This week in Film Notes, we share a selection of passages from Jonas Mekas’s writings, published between 1959 and 1972. The selection draws on his “Movie Journal” column in the Village Voice, contributions to Film Culture and Cinim, and the introduction to the book Movie Journal (1972). As a critic, programmer, and organizer within New York’s emerging underground cinema and avant-garde art, Mekas challenged systems of publication, exhibition, and distribution ill-suited to filmmakers’ working conditions and the new forms their work was taking. His attacks on censorship, festival bureaucracy, and the press are inseparable from proposals for filmmakers and other artists to build their own institutions and networks and determine the terms on which their work is shown and circulated. For Mekas, artistic independence becomes a matter of practical arrangements, from ownership of a print to payment for a screening, and of public support for forms of cinema unable to sustain themselves commercially. A co-founder of the journal Film Culture and the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, Mekas devoted much of his time during the 1960s to film criticism, artists' networks building and fundraising, as well as programming and organizing screenings, often at the expense of his own filmmaking. The schedule reproduced here, dated February 3, 1967, records his attempt to reclaim time for his own work while retaining those collective commitments.
The excerpts are published alongside Letter to John from Jonas (1999), e-flux’s October 2026 Staff Pick, available to watch online through October 31 (watch it here).1
From “A Call for a New Generation of Film-Makers”
1959. Film Culture Reader, 73.
The establishment of the Independent Film Award marks the entrance of a new generation of film-makers into American cinema.
The time has long been ripe for it. We had expected it to happen with the breaking up of the Hollywood monolith into small, independent film companies. But our hopes proved to be only wishful thinking. Most independent companies soon became small Hollywoods in themselves.
The only independent artist left in dramatic feature film, Orson Welles, is constantly being bended down and butchered, as he was in Touch of Evil.
. . .
From “On Censorship, the Mayor’s Office, and the Underground”
August 22, 1963. Movie Journal, 99–100.
Friends and citizens:
We want you to know how we feel.
When the Film-Makers’ Showcase moved into the Gramercy Arts Theatre, we thought now we’ll be able to continue our work in peace. Cinema needs its own workshop, a place where we can screen our unfinished and finished work, test our ideas, and study the work of our colleagues.
We were wrong.
The censors and the licensors are on our backs. They have interfered with our work. They have disregarded the fact that most of the films screened are unfinished works-in-progress and cannot be submitted for censorship or licensing. They are following blindly the dumb letter of bureaucracy.
They say we are corrupting your morals. We would be glad if we could. It would do good to some. Those must be very sick souls which can be angered by beauty; shaky and suspicious are the morals which can be upset and “corrupted” by beauty.
Let’s not be ridiculous.
Censors of City and State:
leave us alone.
There are loud talks going on in Washington and in the Mayor’s office about helping culture and the arts. There is even an Office of Cultural Affairs in New York, a branch of the Mayor’s office. When we called this office and asked them to get the censors off our backs, we were told, hastily, the office being very busy with culture, to write a letter. We say: To hell with letters. We have written too many of them. You know very well, without any letters, what all this is about. All that we are asking is: Get the censors and licensors off our backs. We are not in the business of making money: We are running an experimental film workshop, and we don’t care what the bureaucrats say we are doing.
. . .
City, State: Do something for the arts besides talking and having offices for arts and culture. Do one little thing; then we’ll trust you. Don’t set your artists against yourselves for no reason. You’ll need them. You need them already.
From “On Law, Morality, and Censorship”
April 23, 1964. Movie Journal, 141.
It is this cinema, the amateur cinema, the home-movie cinema, that should be beyond the present licensing, obscenity, and other related laws, if the City and the State don’t want to lose their artists.
It is not big business that needs the protection of the law; the avant-garde arts need it.
How all this should be done and written into the law, I do not know; but once we know where the crux of the problem is, we’ll be that much closer to a solution. It is well known, for instance, that no commercial theatre can exist with the number of people that attend avant-garde screenings, audiences of fifty to a hundred and twenty-five people, as opposed to the minimum requirements of a commercial theatre of a thousand people per week.
What this means is that the avant-garde cinema is outside of the commercial theatre; it doesn’t pay. It always has been relegated either to galleries or to one-shot screenings in lofts and legitimate theatres. The City, instead of fighting us, should give us one of its empty buildings. Then we could have free screenings for everybody.
