Jonas Mekas – Doing what nobody else is doing (39/135)
To listen to more of Jonas Mekas’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxT9Vh8tLoUh1sLWRLrZ3Ip Jonas Mekas (1922-2019), Lithuanian-born poet, philosopher and film-maker, has made hundreds of films and set up the Anthology Film Archive. He emigrated to American in 1949 where he earned the title of 'the godfather of American avant-garde cinema'. [Listener: Amy Taubin; date recorded: 2003] TRANSCRIPT: A year and a half ago, Columbia University organised a sort of conference on 'Film Culture' magazine, Andrew Sarris was there, P Adams Sitney, Peter Bogdanovich. And it was very strange because I'm somewhere else, I'm now at Anthology and actually even already after Anthology Filmmakers, and so 'Film Culture' had began, sort of, you know, I realised that I have all those different lives that they're like peeling off like there was, you know, a life of Filmmakers Cinématique, very active through all that Warhol period, but that's peeled off, and then Anthology Film Archives that I mentioned, but then there was 'The Village Voice' period, 'The Village Voice', 'The Movie Journal' period and then 'Film Culture' magazine. It was different lives, different, then, then came in at some point in '62 January, Filmmakers' Co-op... the New American Cinema Group and Filmmakers' Co-operative, so that strand goes there. But they're all around because they did what they had to do, all those activities and movements and procedures and processes and somebody else, I pulled out because I'm not, you know, I'm going somewhere else. And I feel that I'm very close now so leaving Anthology by itself, it's going, I don't have to be there, I can do my other work. So, I'm at the end of that also, I just have to do one more thing – to build the library, which I'm going to build, for the paper, etc, materials because that's the original plan and it has to be completed. And that's what I have done in every case when the Filmmakers' Co-operative was ready to go by itself, there were enough people that knew, the procedures were established, I pulled myself out. The same at the Newsreel Group. You know I was there for the first four, five meetings and when it was going by itself, okay, goodbye. So, what I'm really trying, or maybe as I'm looking back, to say, is that I'm not interested to do or get involved or spend my time on anything that somebody else can do. So I start, okay, because nobody else, there was no other film magazine, so I started it, so okay. There was no film distribution for the independents so I started that, there was no exhibition from Filmmakers' Cinématique, I started that. And in every case, I started it because nobody else is doing it and it has to be done, or film preservation, film preservation, avant-garde independent film preservation in which I'm still involved, that I'm still very much involved because nobody else is doing it – it has to be done. Once it is set up, somebody else gets excited and picks up and is doing, I don't have to be there and I go somewhere else. That's in my nature, that's more or less, so I have no idea where I will be next.
To listen to more of Jonas Mekas’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxT9Vh8tLoUh1sLWRLrZ3Ip Jonas Mekas (1922-2019), Lithuanian-born poet, philosopher and film-maker, has made hundreds of films and set up the Anthology Film Archive. He emigrated to American in 1949 where he earned the title of 'the godfather of American avant-garde cinema'. [Listener: Amy Taubin; date recorded: 2003] TRANSCRIPT: A year and a half ago, Columbia University organised a sort of conference on 'Film Culture' magazine, Andrew Sarris was there, P Adams Sitney, Peter Bogdanovich. And it was very strange because I'm somewhere else, I'm now at Anthology and actually even already after Anthology Filmmakers, and so 'Film Culture' had began, sort of, you know, I realised that I have all those different lives that they're like peeling off like there was, you know, a life of Filmmakers Cinématique, very active through all that Warhol period, but that's peeled off, and then Anthology Film Archives that I mentioned, but then there was 'The Village Voice' period, 'The Village Voice', 'The Movie Journal' period and then 'Film Culture' magazine. It was different lives, different, then, then came in at some point in '62 January, Filmmakers' Co-op... the New American Cinema Group and Filmmakers' Co-operative, so that strand goes there. But they're all around because they did what they had to do, all those activities and movements and procedures and processes and somebody else, I pulled out because I'm not, you know, I'm going somewhere else. And I feel that I'm very close now so leaving Anthology by itself, it's going, I don't have to be there, I can do my other work. So, I'm at the end of that also, I just have to do one more thing – to build the library, which I'm going to build, for the paper, etc, materials because that's the original plan and it has to be completed. And that's what I have done in every case when the Filmmakers' Co-operative was ready to go by itself, there were enough people that knew, the procedures were established, I pulled myself out. The same at the Newsreel Group. You know I was there for the first four, five meetings and when it was going by itself, okay, goodbye. So, what I'm really trying, or maybe as I'm looking back, to say, is that I'm not interested to do or get involved or spend my time on anything that somebody else can do. So I start, okay, because nobody else, there was no other film magazine, so I started it, so okay. There was no film distribution for the independents so I started that, there was no exhibition from Filmmakers' Cinématique, I started that. And in every case, I started it because nobody else is doing it and it has to be done, or film preservation, film preservation, avant-garde independent film preservation in which I'm still involved, that I'm still very much involved because nobody else is doing it – it has to be done. Once it is set up, somebody else gets excited and picks up and is doing, I don't have to be there and I go somewhere else. That's in my nature, that's more or less, so I have no idea where I will be next.