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Quote by Jonas Mekas

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

Quote by Jonas Mekas

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

Work

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

This book explores the transformative period in American film history, highlighting key filmmakers, movements, and films from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. more

Author

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. more

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“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.”

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“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!”

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“Myth is the facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter.”

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Book:Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

Source: Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

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“The task of cinema or any other art form is not to translate hidden messages of the unconscious soul into art but to experiment with the effects contemporary technical devices have on nerves, minds, or souls.”

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“And what more could I possibly ask as an artist than that your most precious visions, however rare, assume sometimes the forms of my images.”

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“Art is actually based on the notion that if you would really celebrate an idea or a principle, you must think, you must plan, you must put yourself completely in the state of devotion, and not simply give the first thing that comes to your head”

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“The poet is stepping out of the airplane.”

Book:My Vocabulary Did this to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

Source: My Vocabulary Did this to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

“And I think that it is certainly possible that the objective universe can be affected by the poet. I mean, you recall Orpheus made the trees and the stones dance and so forth, and this is something which is in almost all primitive cultures. I think it has some definite basis to it. I'm not sure what. It's like telekinesis, which I know very well on a pinball machine is perfectly possible.”

Source: The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer