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Jonas Mekas

Jonas Mekas Books

Filmmaker

Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-American filmmaker known for his surrealistic and poetic documentaries. His works often explore personal memory, family, and the life of New York City. Born on December 24, 1922, Mekas is one of the pioneers of the Direct Cinema movement.

Movie Journal: The Rise of New American...

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“I'm not an abstract artist; I leave that to others. To me, abstract art ended with Kazimir Malevich's 'Black Square.' To continue it is senseless.”

Art Artist Black Abstract Squares Abstract Art

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Most of my videos consist of fragments, one or two minutes long. They are haikus or sketches. I have thousands.”

Long Two Minutes Video Fragments Haiku

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Place means nothing to me. I can be at home anywhere.”

Mean I Can Home

Author:Jonas Mekas

“In 1962, we created the Filmmakers' Co-Op because nobody wanted to distribute our films. If we had the Internet in those days, we wouldn't have needed the Co-Op.”

Ifs Wanted Film Internet Needed Filmmaker

Author:Jonas Mekas

“There is no other way to break the frozen cinematic conventions than through a complete derangement of the official cinematic senses.”

Way Break Senses Officials Conventions Frozen Cinematic

Book:Movie Journal: The Rise of New American Cinema, 1959-1971

Source: Movie Journal: The Rise of New American Cinema, 1959-1971

“Some cameras are heavier and need to be on tripods. Others are small enough to hide in your pocket. There are places where you don't want to feel like you are disturbing anything, so I may use a camera like that.”

Want Needs Feels May Enough Use Like You Cameras Pockets Disturbing Tripods

Author:Jonas Mekas

“I'm working in a form of cinema that can be described, and has been described, as a diaristic form of cinema. In other words, with material from my own life. I walk through life with my camera, and occasionally I film. I never think about scripts, never think about films, making films.”

Thinking Has Beens Film Form My Own Walks Materials Cameras Scripts Cinema My Own Life

Author:Jonas Mekas

“I am very active on the Internet. In 2007, I made one film every day and posted it on my website. That was a 365-day project, really exhausting, but I still put a lot of stuff on - from life, friends, my own life.”

Made Stills Film Stuff My Own Internet Projects Active Website My Own Life Exhausting

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Once you change the technology - from a film camera to a video camera, or from an 8-mm camera to 16 mm - you change completely the content. With 8 mm, a leaf on a tree will be made up of maybe four grains. So it's very impressionistic, almost like Seurat. If you switch to 16 mm, the technology gives you hundreds of grains on that leaf.”

Ifs Giving Made Film Technology Four Tree Cameras Video Grain Leafs Video Cameras

Author:Jonas Mekas

“I'm not so much in the future as always in the present. The future always takes care of itself. What I do now with my video camera, it can only record what is happening now. I am celebrating reality and the essence of the moment. And that's the greatest challenge that I have.”

Moments Reality Care Challenges Records Happenings Essence Cameras Take Care Video Celebrate Video Cameras

Author:Jonas Mekas

“I'm a filmmaker, but my working procedures are different. All my basic structuring is done during the filming. You know, how long I keep the shot, the exposure or the speed - slower or faster, etc. That's structuring. And then there is a second stage of structuring that comes later when I begin to put those pieces together.”

Knows Long Different Done Together Know How Pieces Stage Shots Speed Faster Filmmaker Etc Exposure Procedures

Author:Jonas Mekas

“The nature of the video camera really makes you focus on the present. Since I have always been a diarist filmmaker, not one who stages scenes with actors, it has always been about the present moment.”

Moments Actors Focus Stage Scene Cameras Video Filmmaker Present Moment Video Cameras

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Suddenly the intermedia shows are all over town..Theirs remains the most dramatic expression of the contemporary generation. The place where its needs and desperations are most dramatically split open. At the Plastic Inevitable it is All Here and Now and the Future.”

Needs Shows Generations Expression Towns Remains Contemporary Inevitable Dramatic Plastic Splits Desperation Here And Now Now And The Future

Author:Jonas Mekas

“We are the measure of all things. And the beauty of our creation, of our art is proportional to the beauty of ourselves of our souls.”

Art Soul Creation Art Is All Things

Author: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.”

Children Matter Facts Keys Summer Fortune Cinema Inseparable Matter Of Fact Jackie

Author:Jonas Mekas

“I began writing poetry when I was about 10. Bad poetry, but you start with bad poetry.”

Writing Writing Poetry

Author:Jonas Mekas

“I missed my teenage years. I was never a teenager.”

Years Teenager Teenage Teenage Years

Author:Jonas Mekas

“An adventurer can always return home; an exile cannot. So I decided that my home would be culture.”

