Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)

 

Director: Jonas Mekas

Canon Fodder

 

August 10:

"Worse than the Twilight Zone"

Jonas Mekas early in this document of his life compares himself to Ulysses, one form of the Roman name of Odysseus, a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey who, returning from that odyssey after ten years, despite originally just trying to returning home from the Trojan War, felt weary in his homecoming. Weary in his homecoming in a new world to him, we begin in  1949, a week into Jonas Mekas and his brother emigrating to the United States, having bought a Bolex camera between them which we see the footage from, in this film composed together in 1976 decades later. A displaced person in New York City, this Lithuanian migrant's experience is steeped in melancholia, but as he would find happiness in his new life, and return to Lithuania briefly one day in the future, so too does the world he entered feel brimming with fascinating. This preserves that world he entered like amber on film, even the nudie joints and downtown cinemas selling sex, from which after his sense of being lost he would eventually find himself.

Mekas admits early on he is sentimental, rather than record abstract images, and as a film that view is taken as it goes from his new life in 1949 to the sixties, Lost, Lost, Lost now I come to it appreciating his work rewarding as a journey over three hours felt fully. It does not hide the fact he was displaced. Fellow Lithuanians meet up at the House of Lape, as seen, and we see football (soccer) games, picnics, traditional folk dances, and even a Lithuanian wedding in Brooklyn. Openly viewing himself and others like him lost in stasis, to eventually diminish in number, Mekas  even shows that their nationality was to question even as exiles, as he briefly covers the conflict of Lithuanian communists versus Lithuanian nationalists, as their country became a Soviet nation in the future Iron Curtain, footage recorded by him even showing protesters with signs.

This is the kind of source which can now compel me, as it is an epic documentation of one man's past as a diary, one of many Mekas would make as he kept recording his life for decades even after this production. Eventually this film reaches the end of its first and second parts (reels 1 and 2), with this chapter of him and his fellow migrants in the United States, with him reconsidering himself beyond an exile, by 1953, to become a Lithuanian needing to rebuild himself. He did, and where Lost, Lost, Lost grows is that in the little details of the life seen, from leaving Brooklyn to Manhattan, even going briefly to New Jersey for shooting grounds, he amplified the life that he experienced and reconsiders it with greater meaning we all learn from.

And the film, based around six reels, does become profound. Fiction and reality both have their places to tell meaningful narratives, full of introspection, but entirely based on reality, this accomplishes this greatly, where even when ending up in Los Angeles, living on "miserable sandwiches and coffee", you see many profound moments Mekas was rewarded with in his perseverance. Only one segment, an extensive one on "Rabbit Shit Haikus", feels broad and trying a little to the point of pretention ("the road, the road, the road...."), even if the name comes from the dark humoured idea that, if life is a journey, he imagines someone reaching the end of the road only to find rabbit droppings and having to turn back round, having to explain what they find to the people back at the start. That segment feels contrived when everything else is intimate and felt fully, meaningful with just the littlest of moments such as a montage of a woman chewing bubblegum, and blowing bubbles, in a variety of different places strung together. His eventual future as a huge figure for avant-garde cinema in his new homeland was documented by himself without ego, filming the world for these filmmakers as it was, such as footage of Robert Frank shooting The Sins of Jesus (1962) at a chicken farm. Mekas also found himself in places of history of the time beyond cinema too, at the right time and right places recording in the middle of an anti-nuke protest, a large scale one that lasts into the night with Mekas front row (literally in the midst of) with his camera.  

It is difficult for me to review a film which is entirely of these images and visuals, which you can argue for all cinema, which should be seen and then discussed. But here especially, Lost, Lost, Lost is a profound work that should be seen, a piece which is compelling as an extensive home recorded narrative. We see over time Mekas find himself, this documentary in itself with him looking back at the time with this in mind, questioning what it meant to be a migrant living in another country and eventually lead to become the man he became, famous for this when Lost, Lost, Lost was compiled and released. It is stepped in melancholy throughout, but as time has passed from watching the film, this mood has seeped away and I look back at this film as a celebration. He crossed paths with fascinating figures, between a Tiny Tim cameo in reel 6, or the sight of an older Salvador Dali conversing with a group over optical illusions in another scene. Mekas even if his journey could end just finding rabbit droppings must have realised the distance was still worth it just for the walking he did.

