THE TUXEDO THEATRE (US, 1968, Warren Sonbert)

THE TUXEDO THEATRE (US, 1968, Warren Sonbert)

Filmed in 1968, Warren Sonbert considered THE TUXEDO THEATRE an early version of — or “dress rehearsal” for — the film he would ultimately regard as his magnum opus, 1973’s CARRIAGE TRADE. As in CARRIAGE TRADE, Sonbert traveled around the world to create a tightly-edited work of polyvalent montage in THE TUXEDO THEATRE. It was his first foray into this style of filmmaking following a series of short films, set to the popular music of the time, that documented his contemporaries (including Andy Warhol’s Factory scene) in mid-1960s New York.

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AS I WAS MOVING AHEAD OCCASIONALLY I SAW BRIEF GLIMPSES OF BEAUTY (US, 2000, Jonas Mekas)

AS I WAS MOVING AHEAD OCCASIONALLY I SAW BRIEF GLIMPSES OF BEAUTY (US, 2000, Jonas Mekas)

AS I WAS MOVING AHEAD OCCASIONALLY I SAW BRIEF GLIMPSES OF BEAUTY sees Jonas Mekas reconstruct his life through various home movies filmed over the course of three decades. Footage includes picnics and birthday parties as well as significant life events, such as Mekas’ children taking their first steps. Throughout, Mekas offers his own commentary via voiceover about what the viewer is seeing.

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WALDEN (US, 1969, Jonas Mekas)

WALDEN (US, 1969, Jonas Mekas)

Filmed from 1964 to 1969, WALDEN is Jonas Mekas’ first completed diary film, composed of moments, people, and events captured with his Bolex 16mm camera. At once intimate and epic in scope, WALDEN vacillates between the New York avant-garde scene of the mid-to-late 1960s (with Mekas’ lens immortalizing such notable friends and colleagues as Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and The Velvet Underground) and quotidian moments from Mekas’ family and day-to-day life.

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THE BRIG (US, 1964, Jonas Mekas)

THE BRIG (US, 1964, Jonas Mekas)

Jonas MekasTHE BRIG is a filmic rendering of the off-Broadway play of the same name, written by Kenneth H. Brown, which chronicles the abuses and indignities suffered by inmates at a Marine Corps prison. Brown wrote the play based on his own experiences as a U.S. Marine who spent 30 days in a brig for being absent without leave while serving with the Third Marines at Camp Fuji, Japan in the 1950s.

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CARRIAGE TRADE (US, 1973, Warren Sonbert)

CARRIAGE TRADE (US, 1973, Warren Sonbert)

Warren Sonbert considered CARRIAGE TRADE (1973) his “magnum opus.” In this film, Sonbert interweaves footage taken from his journeys throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and the United States, together with shots he removed from the camera originals of a number of his earlier films.

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ELEGY IN THE STREETS (US, 1989, Jim Hubbard)

ELEGY IN THE STREETS (US, 1989, Jim Hubbard)

ELEGY IN THE STREETS was shot by filmmaker Jim Hubbard during the height of the Reagan Presidency, when both Reagan and his political administration ignored the deadly disease that afflicted an endless parade of human beings who ultimately died of AIDS. Hubbard’s film is replete with imagery associated with this era, including Gay Pride marches, candlelight vigils, ACT UP demonstrations, T-shirts embossed with bloody hands, cardboard headstones, police arrests, and the American flag hung upside down. As such, this movie can be viewed as a counterculture tract, a political protest film, an experimental documentary, and a diary film about Hubbard’s late partner and fellow filmmaker Roger Jacoby

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AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL (US, 1964, Jonas Mekas)

AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL (US, 1964, Jonas Mekas)

When Andy Warhol refused to appear in public to accept the 1964 Film Culture magazines annual Independent Film Award, Jonas Mekas made this mock “documentary” of Warhol and a group of his superstars at the Factory. They are presented a basket of fruit which they then consume in slow motion.

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JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA (US, 1971, Pola Chapelle)

JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA (US, 1971, Pola Chapelle)

During their trip back to Lithuania, Jonas Mekas made REMINISCENES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA, his brother Adolfas Mekas made GOING HOME in collaboration with his wife Pola Chapelle, and Chapelle herself made JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA, which both Jonas and Adolfas said was the best of these three films.

