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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