Eventually a viewer will see this in the early stages of who Mekas became, travelling with film prints of Flaming Creatures (1963) and Blonde Cobra (1963) for screenings only to be forced to sleep outside in the cold, with friends, in Vermont. He is able however in the footage to appreciate the moment between them, becoming a victory for a man who, as documented in his own film Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), originally fled his home land due to Nazi invasion and even ending up a prisoner to them briefly. He jokes over this footage of he and the figures in this footage having been "the monks of cinema", aptly with Mekas onscreen waving his camera around with monk chanting on the soundtrack, all justified knowing his reputation in promoting others' work avant-garde cinema let alone his own work being profound for decades to come. After nearly three hours of Mekas trying to find himself as an exile, to joke like this in the final stages of the archive material feels like he found himself, Lost, Lost, Lost for us the viewers a celebration of finding oneself, certainly a film is dire need of greater recognition as a gem of the art form.

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972)

 

Director: Jonas Mekas

Canon Fodder

 

Berries, always berries.

Reminiscences... was the first Jonas Mekas film I ever saw, and I did not appreciate it. His films today, having come to appreciate them, belay what cinema can be. I do not consider this an insult, but this huge figure in American avant-garde cinema in his own work compiled what would effectively be lifelong home movies to most viewers, becoming diaries that spanned decades which he would eventually compile into short and long form features based on the subjects per work. You see this in the first pieces of Reminiscences..., scored to solemn piano music, of the streets of Brooklyn from his perspective as a Lithuanian migrant. This is real homemade footage focused on fragments of the most innocuous of images, like kids playing on the street, turned into something profound by time and his focus on them. The time capsule nature is profound - Mekas' own narration is personal and introspective, contrasting that the footage is archival and meaningful even without his compelling words over them.

Mekas' own accounts build together a life for those around him, a world where even an anecdote never seen onscreen is meaningful, such as his brother when drafted into the army being shipped back because he started eating leaves and was presumed to be mentally unstable. Mekas' own life is complex as, documented in this film specifically, he was a migrant who had to flee his homeland from invading Nazi Germany, including being imprisoned by them before he got to the United States with his brother finally. Reminiscences... follows him finally returning to his homeland in 1971.

Intermingling colour and monochrome footage, Mekas' work immediately evokes a time in my life of volunteering in a film archive, devoted to sorting through home movies on a variety of formats to discern historical importance, working on the types of film materials Mekas may have considered or even use like 8mm film reels, discerning the images on hand cranked projectors you had to squint to scan the images of. Here there is a greater existential nature, of a man from World War II in exile finally returning home. An additional factor at the time is that his home of Lithuania then was also a Soviet nation which is touched upon.

It is difficult to describe this, as it has to be experienced viewing the footage, seeing through his camera eye and thoughts of the world within them, of music, of drinking and sleeping on hay in a profound moment in his life he calmly, gracefully, recounts as a storyteller. Baring some rapid editing, this is only "avant-garde" in how sadly people do not want to watch something this sincere on mass to fictional reality. This is sad as, finally understanding this after the first viewing, returning to these reminiscences is incredibly gentle. Entirely in the countryside in the Lithuania section, there is not even a spectre of communism really here, where it feels less different from the land of Mekas' relatives when they were younger, baring that now collective farming groups exist. A running gag is how the native Lithuanians joke they will probably look backwards to the United States, all in an amused attitude, such as having to use hand ploughs.

It is a beautiful piece, structured in chapters, part 1 almost a prologue, the Lithuanian section part 2 with 91 shots makings it up, whilst part 2 examines how, fleeing the country, he did end up in a Nazi prison camp, going to Germany, before finally escaping to the United States. Far from a bleak affair, it comes with curiosity as, able to go to the factory he as a prisoner had to work in, now a heritage site, he can reflect on this history and even meet one of the staff, now an older man, with no grievances and now empathy for each other. It is a soothing reminder of how, even with the horrors of World War II and Nazi Germany, human beings are still human beings capable of empathy.

More so as Mekas, the man he became, ends the film, where with the colour of the film stock used adding such a striking look, the colour red so unique to this footage, Mekas goes to Vienna. The man who returned home, to be able to see family he left in his country, was also able to become a hugely profound figure for growing avant-garde cinema. His films soften and remind us viewers in the modern day even these seminal avant-garde filmmakers are us, where Peter Kubelka, the legendary filmmaker who turned a commissioned beer commercial into an elliptical short Schwechater (1958), is seen as a jovial man feeing pigeons, or how Ken Jacobs, of Star Spangled to Death (2004), was dubbed "the Child" by Mekas. Even tragedy, when Vienna burning at night due to the final is the final images of the film, as Kubelka is recounted lamenting a market he was fond of burning down, is felt with a greater worth than just mere sadness. That at least the market existed and is remembered, and that, yes, even destruction can be beautiful as it is here, the sight of crimson reds, oranges and flickers of yellow on black stunning to behold. If this review feels whimsical, more than usual, it is because trying to speak of Mekas beyond this would be absurd. Sadly, his films are difficult to see, a tragedy as never was there a man in avant-garde filmmaking who championed humility.