In other words: One-shot screenings can be considered neither business nor a moral threat to society. It is in this area that the law must be changed, without the City or the State or the Country losing any control over business or the moral “safety” of the people.
(Anyone who thinks that changes of the law or corrections of the law would bring a golden age to the avant-garde arts which is equivalent to the death of the arts—is grossly mistaken. For the true avant-garde is always on its guard; it continually questions man’s status quo, never leaving us in complete peace, in a safe balance. The true avant-garde can never be trusted.)
From “The Year 1964”
January 7, 1965. Movie Journal, 183.
But mostly the year was marked by the clashes between film-makers and the public. In 1964, film-makers left the underground and came into the light, where they immediately clashed with the outmoded tastes and morals of the Establishment, the police, and the critics. During the later months, the absence of screenings resulted in a series of articles in national magazines written mostly by people who had never seen any of the films they were writing about—which created a further confusion. By autumn, however, the tone of the press, the snides, began to change into fatherly friendliness. The fashion was about to be born. The magazines and the uptown decided to join the underground and make it part of the Establishment. These new tactics of the Establishment brought an obvious confusion into the ranks of the underground. The year 1965 starts with the underground directors, stars, and critics regrouping and meditating.
There are three choices:
1. to be swallowed by the Establishment, like many other avant-gardes and undergrounds before them;
2. a deeper retreat into the underground;
3. a smash through the lines of the Establishment to the other side of it (or above it), thus surrounding it.
From “Open Letter to Film-Makers of the World”
1966. Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures, 535–38.
. . . Or take the Cannes Film Festival. I was asked, this Spring, by the Festival to suggest what, if anything, there is that they should consider bringing to the Semaine de la Critique. I wrote to them approximately this: “When you ask about films suitable for the Semaine de la Critique, you still have in mind the same type of film you saw four years ago. I could suggest a few titles of that kind of cinema—but since our cinema has changed and is still changing, it would be wrong to help you to continue that dream. Yes, there are the other, and truly new films to take to Cannes. But what’s the use even suggesting? What’s the use telling you that Andy Warhol has taken Cinéma Vérité into completely new areas and has produced some of the most important contemporary cinema? Or Brakhage’s Songs? Cannes wouldn’t even consider 8mm films. Or Gerd Stern, or Robert Whitman, or Nam June Paik? They can’t even be previewed! You still think in old terms. You still think that everything that is really good and new in American cinema can be packed up, wrapped up and shipped to you like any other movie, for previewing. This is no longer true. Very often, you have to bring the film-maker, and one or two technicians, and even equipment. For what they are doing, very often are film evenings, cinema evenings, but no films in the usual, conventional sense. These evenings, like some of the evenings of Gerd Stern (USCO), or Andy Warhol, or Jerry Joffen, or Stan Vanderbeek—with multiple projections and multiple sound systems, and with live participation, would shock Cannes into new visual, kinesthetic perceptions and into the cinema of the future. They would realize that there is truly new cinema, that something revolutionary is happening in cinema. Etc. I ended by suggesting six programs to take to Cannes. And what do you think happened? A representative of Cannes came to New York, looked at some familiar work, ignored whatever new and revolutionary was happening, ignored film-makers’ suggestions, and went back to Paris, declaring to the Press, before leaving, that he has found no interesting work done here and that, therefore, the young American directors will not be represented at Cannes this year.
Dear colleagues, film-makers and film critics: the conception of film festivals must be changed. Bureaucracy has got to go. Film-makers should decide what should be shown; they know what’s happening. Money should be used not for importing stars or for publicity but for paying for the prints of the films shown, for the shipping of films, or for importing film-makers, their technicians, their equipment (for inter-media shows). For instance, even if [the] Pesaro representative would have seen and liked Songs or Galaxie, the film-makers wouldn’t [sic] have afforded to make prints of these films for sending to the festival. Cinema is changing, but the film festivals have remained the same—that’s what’s wrong.
I went into the film festival aspect in more detail only to show that the new film-maker (and that goes for all countries) can not trust any commercial (or State; or one that is based on commercial tradition) film financing, film production, film distribution, film exhibition or film promotion set-ups and organizations. WE HAVE TO START EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH, FROM THE BEGINNING. NO COMPROMISES, HOWEVER SMALL.
. . .
