logo

Say thanks by supporting us!

Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisement to our visitors. Please consider supporting to us by disabling your ad blocker.

Processing...

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

- Jonas Mekas
logo
Author:
Jonas Mekas
Tags:
Way
Through
Senses
Related Quote
Show all

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.

When I came to New York in 1949, there was already an entire fresh avant-garde film movement blooming in New York and California. It was a very, very exciting period!

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.

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.

It is important to know that what I do is not artistic. I am just a film-maker. I live how I live and I do what I do, which is recording moments of my life as I move ahead. And I do it because I am compelled to. Necessity, not artistry, is the true line you can follow in my life and work.

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.

In narrative cinema, a certain terminology has already been established: 'film noir,' 'Western,' even 'Spaghetti Western.' When we say 'film noir' we know what we are talking about. But in non-narrative cinema, we are a little bit lost. So sometimes, the only way to make us understand what we are talking about is to use the term 'avant-garde.'

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.

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.

Showcase
Show all

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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