The Life and Times of Jonas Mekas

Imagine a time before independent film. Just about no one makes them. If more did, no one would show them. And if someone showed them, few would watch them and certainly no one would write about them, because they just aren’t something worthy of serious discussion. If all that changed, it was, to no small extent, due to the efforts of Jonas Mekas, the man regarded by many as the godfather of American avant-garde cinema. His is the story of a Lithuanian immigrant who came as a young man with limited English skills to the United States after World War II, settled in New York City, immersed himself in the arts scene of the time, and went on to shape it as a filmmaker, critic, curator and archivist.

That, in essence, is the story that our oral history of Jonas Mekas captures in his own words. This interview offers a window into neighborhoods bustling with immigrants, many of them recent post-war arrivals, as well as into one of the most vital cultural moments in the city’s history. Within a few years of his arrival in town, Jonas became part of several of the legendary artist circles of the period. His account begins in a Greenwich Village where you would, as he did, bump into Dylan Thomas and Robert Flaherty at the White Horse Tavern, or into Beats shooting the breeze at the Cedar Tavern, grab a bite at one of the Spanish restaurants on 14th street, and perhaps by chance catch Miles Davis or Lenny Bruce performing a few blocks away (see archival images of the period here).

Jonas’ story then shifts to the East Village, which became during the 1960s a hotbed of avant-garde activity, some of which could get you arrested (as it did Jonas). It was the time of the independent-film pioneer Charles Theatre (193 Ave. B, between 12th and 13th). Edward Sanders was publishing the Fuck You literary magazine and artist Claes Oldenburg was staging happenings at his Ray Gun Theater (107 E. 2nd St, btw, 1st Ave and Ave A). A few years later, Richard Foreman put on his first play at the Writers’ Stage (83 E 4th Street, btw 2nd and 3rd Avenues), and Andy Warhol introduced the Velvet Underground to the world at Dom (23 St. Mark’s Place, btw 2nd and 3rd Ave).

Jonas’ kaleidoscopic picture of the neighborhood is woven together by the story of his tremendous efforts to create, promote, display, and valorize independent cinema. The groundwork for this work fell into place through the coincidence of two fortuitous developments. First, lighter camera equipment became available that allowed you to shoot with synced sound without the need for expensive machinery. Second, the Army was selling at a steep discount a surplus of cameras and film stock that it had accumulated during World War II. These circumstances democratized film-making. But they did nothing to promote the distribution, display, and appreciation of these films. That’s where Jonas came in.

It is hard to keep up with the whirlwind of activity generated by Jonas from the 1960s through the 1980s. He started doing independent film screenings throughout the neighborhood, some of which got him arrested on obscenity charges. He took over programming at the Charles Theatre altogether, turning it into a platform for this work. He founded the Film-Makers’ Cooperative with the dedicated purpose of distributing independent films (a task made substantially easier among university student groups by the material’s reputation for obscenity). He became the first film critic for the Village Voice and began the influential journal Film Culture. Then, without a budget to speak of, he launched the Anthology Film Archives (now the foremost experimental film library in the country) and, through an utterly improbable turn of events, moved it into the former courthouse building at (32 2nd Ave, btw E 2nd and 3rd Streets) -— an adaptive reuse project that catalyzed the transformation of this derelict corner of the neighborhood. While he was doing all this, Jonas was making his own films rather prolifically. Thanks in no small measure to his own work as a champion of the genre, many of these would eventually be screened at museums and festivals the world over. Asked how, despite all this activity, he found time to sleep, he replied:

My loft was full of people day and night, practically. So the only place left for me to sleep while things were going was under my editing table somewhere in the back corner. It was a very, very busy period.

To learn more about Jonas’ fascinating life and work in the neighborhood, listen to his entire interview and/or read the transcript, click HERE. To access the entire Village Preservation Oral History Collection, click HERE.