Home Would Be Culture Return Decided Exile Adventurer

Author:Jonas Mekas

“The deeper I went into culture, the more confused I got. So I needed something more real. I said, "Okay, from now on, my country will be cinema."”

Said Real Country Culture Needed Okay Deeper Cinema Confused

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Just as in writing, there are novelistic and sort of pedestrian ways of telling a story, to write a postcard with your little pocket camera and put it on websites. I think that's where the most exciting kind of imagery and content is being recorded and exchanged today.”

Thinking Way Writing Kind Littles Stories Today Exciting Cameras Pockets Imagery Website Pedestrians Postcards

Author:Jonas Mekas

“My films are the celebration of reality, of life, of my friends, of actual daily life that passes and is gone tomorrow. We don't pay attention to it when it happens.”

Reality Happens Film Pay Attention Gone Tomorrow My Friends Pay Attention Reality Of Life Daily Life Celebration

Author:Jonas Mekas

“For me, to catch, to celebrate the reality and life and friends and everything around me the very moment it happens - that's what is, that's what I'm possessed by.”

Moments Reality Happens Celebrate Possessed

Author:Jonas Mekas

“You have the possibility to give light a dimension in time.”

Giving Light Possibility Dimensions

Author:Jonas Mekas

“In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.”

Ends Poet Politician Civilization

Book:Movie Journal: The Rise of New American Cinema, 1959-1971

Source: Movie Journal: The Rise of New American Cinema, 1959-1971

“I make home movies-therefore I live. I live - therefore I make home movies.”

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Since 1950 I have been keeping a film diary. I have been walking around with my Bolex and reacting to the immediate reality: situations, friends, New York, seasons of the year. On some days I shoot ten frames, on others ten seconds, still on others ten minutes. Or I shoot nothing. Walden contains material from the years 1964-1968 strung together in chronological order.”

Years Has Beens Stills Reality Together Film Order Situation Minutes New York Materials Walking Ten Seasons Seconds Diaries Reacting

Author:Jonas Mekas

“In Lithuania, I am known as a poet, and they don’t care about my cinema. In Europe they don’t know my poetry; in Europe, I am a filmmaker. But here, in the United States, I am only a maverick!”

Knows States Care United Known United States Poet Europe Don't Care Cinema Filmmaker Maverick Lithuania

Author:Jonas Mekas

“For an artist, to be normal is a disaster”

Artist Normal Disaster

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Seek the insignificant small but essential qualities, essential to life”

Quality Essentials Insignificant

Author:Jonas Mekas

“My life is essentially not so unique. On some deeper levels we feel the same, we know the same things. Therefore if I show my life 365 days, moments from those days, it will reflect and it will have connection with lives of all of us.”

Ifs Knows Feels Moments Shows Life Is Levels Unique Connections Deeper

Author:Jonas Mekas

“Yes, I got my first Bolex camera a few weeks after being dropped in New York by the United Nations Refugee Organization. That was on October 29th, 1949. With my brother Adolfas, we wanted to make a film about displaced persons, how one feels being uprooted from one's home.”

Feels Firsts Persons Home Wanted Film Nations United Week New York Brother Organization Cameras My Brother Refugee United Nations October

Author:Jonas Mekas

“As a film-maker and a poet, I feel it's my duty to be an eye and an antenna to what's happening around me. I always felt a solidarity with those who are desperate and confused and misused and are seeking a way out of it.”

Way Feels Eye Film Felt Poet Duty Happenings Seeking Confused Desperate Makers Solidarity Misused Antenna

Author:Jonas Mekas

“I always work only with friends, but it must be about them and myself. Because I film only very personal moments, nothing preplanned, staged or written, it has to be real and spontaneous. Some of them have become famous, some are not yet famous, some will never be famous. But they are all my friends.”

Real Moments Film Written My Friends Being Real Spontaneous

Author:Jonas Mekas

“In a meadow full of flowers you cannot walk through and breathe those smells and see all those colors and remain angry. We have to support the beauty, the poetry of life.”

Walks Support Color Flower Angry Smell Breathe Meadows

Author:Jonas Mekas

“We need less perfect but more free films.”

Needs Film Perfect

Book:Movie Journal: The Rise of New American Cinema, 1959-1971

Source: Movie Journal: The Rise of New American Cinema, 1959-1971

“I brought Yoko Ono to New York and gave her her first job there. I was editing a magazine called Film Culture.”

Firsts Jobs Film Culture New York Magazines Editing

Author:Jonas Mekas

About the Author

Born: December 24, 1922
Known for: Filmmaker
Quotes: 36

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