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In his Village Voice "Movie Journal" columns, Jonas Mekas captured the makings of an exciting movement in 1960s American filmmaking. Works by Andy Warhol, Gregory Markapoulos, Stan Brakhage, Jack Smith, Robert Breer, and others echoed experiments already underway elsewhere, yet they belonged to a nascent tradition that only a true visionary could identify. Mekas incorporated the most essential characteristics of these films into a unique conception of American filmmaking's next phase. He simplified complex aesthetic strategies for unfamiliar audiences and appreciated the subversive genius of films that many dismissed as trash. This new edition presents Mekas's original critiques in full, with additional material on the filmmakers, film studies scholars, and popular and avant-garde critics whom he inspired and transformed.
List of contents
Foreword: The Great Mr. Mekas, by Peter Bogdanovich
Introduction to the Second Edition, by Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker
Introduction
1. 1959
2. 1960
3. 1961
4. 1962
5. 1963
6. 1964
7. 1965
8. 1966
9. 1967
10. 1968
11. 1969
12. 1970
13. 1971
Afterword by Jonas Mekas
Appendix
Index
About the author
Jonas Mekas. Foreword by Peter Bogdanovich. Introduction by Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker. With a new afterword by the author.
Summary
A new edition of the classic work that defined the aesthetics, techniques, and identity of American avant-garde film.
Report
"Jonas Mekas's Village Voice criticism (his 'Movie Journal') was far and away the most influential and most astute for the Sixties and Seventies for a generation of readers dissatisfied with mere commercial reviewing. Mekas dared to write for the future as well as the present, pointing to films that would endure, even if they were hidden or despised. Of course, it turned out he was right." - P. Adams Sitney, Princeton University
