watching his works that are even three hours in length.

At 80 years of age, still as quick-witted as his Movie Journal voice of long ago, appearing at his Q&A sessions over two days, dressed in the same black corduroy pants and jacket (with noticeable wear in the legs), an untucked blue shirt, and a fedora partially obscuring his face, Mekas has the look of a man so rapt up in his art (or the preservation of others’) that such vices of comfort seem secondary. And like his countrymen in Reminisces of a Journey to Lithuania, he seems at home in his working clothes; when he says he is so busy, you believe him.

This weekend proved to be an unforgettable visit to Mekas’ world. Saturday afternoon’s screening was Lost Lost Lost, followed by an evening showing of He Stands in the Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life. Sunday afternoon began with a collection of short films, followed by Reminisces of a Journey to Lithuania. It is enough that the we were able to see a vast catalogue of his work, but it is even more gratifying that he was there to personalize it for us.

“I hope it’s all been explained in my work.”

Indeed. In truth, the films of Jonas Mekas do speak for themselves. Even the most personal ones have some kind of universality that the casual viewer can recognize.

“I have nothing to say. So if you have any questions, I am a computer. You just have to hit the right buttons.”

His diary films are such extraordinary catalogues of memories. We could be fortunate to have a life half as exciting as his. The movement he has been a part of, and the people he was worked with- parts of an incredible history that he has preserved for us on film.

Of the three feature-length films shown this weekend, Lost Lost Lost (released in 1976), assembles the early part of the Mekas brothers’ life in America. It is also the most minimalist, and most moving. This three-hour film documents fourteen years of the Mekas’ life (in various film stocks), starting in 1949, when he first bought a Bolex. The footage is accompanied by sparse narration which often adds a parallel interpretation of the visuals. Sequences are sometimes broken up by title cards with very plain black lettering on a beige background (the consistent title card look throughout all of his films).

Among the first images are strangers in a strange land. There is the unsurprising sequence of the New York skyline as seen by a wide-eyed immigrants eyes, however everything else seems counterpoint to it- much smaller, emptier. The numerous sequences of “23rd St. DP’s (Displaced Persons- Lithuanian refugees)”, dances, picnics, weddings, soccer games, pipe-smoking Adolfas pondering – all have a very spare style to them. They are affecting scenes of Lithuanian people who simultaneously try to fit in their new environment, yet remain in their own small community, adhering to their old world ways. “Was there a war?”, a title card asks early in the film.

Then with the little snippets of film amassed over the years, one gets to see the brothers Mekas immerse themselves into the heart of New York culture. The numerous sequences of weddings and CIL meetings give way to the lifestyle that we traditionally associate with Mekas, once they moved to Manhattan. As mentioned in the Q&A afterwards, the film shifts accordingly because many of the DPs got married and moved to the suburbs– he was not interested in following their path. One could say, once the DPs’ drama ended, he went to create his own.

As the subject matter changes, so too does the tone. The mid-1950s footage has more of a buoyancy– perhaps because of the numerous allusions to springtime, parks, and countrysides. (As much as Mekas personifies New York, he is seemingly only a step away from the beach or a meadow to revel in nature.) Also, we begin to see the seeds of the underground, with footage at 109th St. in which he began the legendary, influential magazine Film Culture.

In the 1960s, Mekas became a voice in the arts community, and this is accentuated with footage of Peter Bogdanovich (then a critic) at the New Yorker, readings at the Living Theatre, Robert Frank’s film Sin of Jesus, and Mekas himself directing Guns of the Trees.

Lost Lost Lost continues to have a political subtext even at that crucial point in Mekas’ career in the arts scene. We also witness an Air Raid protest, people handing out the “New America” paper, the “Women’s Direct Action Movement” demonstrating (on the coldest day of the year, according to the voiceover).

One is reminded of Mekas’ own reminisces, collected in the book Movie Journal, in which he was once questioned by the secret service for his supposedly un-American activities. One forgets in this alleged age of free speech how often people whose opinions were not the norm faced persecution even a short time ago. One also forgets in this “enlightened age” that Mekas often faced criminal charges for the subversive independent films he showed.

Lost Lost Lost ends at approximately that era. We first see whispers of Mekas the experimental filmmaker in the 1950s footage with scenes from his first film (uncompleted), and then predominately in the final third. There are fake screen tests of “Peggy”, “Marty”, “Peter (Kubelka)”, and two mini-collections called “Rabbit Shit Haikus” and “Fool’s Haikus”, which contain unassociated footage of the trees, the road, the sunset, filmmaker Ed Emshwiller, childhood, the window, frost, the river, snow, leaves, Peggy and Barbara, singing, etc. These sequences only make sense collectively- parts of a sum of his very diverse life. These all play in an innocent, frolicking tone that is evident in many underground films of the period.

Mekas’ life with film continues with a visit to an asylum (to visit a filmmaker, for a story collected in Movie Journal), the premiere of Markopoulos’ Twice a Man, and finally, perhaps tragically, a road trip to show Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures and Ken Jacobs’ Blonde Cobra for possible inclusion at a Battleboro film festival. We see the sadly poetic “morning after” footage of waking up in the truck after rejection, Mekas waiting for a bus, and hitchhiking to New York City. Once again, we are reminded just how hand- to-mouth these upholders of the avant-garde really lived.

Finally, we end with two different views of a trip to the countryside: first Ken Jacobs’ footage, and then Mekas’, followed by the voiceover: “Memories- I have been here before.”

Lost Lost Lost is at once comprehensive and enigmatic. Mekas shows in obsessive detail all of the places he lived in New York City, his various jobs, and copious recordings of seasonal changes. Yet as much as he shares with the viewer numerous amounts of weddings and other private functions (twice we hear Mekas talking of recording everything), at the most, one can just grab the universality of the images.

The title cards are kept at a very minimum (“so it wouldn’t be boring”, he later quipped). Mekas seldom feels the need to explain everything, or to introduce all of the players in his real-life drama. Therefore, the more one knows about Mekas’ life and his associates, the more this cryptic footage will mean. Mekas has made these diary films more for himself than anyone. This instinct is the feat of a true artist. It is another that he nonetheless shares this personal work with strangers.

Although his diary work seems almost documentary, Mekas maintains that his films are “not real”. They are fictitious in a way because he still manipulates his footage. This is also true with his use of sound. For instance, the audio is out of sync in the segment featuring one-hit wonder Tiny Tim singing. The out-of-sync audio or choice of music is just meant to be representational: he is just trying to give its essence.