Since all commercial film-distribution and film-financing organizations are set-up on a private business basis and not to help the film-maker to continue making films—four years ago, the independent film-makers of America organized their own film distribution center, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, which is run by the film-makers themselves. We decided not to give our work to any of the commercial distributors. We developed a more human working system. We stuck together, we grew and expanded. Through the Cooperative, we increased our outlets ten-fold. We created a distribution circuit embracing colleges, universities, film societies, art theaters, art galleries and museums.
. . .
At this moment we are setting up 100 theaters (friendly theaters) across the country for the distribution of our work. For this purpose a new division has just been created—the Film-Makers’ Distribution Center, which will work in conjunction with the Coop. Fifteen theaters have already pledged to exhibit all our new work.
. . .
We want to stress that the Film-Makers’ Co-operative and the Center do not divide films into any budget, length, or subject categories. We take cinema as a whole. We are letting all film-makers know that any film-maker who has an extra print of his film (all prints at all times at the Coop and the Center remain the property of the film-maker) can send it to the New York or London branches of the Coop and the film will be distributed, no matter how much or how little it cost to make. We are not categorizing films. Each film at the Coop requires special treatment, each film has its own audience; each film has its own life. At this point, we would like to urge you—and I direct this Open Letter to the independent film-makers of the world, to anybody whose life is cinema, who is making and must make films—to create Film-Makers’ Cooperatives of your own, in your own countries. There is no other visible solution. There is no other way of escaping the grip of the commercial set-ups. This net of international Coops could then exchange among themselves and help each other beyond the boundaries of their own countries. . . . We have to surround the earth with our films, lovingly, like with our hands. . . . Let’s not worry about the big commercial success and the audience of millions. If the health and freedom of our art needs it we should be willing to retreat to our own homes, to our friends’ homes: cinema as a home movie. The art of cinema can not be created with money but with love; it can not be created by compromises but by purity of our attitude.
. . .
A note on the Financial Set-Up of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative: The film-maker deposits his print with the Coop. That print is his membership card. During our yearly meeting, film-makers elect an advisory board of film-makers to supervise and to advise the running of the Coop. The film-maker remains the owner of all his prints. He can take them out whenever he wants to. No contracts of any kind are signed. Trust is the basis at the Coop. That’s the first condition. Income: 75% of the rentals (from gross) goes to the film-maker, 25% goes to the Coop, to cover the running expenses, the shipping etc. . . . The film-maker is allowed (and encouraged) to distribute the same film through other distributors—as long as the other distributor doesn’t object to the Coop’s distribution of the film and works on humanly acceptable terms. We have been trying to break up the monopolistic film distribution idea. It would be ridiculous to try to sell, for instance, a book through only one bookshop, or rent it thru only one library. But that is what we still find in film distribution. . . . The prints of our films soon will be in every home, on the shelves, like books, so that one can pick them up and look at them whenever one feels like doing so. Film-makers of the world: let’s do it now. Let’s go home and start from there.
From “On Film Journalism and Newsreels”
April 21, 1966. In “To Mayor Lindsay,” Movie Journal, 244.
. . . The Film-Makers’ Cooperative has established the End of Century Newsreel series which will be shipped to colleges, universities, theatres, and whoever wants them. Home-movie-makers all over the world are being asked to film and send to the Co-op whatever happens around the town, this city, country; whatever is exciting, terrible, or beautiful for others to see and to know. We have to start doing this right now. Let’s record the dying century and the birth of another man. The time is here to change the ways of journalism on this planet Earth. The schools of journalism will soon replace their writing classes with 8 mm. movie-making classes. Let’s surround the earth with our cameras, hand in hand, lovingly; our camera is our third eye that will lead us out and in and through. The buzz of our cameras should be louder than the buss of the fuzz. Nothing should be left unshown or unseen, dirty or clean: Let us see and go further, out of the swamps and into the sun.
“On How the Underground Fooled Hollywood”
December 21, 1967. Movie Journal, 307–9. A mock interview.
Bystander (who would like to remain anonymous) to Jonas: You have been interviewing other film-makers. Permit me to ask you a question. Let’s face it, the secret is out: It has been all a joke, all this underground business?
Jonas: I guess I have to tell the truth now. There is nothing to lose by now. So, may as well let the world know the real truth about the underground cinema. It all started ten years ago, when a few of us who wanted to make films very badly but who couldn’t get our hands either on the Hollywood studios or the equipment, one day, suddenly, came up with a brilliant idea which we immediately proceeded to put into practice. It was a very simple idea and it was based on our good knowledge of Hollywood psychology.