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HALLELUJAH THE HILLS (US, 1963, Adolfas Mekas)

HALLELUJAH THE HILLS (US, 1963, Adolfas Mekas)

HALLELUJAH THE HILLS, Adolfas’ debut feature film, was selected for the first New York Film Festival in 1963, was the hit of the 'Out-of-Competition' section at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Silver Sail at Locarno. Referencing Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and Maya Deren, Mekas' film is a work that bears witness to his knowledge and love of cinema, as well as the immense freedom to be found in the films of the New American Cinema.

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HE STANDS IN A DESERT COUNTING THE SECONDS OF HIS LIFE (US, 1969-1985, Jonas Mekas)

HE STANDS IN A DESERT COUNTING THE SECONDS OF HIS LIFE (US, 1969-1985, Jonas Mekas)

The Diary Film was a significant form that has run throughout the history of American independent cinema, and whose major practitioner has been filmmaker Jonas Mekas. GME is therefore pleased to distribute HE STANDS IN A DESERT COUNTING THE SECONDS OF HIS LIFE as a DSL file to North American universities.

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GUNS OF THE TREES (US, 1962, Jonas Mekas)

GUNS OF THE TREES (US, 1962, Jonas Mekas)

"GUNS OF THE TREES deals with the thoughts, feelings, and anguished strivings of my generation, faced with the moral perplexity of our times. Conceived as an episodic, horizontal film, there is no apparent direct story connection between one scene and the next. The scenes act like pieces of a larger, timed, emotional mosaic. Where the direct word, or the direct image, fails — when we come to more essential things — the indirectness of the poet will seize the essence and the truth." —Jonas Mekas

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THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (US, 1999, Jonas Mekas)

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (US, 1999, Jonas Mekas)

“I had the fortune to spend some time, mostly during the summers, with Jackie Kennedy's and her sister Lee Radziwill's families and children. Cinema was an integral, inseparable, as a matter of fact, a key part of our friendship.” —Jonas Mekas

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOHN (US, 1995, Jonas Mekas)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOHN (US, 1995, Jonas Mekas)

"On October 9th, 1972, half of the music world gathered in Syracuse, N.Y., to celebrate the opening of John Lennon/Yoko Ono Fluxus show, designed by George Maciunas. [The] same day, a smaller group gathered in a local hotel room to celebrate John's birthday." —Jonas Mekas

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ZEFIRO TORNA OR SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF GEORGE MACIUNAS (US, 1992, Jonas Mekas)

ZEFIRO TORNA OR SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF GEORGE MACIUNAS (US, 1992, Jonas Mekas)

"Bits of Fluxus events and performances, and picnics with friends (Almus, Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, etc.), George's wedding and footage I took of him in Boston hospital three days before he died." —Jonas Mekas

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SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL: FRIENDSHIPS AND INTERSECTIONS (US, 1990, Jonas Mekas)

SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL: FRIENDSHIPS AND INTERSECTIONS (US, 1990, Jonas Mekas)

In SCENES FROM THE LIFE Of ANDY WARHOL: FRIENDSHIPS AND INTERSECTIONSJonas Mekas continues in his tradition of creating rapid-fire diary films, chronicling not only Andy Warhol, but also the social and cultural excitement that swirled around him, throbbing to a hypnotic Velvet Underground beat.

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REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA (US, 1972, Jonas Mekas)

REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA (US, 1972, Jonas Mekas)

Jonas and Adolfas Mekas arrived in America in 1949 as displaced persons, former prisoners of German labor camps, exiled from their native Lithuanian farming village. Wanted by the Soviet police, they had been forced to leave home years earlier, not to return for 27 years. REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA is the compelling document of a divided family and their long-delayed reunion.” —Re:Voir Video

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THE TENTH LEGION (US, 1967, Warren Sonbert)

THE TENTH LEGION (US, 1967, Warren Sonbert)

In THE TENTH LEGION, Sonbert presents his college age friends at work and play, wandering the streets of NYC, lounging, shopping, and posing for the camera. The film stylistically exemplifies Sonbert’s masterful use of a constantly moving hand-held camera as it trails the teenage protagonists in choreographed fashion, and of chiaroscuro lighting effects in interior scenes.

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THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (US, 1967, Warren Sonbert)

THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (US, 1967, Warren Sonbert)

One of the most profound themes coursing through Sonbert’s work is that of love between couples in all its pitfalls and perfect moments. To express this theme, Sonbert employed diverse cinematic strategies. These include in-camera editing (in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL,1967), twin-screen effects (in two “lost” films -- CONNECTION and TED AND JESSICA -- also both from 1967), and montage sequences (beginning with TUXEDO THEATRE, 1969).

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