The above is a still from Mekas’ film, As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, released in the first year of the new millennium.
Jonas Mekas lived a full 96 years. His films are commonly labeled as avant-garde, and when considered through the lens of film history, they are. Where a consumer driven film/art world seems to want distillation, meaning, shock, wit, sex, and entertainment, Mekas' films eschew these trends in favor of films that are oftentimes plotless, long, and commonplace.
Yet, for Mekas (as it is for us all), the commonplace was where most of life's fleeting but continual beauty happened. His films are wide-eyed, loving, and quietly confident in the joy of life and living. As you watch them, they appear less as documents and more as haikus, that form of poetry which aims not to describe life but to provoke you into it. With Mekas' passing, we lost a great poet but we still have his poetry.
I'd like to share a quick little anecdote of when I first met Jonas Mekas:
I had only lived in New York for just over a year when Christo and Jeanne-Claude took me with them to the Guggenheim to see an opening. As we navigated the crowds and circled the exhibition, Christo, with a small burst of excitement and a quickening of step called out "Jonas! Jonas!" Jonas Mekas turned around, and with the joy of recognition, embraced Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Christo eagerly introduced me, "Adam, this is Jonas Mekas. Jonas, this is Adam blackBOURN...from wisCONsin." I remember Mekas was wearing dark clothes and a black trilby and he had a gentle smile on his face. He looked at me directly in the eye without saying a word, and, after a brief pause (that I can only describe as a kind of recognition), he took the back of his hand and slammed it against my chest with a shocking force. My face belied my shock; without thinking, I smiled. As we looked at each other, our smiles both grew, and before I had the chance to have any other reaction, Jonas put his hand on his hat, lifted it off his head in a show of giddy respect, and, placing it back on his head, turned around and walked away.
That's all there is to the story; there's really no meaning and I don't look for it...it was just a little slice of life where I was briskly awakened. Upon reflection, its like many of his films; they are meaningless but awakening and enlivening. To be awake and to be alive; this is more valuable than meaning.
"As I Was Moving Ahead... is a record of subtle feelings, emotions, daily joys of people as recorded in the voices, faces and small everyday activities of people I have met, or lived with, or observed -- something that I have been recording for many years. This, as opposed to the spectacular, entertaining, sensational, dramatic activities which dominate much of the contemporary film-making.
"Now, all this has to do with my understanding and belief of what acts really affect the positive changes in man, society, humanity. I am interested in recording the subtle, almost invisible acts, experiences, feelings, as opposed to the tough, harsh, loud, violent activities and political actions, and especially, political systems of our time. As a film-maker, I am taking a stand for the politics that have been practiced by some of the artists of my generation who believe that more essential, positive contributions to the upholding and furthering of the best in humanity, have been made, say, by John Cage or Albert Camus, and not by the great political figures of the 20th century.
"The film is not conceived as a documentary film, however. It follows a tradition established by modern film poets. I am interested in intensifying the fleeting moments of reality by a personal way of filming and structuring my material. A lot of importance is being given to color, movement, rhythm and structure -- all very essential to the subject matter I am pursuing. I have spent many years developing and perfecting a way of catching the immediacy without interfering with it, without destroying it. I believe that some of the content that I am trying to record with my camera and share with others, can be caught only very indirectly though the intensity of personal involvement."
- Jonas Mekas