Bystander: What was the scheme?
Jonas: It was like this. We decided to work out, to concoct a few very “unusual,” kooky ideas and gimmicks—like hand-held cameras, out-of-focus shots, shaky camera techniques, improvised acting, single frames, jumpy cutting—things like that. Knowing the Hollywood psychology, which we studied carefully, we knew that it was only a question of some insistence on our part and some “casual” publicity—and Hollywood would pick up our bait. You see, Hollywood wants to be “with the people,” “give them what they want,” “be up to date.” (Newsweek, for instance, knew about Be-Ins before the hippies found out about them.) And I don’t have to tell you this—it worked! Our scheme worked perfectly! Today, in Hollywood, they are running in the studios with hand-held cameras, they are shaking them, while dollies and tripods are getting rusty. Next week a truckload of tripods is arriving from Hollywood to New York to be distributed to the underground film-makers—Hollywood has no longer any use for them. We are finally free to take any piece of equipment we want, any studio we want, almost for nothing! Now we can really start making our movies, while Hollywood will go underground. And since we are now in complete control of things, I feel there is no great reason to hold from the world the truth about our hoax.
Bystander: And what about the press?
Jonas: The joke was on the press, too. They swallowed the bait and the hook. All those articles on the underground movies! What’s more—some of the film-makers themselves got hooked on the scheme! They really believe, some of them, what the press tells them! They think they are underground film-makers!
Bystander: You don’t seem to have any great qualms about it?
Jonas: Oh no, not at all! Those of us who have been in on this joke, we consider any artist who doesn’t see that this is a joke and who gets hooked seriously on it, on our underground hook—such an artist has no sense of humor and therefore is no good anyway. Therefore, no big loss. . . .
From “Construction vs. Destruction, or Leave the Dead Alone”
August 29, 1968. In “Ten Reasons Why the New York Film Festival Should Be Closed,” Movie Journal, 325–26.
Where do I stand myself? I can only tell you where I stood myself till now. I am not very certain where I am now. This was my past stand: Those who have watched the growth of the New American Cinema, the underground film, should know by now that our attitude (my attitude) or spirit was to build, to create, not to destroy. The things that we considered outdated, even harmful, we left to their own inevitable and solitary death by not co-operating with them, by keeping ourselves out. We didn’t waste energy on destroying the Hollywood film industry. We directed our energies toward creating a new kind of cinema, a more personal cinema, toward the liberation of the camera; we didn’t waste energy on destroying or fighting the competitive, commercial film distribution systems—we created our own cooperative distribution center, Film-Makers’ Cooperative, based on noncompetitive human relations. We didn’t waste energy on fighting censorship laws: We created a cinema that is changing the censorship laws. We didn’t even waste energy in fighting the corrupt public information media—we created our own underground information film, the Newsreel. The same thing was with the film festivals: We stayed out of them. That is, till now. Because things are different now. The air is full of foulness and desperation. Who is creating this desperation? Do I have to answer it? I am afraid things are out of control. But that’s how they always were, I gather, when one looks from the worm’s angle. . .
“On University Film Festivals”
January 23, 1969. Movie Journal, 340–41.
As we are entering another year, we are entering another film festival season. From the first three festival announcements—Cannes, Venice, and Ann Arbor—it doesn’t look as though festival organizers have learned anything from last summer’s lessons. In their announcements, both Cannes and Venice throw snide remarks at the film-makers who criticized them, and both intend to proceed the old way. I do not have to worry about Cannes—the French film-makers and students will take care of it. I am more concerned about Ann Arbor.
Ann Arbor is the oldest of the university film festivals. By now almost every second university has a film-makers’ festival going. I like the inflation aspect. The only way to destroy the festivals is to have a thousand festivals. But neither I nor the film-makers like anything else about them. From my discussions with other independent film-makers the following few points have come out and I would suggest that the university film festival organizers take these points seriously, if they don’t want to be boycotted:
1. Film-makers should not be charged any entry fees.
2. All films accepted for screenings should be paid rental fees designated by the film-makers. This applies to both competitive and noncompetitive festivals.
3. If a festival is competitive, the jurors should see every film sent to the festival (that is, preselection should be abandoned).
4. If any monies are to be given out as awards it should be left to the jurors to decide how to divide the monies. There is a movement against “unanimous” juries (where all jurors have to agree upon “the best” film) and toward the personal selections of each juror.
