TEXT & INTERVIEW BY AARON ROSE / PORTRAIT BY TERRY RICHARDSON / IMAGES COURTESY THE ARTIST SPECIAL THANKS TO BENN NORTHOVER It is only very infrequently in life that a person has the opportunity to sit down with an icon. I can count on one hand the number of times it has “Artists shouldn’t happened for me. For years and years, while I was living in New York, I would go see films at Anthology Film Archives. For those who have never waste a single heard of it, Anthology is a small theatre on the corner of Second Ave and Second Street in the East Village. However, during the time that I was drop of their frequenting the theatre I didn’t really realize its history—it was just one of those places I went because the movies were cool. Later on however, lives fighting the through a conversation with filmmaker Harmony Korine, I got more of the back story on the place and the man who founded it, Jonas Mekas. If this old: we should is your first introduction to Mekas, you’re in for a real treat. Not only has he been involved in the underground film community for over 50 years, continue and he has continued, even today, to place himself at the forefront of cinema culture. With someone like Jonas Mekas, it’s almost impossible to know concentrate on where to start. He is now 87 years old, which means that before I was even an embryo, he had already changed the cultural landscape of our times. the creation of That said, it is impossible to list all of Mekas’ accomplisments in one magazine article, so here is a brief history… the new, because In 1944, Jonas Mekas and his brother, Adolfas, were taken by the Nazis and imprisoned in a forced labor camp in Nazi Germany for eight months. the old will die After the War, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz from 1946-48 and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother to the U.S., by itself.” settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Two weeks after his arrival, Mekas borrowed the money to buy his first Bolex 16-mm camera and began to – Jonas Mekas record moments of his life. Around the same time he discovered avant- garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s pioneering Cinema 16, and (Diaries, 1972) in 1953 began organizing his own screenings of films by underground filmmakers. He has since become one of the leading figures of American his friend and artistic collaborator George Maciunas, founder of the Fluxus art avant-garde filmmaking or the “New American Cinema,” as he dubbed it in movement. The Center houses an extensive avant-garde film archive and library, the late 1950s. In 1954, he became editor in chief of Film Culture magazine, and has plans to build a Fluxus Research Institute. Most recently, his work was a self-published film journal that he started with his brother. In 1958 he featured at the 51st Venice Biennial and was the focus of a major retrospective began writing his now infamous “Movie Journal” column for the Village PS1/MoMA Contemporary Art Center in New York. An exhibition of his work Voice. At the beginning of the 1960s, the New York film underground will open at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2010. was coming into full flower and in 1962 he co-founded the Film-Makers’ … and that’s just part of the story. Through his various creative ventures Cooperative, which organized many legendary screenings of the time. In throughout the years Jonas Mekas has been intimately involved with the careers 1964, Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for screening Jack Smith’s of filmmakers such as Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Jack Smith, Robert Frank controversial film,Flaming Creatures. He launched a campaign against and Andy Warhol. He hosted some of the first New York performances by the the censorship board, which convinced him of the importance of an outlet Velvet Underground and has been personal friends with cultural icons such for independent film more responsive to the filmmakers themselves. as John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Jackie Onassis and To serve this need, he opened the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque, which many, many more. Unfortunately, to go into any more depth here would be eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives. Anthology is now one of the almost impossible. There is, however, a book about his life, To Free The Cinema world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde films. (Princeton University Press), that I highly recommend to anyone who wants to As a filmmaker, his own output ranges from narrative films like Guns of look deeper. Hopefully now you understand why it was so exciting (an such an the Trees (1961) to experimental essays (The Brig, 1963) to “diaries” such honor!) for me to sit down with him. The following interview was conducted as Walden (1969); Lost, Lost, Lost (1975); Reminiscences of a Voyage over lunch at a small French bistro, just around the corner from Anthology to Lithuania (1972); Zefiro Torna (1992); and As I Was Moving Ahead, Film Archives in the East Village. Over a bottle of red wine and much laughter, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2001). His films have been Mekas reflected on his life, his art, the future of film and his motivations screened extensively at festivals and museums around the world. In 2007, for spearheading so many incredible creative ventures. To bring it all full- Mekas was honored at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award circle, the preceding evening we had both attended the New York premiere of ceremony for his significant contribution to American film culture. That Harmony Korine’s new film Trash Humpers, perhaps one of the most amazing same year, the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center was established in Vilnius, experimental features to be released in years. The future of film looked very Lithuania. Exhibitions there focus on art and film collections by Mekas and bright to us that day. Portrait of Jonas, 1963 RVCA/ANPQUARTERLY | 54 RVCAANPQ.COM | 55 Aaron Rose: Your biography states that you moved to New York AR: Were you and your brother already making films at in 1949. the time? Jonas Mekas: Not exactly moved. I was moved!! I came as a displaced JM: No. We were interested. I was interested, but you know I could only person after almost five years of living in displaced persons’ camps in write, make notes, read about it. There was no money in the displaced postwar Europe. I was brought here as part of the United Nations Refugee persons’ camps. We were fed by refugee organizations. Organization on an army ship together with 3,000 others. This was after the AR: What inspired you to pick up a camera? second World War. When they brought the refugees to America they had JM: Seeing films!! It was contagious. The same as writing poetry or music… places for living prepared for us, and jobs. I was actually supposed to go to it’s always the music that inspires you to be a musician. The same goes Chicago… not to New York actually. My original destination was Chicago. here seeing films. Most of the time, the films we were seeing in postwar AR: So you arrived in New York, but then you went to Chicago? Europe were bad. They were brought over to entertain the army. What JM: I arrived in New York with my brother. We stepped out of the ship and we discovered here in New York at the Museum of Modern Art… like the we looked at New York and we said to each other, “We are in New York! It classics of the cinema from the twenties, thirties and the avant garde. You would be stupid to go to Chicago!” So we never went to Chicago. We could not see any of that there! I mean, the closest to something that one stayed here. could say was interesting was John Huston’s Treasure of Sierra Madre. AR: Was that illegal? That was the first time I remember thinking, “Hey! Look! Maybe something JM: No! No! If you could survive you could stay. There in Chicago, they had can be done in cinema.” arranged a job for us in a bakery, you know, guaranteed. But here we had AR: Just out of curiousity. How did two brothers—two­­ displaced nothing. We had to find a job. But we took that chance and we fell in love refugees from Europe—find the Museum of Modern Art? with New York. I consider that New York saved my sanity. JM: The New York Times! AR: Can you describe your feelings about the city when you AR: Really?!! arrived here? JM: Yes. We bought the newspaper and we discovered that they were JM: We stepped out that evening into Times Square. We looked around screening the next evening at a place called The New York Film Society, and we did not know what was real and what was unreal. We thought we which was run by a man named Rudolf Arnheim, who was a very well saw the moon, but we were not sure if it was the real moon. It was like a known art historian, and also by the great film buff Herman Weinberg. huge opera set. It was incredible! It was incredible. The program for that evening was a double bill. It was Jean Epstein’s The AR: Where exactly did you arrive from when you came to Fall of the House of Usher, one of the great avant garde classics, and also New York? playing was The Cabinet of Dr.