Jonas Mekas, Independent Filmmaker

By Roger Paradiso

I interviewed Jonas Mekas in the summer of 2018. When I went to his loft with a small film crew, it was filled with meticulously organized shelves holding equipment, films and items from his long life. He lived in a converted industrial building. When I saw the large bank of windows I knew that’s where I would film him sitting in a simple chair.

I had called Jonas a few years back to see if he would give me rights to his film The Brig. I needed one 20 second clip for my documentary The Lost Village. He quickly agreed. The Brig was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1963.  Written for the theater by Judith Malina and Julian Beck of the Living Theaters, this film was controversial. It was revolutionary that Jonas won the Grand Prize. This film made him one of the founders of the independent artists who rebelled against the mainstream. They were called “beats” and “hippies” by the press and mainstream society. I don’t think Jonas thought about what they called him. He was an independent filmmaker.

From his online bio curated by his son: “Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in the farming village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. In 1944, he and his brother Adolfas were taken by the Nazis to a forced labor camp in Elmshorn, Germany. After the War he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. At the end of 1949 the UN Refugee Organization brought both brothers to New York City, where they settled down in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

“Two months after his arrival in New York he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement.”

I asked Jonas about the difficult times of his life. I had a cameraman but I also took out my cell phone and was filming other angles as he spoke. He seemed to be a bit amused by this.

Jonas carried his Bolex around like a cell phone. He would ask questions as he filmed. He did not care too much about perfect and steady shots. He moved the camera around in his own style. I asked him about the sixties and he said that he still saw the energy of the sixties today. I looked around and saw a half-eaten fig on the table along with a knife and plate. He was a simple man yet he did many complex things.

From his bio: “In 1954, together with his brother, he started Film Culture magazine, which soon became the most important film publication in the U.S. In 1958 he began his legendary Movie Journal column in the Village Voice. In 1962 he founded the Filmmakers’ Cooperative, and in 1964 the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde cinema, and a screening venue.”

This past summer I asked the Anthology Film Archives if I could show my film series Searching for Camelot. The booker said it would cost $500 for each of the three films. If Jonas were still here, he might have made a deal so I could do it for much less. He was an artist who knew how to make deals. It is a forgotten art.

I asked Jonas if things were tougher in the Village these days compared to its golden age of the 50s and 60s. He got agitated and waved his arms. You just have to do it he seemed to say. I understood then that the life of the independent filmmaker/poet/novelist/businessman is always difficult. You just have to do it.

From his bio: “During all this time he continued writing poetry and making films. To this date he has published more than 25 books of prose and poetry, which have been translated into over a dozen languages. His Lithuanian poetry is now part of Lithuanian classic literature and his films can be found in leading museums around the world. He is largely credited for developing the diaristic forms of cinema. Mekas has also been active as an academic, teaching at the New School for Social Research, the International Center for Photography, Cooper Union, New York University, and MIT.”

So, if you want be an independent artist you should follow the path taken by Jonas Mekas. He was an incredible artist. He never stopped. “In 2007, he completed a series of 365 short films released on the internet — one film every day — and from then continued to share new work on his website.”

On January 23, 2019, Jonas passed away at the age of 96 at his home in Brooklyn.

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Roger Paradiso has been a journalist and filmmaker for many years. His films include the award-winning The Lost Village, Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding and the acclaimed I Want My Name Back.