THE BRIG (US, 1964, Jonas Mekas)

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JONAS MEKAS FILMING THE BRIG (1964).

 

“Part drama, part polemic, with shock-wave sound and a nightmare air that suggests Kafka with a Kodak, the movie does exactly what it sets out to do — seizes the audience by the shirtfront and slams it around from wall to wall for one grueling day in a Marine Corps lockup.” — TIME

THE BRIG (1964) BY JONAS MEKAS. SOURCE: DAFILMS.

Jonas Mekas’ THE 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.

Brown’s play was first staged on May 13, 1963, at The Living Theatre. Founded in 1947 by the husband-and-wife duo of Julian Beck and Judith Malina, The Living Theatre is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States.

Mekas himself described the process of making THE BRIG as follows:

I went to see THE BRIG, the play, the night it closed. The Becks were told to shut [it] down and get out. The performance, by this time, was so precisely acted that it moved with the inevitability of life itself. As I watched it I thought: suppose this was a real brig; suppose I was a newsreel reporter; suppose I got permission from the U.S. Marine Corps to go into one of their brigs and film the goings-on: What a document one could bring to the eyes of humanity! The way THE BRIG was being played now, it was a real brig, as far as I was concerned. This idea took possession of my mind and my senses so thoroughly that I walked out of the play. I didn't want to know anything about what would happen next in the play; I wanted to see it with my camera. I had to film it.

THE BRIG (1964) BY JONAS MEKAS. SOURCE: IMDB.

The resulting film proved so realistic and harrowing — effectively blurring the lines between performance and reality — that THE BRIG won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the Venice Film Festival and went on to screen at both the London and New York Film Festivals to great acclaim.

Furthermore, filmmaker Storm de Hirsch accompanied Mekas to The Living Theatre see THE BRIG and made her own film, NEWSREEL: JONAS IN THE BRIG, which documents the making of Mekas’ film.

THE BRIG
(US, 1964)

Director: Jonas Mekas

  • 68 minutes
  • 16mm
  • B&W
  • Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 1080p .mp4 file on server

Published By: Re:Voir Video

Institutional Price: $500

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