Welcome to the new term.
Welcome to the New Year and the new term. In this term, we going to explore more great artists. I would like to start this year by shedding light on my long time inspiration, a poet, a filmmaker, 'Godfather' of American Avant grade film - Jonas Mekas.
Mr. Mekas, center with the filmmaker Michel Auder, left, and Andy Warhol in 1970 at the opening of Anthology Film Archives, the leading library and museum of experimental film. Mr. Mekas was a co-founder. ( NY times)
Jonas Mekas was my Inspiration since I was introduced to his poetry in the gymnasium, his perspective on life and art, the passion he has for everything ''life'' is something that even now, 11 years later, I can't get out of my head.
In 1944 Jonas Mekas left Lithuania, with his brother Adolfas, because of war. Both of them were imprisoned in a labor-camp in Emshorn, Germany. After eight months, they escaped to Denmark. By the end of 1949, the Mekas brothers emigrated to the U.S., settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed the money to buy his first Bolex 16mm camera and began to record brief moments of his life. Soon he got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. (IMDB)
Although he is widely known as a filmmaker, Jonas Mekas is a great author and a poet, he wrote books such as ''I had nowhere to go" and I would like to share one of my favorite paragraphs,
“I read a lot. I listen a lot. I think a lot. But so little remains. The books I read, their plots, their protagonists fade. The university lectures that I had found pretty impressive on first hearing, have faded away. Now I am listening to one on Pirandello. Names of people, books, cities. They are already fading away. Even the titles of films I’ve seen recently — they have already faded. Authors of thousands of books I’ve read... All that remains are the colours of their bindings, their covers. I don’t remember much about Beauty and the Beast, but I remember clearly, vividly the hear of the day as we were crossing the Rhine bridge, to see the film. Everything that I see, or red, or listen to, connects, translates into moods, bits of surroundings, colors. No, I am not a novelist. No precision of observation, detail. With me, everything is mood, mood, or else —simply nothingness.” ( Jonas Mekas, I had nowhere to go)
I think I find Mekas so close to my heart not only because he is from my home town but the perspective he has on life and art seems so pure, so inoccent. His poems, his films or ''home made films'' as he describes them are real, they not scripted, they don't have purposely hidden meaning nor they are exploits of ones psyche, they are simply true and touching in a way falling leafs in autumn calms our soul.
References:Jonas Mekas, ‘Godfather’ of American Avant-Garde Film, Is Dead at 96 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Jonas Mekas - Biography - IMDb
Jonas Mekas - I had nowhere to go, Jonas Mekas
You have made a start on this but you need to add more research and commentary.
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