Jonas Mekas, the Godfather of Avant-Garde Cinema | IN THE WORKS | THE SHED

As an introduction to one of Jonas Mekas’s final films, “Requiem,” commissioned by The Shed, we reflect on the late Lithuanian American filmmaker’s impact on American cinema. Mekas, whom the New York Times has called “the godfather of American avant-garde film,” passed away in January 2019. We hear from his friend and peer, artist Marina Abramović, his longtime video editor Elle Burchill, and The Shed’s artistic director and CEO Alex Poots and senior program advisor Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Mekas’s new film, “Requiem,” commissioned by and presented at The Shed, is a meditative tribute to Verdi’s score for the Messa da Requiem, or Catholic funeral Mass, and a reflection on the beauty of the natural world.
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Visit bit.ly/2pMXy78 for more about “Requiem,” and to discover our other original commissions ranging from hip hop and dance to theater , sculpture, digital media, and visual art.
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Experience Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem,” one of classical music’s most virtuosic and transcendent works, in concert and in film. Electrifying conductor Teodor Currentzis and the 106-member orchestra and 80-member chorus musicAeterna from Perm, Russia, will take the stage in The Shed’s McCourt to perform Requiem. Following rapturous reviews at this summer’s Salzburg Festival, the performances mark Currentzis and musicAeterna’s North American debut.
A new cinematic artwork set to Verdi’s score by late, beloved filmmaker Jonas Mekas, and co-commissioned by The Shed and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, will accompany the performances of Requiem and will be screened in the Level 4 Gallery. The work is a meditative tribute to Verdi’s masterpiece and an homage to the filmmaker himself, who passed away in January at the age of 96.
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[@laviniacapogna4]

It is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it

[@ivanmarincine]

Thank you

[@MrDancerAndMagicMask]

What is everyone's favorite Mekas film?

[@andresmoya75]

Could you recommend some movies from him?

[@hikikomori_3708]

@@andresmoya75 As I was moving ahead, occasionally I saw glimpses of beauty. It's widely regarded as his best work

[@barrymoore4470]

Alas, apart from clips such as shown here, I've not yet experienced any of his films. But I can say the one that interests me most is 'Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania', a remarkable project given how challenging it must have been to shoot a personal film in the Soviet Union at that time.

[@bobbyjohnson7887]

🔥🔥
Brilliant
1:23 🎥
👇👇👇👇❣

[@peterkelnerxd7009]

Of American avant garde maybe but in the world there were Bunuel and Cocteau decades before him

[@barrymoore4470]

True, but Mekas was as much a film critic as he was a filmmaker, and his writing describing and promoting avant-garde cinema was seminal.

[@peterkelnerxd7009]

@@barrymoore4470 he wrote in the 50's, Buñuel and Coctea made their movies in the 20's and 30's

[@barrymoore4470]

@@peterkelnerxd7009Certainly, but neither of those earlier, indisputably major figures functioned as published critics. That was the distinction I sought to make between Mekas and his predecessors.

[@peterkelnerxd7009]

@@barrymoore4470 not as critics but Cocteau was a avant-garde poet and playwright, while Buñuel was member of Andre Bretons group

[@barrymoore4470]

@@peterkelnerxd7009 Indeed, in fact, Cocteau is a major figure in twentieth-century French literature. My only point of contention is that neither man wrote in any consistent or systematic way as a film critic, whereas that is one of Mekas' prime legacies. I'm not saying that Mekas was a greater artist than those predecessors, merely that his specific work as a film critic was foundational.

[@NateJackson_]

Isn’t she a witch?