Movie Journal with Great Wit, Clarity, Honesty, and Grace, and with the Widest Humanism
J The Rise of a New American Cinema, 1959-1971 r ---D 1 Jonas Mekasj ${.'.95 “It is not my business to tell you what it’s all about. My business is to get ex¬ cited about it, to bring it to your atten- I tion. I am a raving maniac of the cinema.” I _ —Jonas Mekas The readers who already know the work of Jonas Mekas will rejoice at this collection of the best of his Village Voice pieces from the past decade. Those who do not know him yet but who love film will find here great treasures of percep¬ tion and analysis. Mekas involves him¬ self deeply in the films that he loves, and then writes about them in Movie Journal with great wit, clarity, honesty, and grace, and with the widest humanism. He can illuminate the film he is discussing, pene¬ trating with equal facility the holy terror of Andy Warhol, the mystical vision of Brakhage or Markopoulos or Jack Smith, the silence of Antonioni, the despair of Kurosawa. Sometimes he can illuminate the moviegoers, too, explaining deftly just why we see a film one way, often persuading us to a revision, to a new way of seeing. Mekas is a unique and vitally important film critic. He is a good deal more than that, as well. Through his passion for beauty and honesty in film, he has evolved a virile new aesthetic, a way of watching movies that requires a temporary surrender of the ego in order to embrace wi:h joy and freedom the sensual poetry o:’ the; new (Continued or bc.ckiaj] JOURNAL The Rise of the New American Cinema 1959-1971 JONAS MEKAS * * i The Macmillan Company, New York, New York L Copyright © 1959, i960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 by The Village Voice, Inc.
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