5. Films should be shipped back to the film-maker immediately after the festival is over, at the festival’s expense.
That’s what more or less is in the wind. And since it looks like Ann Arbor doesn’t comply with any of the five points, it should be busted. Anyone who wants to be a fink, here is the address: Ann Arbor Film Festival, P.O. Box 283, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48107.
From “Why I’m Writing This Column”
March 20, 1969. Movie Journal, 346–47.
I started writing this piece, and it didn’t make much sense. I wanted to skip another column. But then I thought: Look, thousands of columns in thousands of papers are being used to promote the stupidity, the vulgarity of all the bad cinema. As long as I have a chance, in this little corner here, to bring to people’s attention some creations of man which are working toward light, I must use it. So here I am again, typing away, with a dramatic edge, thinking: How almost evil, it’s almost evil that our movie critics, under their present policy, review only the commercial cinema. They call themselves film critics, but all they are is servants of money. How evil of the publishers of our daily press and our weekly magazines to bring to people’s attention, to give space (because that’s what reviewing essentially is) to only those films which have long, “continuous” runs, no matter how bad or stupid the movie is, and who ignore, who keep away from people’s awareness all the beautiful works which can afford only one evening or afternoon at the Cinematheque, at the Museum of Modern Art, or some other place. A greater number of small budget beautiful movies open in New York every week than those of the big budget, and nobody knows about them. Is it so much to ask our press to inform people about all of the films that open in New York? There are no secrets about their openings, the press knows about them. . . . I accuse all our movie critics, and I accuse here Time, Newsweek, and Variety, and The New York Times and the Post, and absolutely all our newspapers and magazines (including most of the underground press) of committing an unforgivable cultural crime by reviewing only commercial films, only long-run films, for ignoring one-time film events. And I am not doing this because I am interested to know what their scribblers will have to say about Brakhage, or Baillie, or the Chicago Underground: I am fighting for space, for equal rights for the aesthetic creations of man. These movies should be written about, should be brought to people’s attention, people should know that they exist. People have a right to know that there is a choice for them. The present reviewing system is evil. Everything is evil that deprives man from choices, from knowing that there is a greater variety of cinema experience. Our movie critics are shrinkers of humanity’s sensibilities.
From the introduction to Movie Journal
1972. Pages 3–5, incorporating diary entries from 1960 and 1964.
May 23, 1960. Why do I do this, why do I do that? Why do I write my Voice column, why do I publish Film Culture? Why don’t I just make films, they ask me. Why do you do so many things at once? All those questions! It’s like being on a swing: first I have to move the swing; then I swing with it, and then it swings me, and then I am also swinging the swing. Where does the swing begin and where does it end, and what is, really, the swing?
. . .
March 2, 1964. This is a farewell note. I have been thinking of giving up my Movie Journal for some time now. But kept finding excuses. My excuses have run out. I have built and fed a strange creature in my columns. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s real or imaginary. There is no doubt that I can be of use to the independent film-makers. I am a fanatic and I can do much. But it is my fanaticism that is also my danger. I have a tendency to impose my own dreams and visions on others. . . . I have become a force, a leader even a saint . . . It is time to dissolve all forces and all orbits and all saints. Even art can enslave man, take away his freedom. I feel today that only that art is sacred which has no “ideas,” no “thoughts,” no “meanings,” no “content,” but is simply beautiful; serves no other purpose but its own beauty; it just is, like trees are. Underground cinema won’t get anything from public success. Popularization drags beauty down. I am tired of force and action. It is very easy for a man, and I am talking about myself, of course to begin to feel that he is needed and important. It is unimportance that I am after. My argument for continuing my Voice column went like this: But shouldn’t I simply be a humble servant of the film-makers and do my duty do at least some good to my fellow humans? Are you telling me that my freedom is more important than to serve men? Aren’t you like one who leaves people and retreats to the Himalayas busy with himself? It’s your egoism that is guiding you, not the sense of freedom. It’s so easy to think that what I am doing is needed! Really, nothing is needed. That includes this column.
I wrote this on March 2, 1964. But the next week, I did another column for the Voice. Why do you think I did it? Ha, I am not going to tell you that! To find out that, you’ll have to read my True Diaries, where everything’s explained . . . But if you’re keen enough, Dear Reader, you’ll find it all answered in this collection of my Movie Journals.
The video letter and the selection of passages from Jonas Mekas' texts were published with permission of the Jonas Mekas Estate, ➝.