Travel Songs (1981)

 

Director: Jonas Mekas

Canon Fodder

 

May there be happiness -

The name Jonas Mekas is legendary, a figure of great importance of American avant-garde cinemas a Lithuanian migrant who came to American and contributed to avant-garde filmmaking in his own work and he help in others work, co-founding the Film-Makers' Cooperative in 1962 and the Filmmakers' Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives. The interesting thing seeing his work, and it is cinema not as readily available as one would hope unfortunately, is that nothing in his work is "experimental" in the sense of requiring a different attitude to approach the material. This twenty plus minute short is exemplary to this.

Travel Songs, in all honesty, is a compilation of home movie fragments. It is not difficult; it could be sold to any viewer with ease if they found a fascination in exploring any person's old films, vacations or chronicles of a place in an old time period, and appreciate the experience. Mekas' career, with his own filmmaking, is a man who picked up a film camera and recorded his life over the decades until his 2019 passing. In the span of twenty minutes here, from the late sixties to the eighties, we hop through the various countries he has travelled within, snapshots of times of the past. In fact, Travel Songs as I viewed it is actually a compilation of shorter work - The Song of Assisi (1967), The Song of Avila (1967), The Song of Italy (1967), The Song of Moscow (1971) and The Song of Stockholm (1981) at least.

Stan Brakhage, speaking of avant-garde filmmakers he would have crossed paths with, becomes a point of note here as, whilst this does follow common traits to other Mekas films I have seen, noticeable for me is how he intercuts the silent footage filmed in these environments, literal fragments in places, and rapidly cuts between them, a barrage of memories especially with Italy, which has the longest segment over fifteen minutes, very much like Brakhage. Yes, these are home movies of travels, but that is inherently rewarding as time capsules to the past, which Mekas recorded amongst large portions of his own life, especially between those we see rushed through in snapshots, as if recounting memories which suddenly flash up when least expected in barely glimpsed form, or when we are allowed to breathe and take them in.

His trademark is not to hide behind the camera as a silent figure, not necessarily in front of it presiding, but his voice is that of a commentator on his own work. Here, it is sparser than other work where his voice and ideas dominate as much as the visuals are allowed to breathe. He relies here on a few text intertitles, which in the rawer look of the footage, where shots were recorded on shaking moving transport or dependent on the environment, is themselves as handcrafted to be filmed as everything else.

As someone who documented the United States from the perspective of a Lithuanian migrant extensively in the likes of Lost, Lost, Lost (1976), here this feels like a relaxed view of the world beyond. Snippets of Moscow, its famous onion domes on Saint Basil's Cathedral barely appearing onscreen but enough to register, whilst Stockholm in Sweden is a place of humility, with Mekas placing great emphasis throughout these films-within-a-film on ordinary life and the joys of it, from simple acts to dining to looking on the people that pass in front of the camera (adults and especially children) with an admiration for them. Italy as having the longest segment becomes an ode to ordinary, non-glamorised reality between cafes to barbers rather than an elaborate piece with a commentary on the culture.

In his segment in Ávila, Spain the longest of his monologues here, near the beginning, emphasises the point of the whole Travel Songs. He reflects, with his accented voice with calm happiness, a "little dog" suddenly coming up to him and licking the dust off his shoe that came from the paths he was walking. Said dust connected him to the place, the dog and everyone there, as these films connect us viewers even decades later this time. Only the fact recorded footage, especially on physical materials he had to use rather than digital, creates its own beautiful distortions in time changes anything from us being there with these people and places of time before.  

It is a compelling piece altogether, but for me, their real worth comes with the larger scope of Mekas' filmography. Again, these films are not as easily accessible, but when they include Lost, Lost, Lost (three hours long, spanning his migration to the United States in the late forties to the sixties), to As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) (nearly five hours long), this is a small piece of a filmmaker's work, a real case of one where the author's entire career is in goal to one large composition, his life depicted on camera. This little piece by itself though still reaps a reward, but its place in the larger framework is where the power grows further for its virtues.