Ed Halter has graciously donated to the Underground Film Archive the program books for almost every edition of the New York Underground Film Festival.

While this donation does not include the still-elusive program for the first edition of the fest in 1994, it does begin with the 2nd edition held in 1995 at the Anthology Film Archives on March 22-26. This was the first year that Halter worked at the festival, as a volunteer, before he would take over and run the whole thing a few years later.

NYUFF was founded by Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland. In the 1995 program book, Philips is listed as Festival Director; and Gurland as Executive Programmer. The fest’s advisory board includes several significant underground filmmakers, such as Beth B., Richard Kern, and John Waters.

Waters was honored at the festival with a retrospective of four of his highly influential films: Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living, and Multiple Maniacs.

The full lineup of the festival is listed below, and it represents an interesting intersection of the “old guard” of the underground film scene with several fresh names bursting onto the scene.

The opening night film was the fourth feature by Jon Moritsugu: Mod Fuck Explosion. Moritsugu had been affiliated with Nick Zedd’s Cinema of Transgression as a member of a “second wave” of the movement since he was not mentioned in Zedd’s original manifesto published in 1984. (Moritsugu’s first short film, Braindead, wouldn’t come until 1987.)

The closing night film was Half-Cocked by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky. While this first feature was a fiction film, Hawley and Galinsky would become a staple at NYUFF screenings and beyond with acclaimed documentaries such as Horns and Halos and All The Rage (Saved By Sarno). You can read a review of the DVD release of Half-Cocked here.

While the festival screened a good amount of features in addition to the Waters’ retrospective, it was really packed to the gills with a ton of short films.

Tessa Hughes-Freeland is a filmmaker who, like Moritsugu, was also affiliated with the Cinema of Transgression, but more significantly co-founded and co-ran the New York Film Festival Downtown for several years in the 1980s, which can be seen as a good precursor to NYUFF. She had two films in this edition of NYUFF, Dirty and Playboy Voodoo.

Two other women filmmakers at this NYUFF would become icons of the scene. Peggy Ahwesh‘s Color of Love would become a beloved classic; while Greta Snider screened an early work of hers, Shred of Sex.

A few other significant names screened some of their early work. One being Skizz Cyzyk (4 Films in 5 Minutes), who would found and run his own long-running underground film festival, the MicroCineFest in Baltimore. Daniel Martinico (The Safeway) has had a prolific filmmaking career, including experimental features such as Ok, Good. And Mike White (Who Do You Think You’re Fooling) published the long-running cult movie zine Cashiers Du Cinemart.

Last thing to note is that, like with the first edition of NYUFF, Phillips and Gurland released a VHS compilation tape of select short films, including Cyzyk’s 4 Films in 5 Minutes, Jacob Pander’s The Operation, Franz Berner’s Dienstag, Jay Beckman’s Brouhaha, David Baer’s Shave Against the Machine, and more.

Below is the full lineup of the festival, which includes many other interesting films and filmmakers of note than have been pointed out above. Then, below that are scans from the program.

March 22

7:00 p.m.: Mod Fuck Explosion, dir. Jon Moritsugu
Followed by a kick-off party at Coney Island High featuring a performance by Helmet

March 23

6:00 p.m.: Plutonium Circus, dir. George Ratliff

6:00 p.m.: Multiple Maniacs, dir. John Waters

7:45 p.m.: Who Do You Think You’re Fooling, dir. Mike White (WATCH ONLINE)
The Formative Years, dir. Bump
Number One Local: Harry Nugent, dir. (unlisted)
Beat: 2 Pieces, dir. (unlisted)
Raging Boil, dir. Judd Metni

7:45 p.m.: Invisible World, dir. Stacey Richter and Anna Lee Keefer
Jason, dir. David S. McFarland
Dirty Birdy, dir. John Dillworth
Groove, dir. Josh Apter

9:30 p.m.: The Straight Agenda, dir. John Binninger and Jaqueline Turnure
Oat-Meal, dir. Relah Eckstein
Images, dir. Jeff Vilencia
Take a Trip With Jeff, dir. Lance Weiler
Love Stories My Grandmother Tells, dir. Dana Plays

9:30 p.m.: Fallen Angel, dir. Jason Jay Crabtree
Caribbean, dir. Victor Masnyj
Hubcap World, dir. L.K. Noeller

11:45 p.m.: Shave Against the Machine, dir. David Baer
Treacherous Planet, dir. David Mumford
Andre the Giant Has a Posse, dir. Helen Stickler
I Don’t Want To Be a Boy, dir. Alec Behrens and Marijn Muijser

11:45 p.m.: What About Me, dir. Rachel Amodeo

March 24

6:00 p.m.: Monkey Wrench, dir. L. Banks Tarver
Eyes of a Blue Dog, dir. Lorenzo Shapiro
To a Random, dir. Michael Burlingame

6:00 p.m.: Female Trouble, dir. John Waters (STREAMING ONLINE)

7:45 p.m.: Bad Day at Bobs Bank, dir. Tibor Szakaly
Wormfood, dir. Denis Paul Juge Jr.
Cut, dir. Tom Burka

7:45 p.m.: Dienstag {Once Upon a Tuesday}, dir. Franz Berner
Craps, dir. Rick Rodine
Brouhaha, dir. Jay Beckman
Mother Sky, dir. Craig Smith
Evil Town, dir. Evil Town

9:30 p.m.: Bloodbath, dir. Charles Gatewood
A Boy and His Log, dir. Gareth Lawson and Rob Arber
Death Sled II: Steel Belted Romeos, dir. Danny Plotnick
Smush, dir. Jeff Vilencia
Crosley Fiver, dir. Guy Benoit
Speed Racer: Welcome to the World of Vic Chestnutt, dir. Peter Sillen

9:30 p.m.: Highway of Heartache, dir. Gregory Wild

11:15 p.m.: Transgression, dir. Michael P. DiPaolo

11:15 p.m.: Wildgirls Go-Go Rama, dir. Addison Cook
Shred of Sex, dir. Greta Snider
Color of Love, dir. Peggy Ahwesh
Playboy Voodoo, dir. Tessa Hughes-Freeland

March 25

4:00 p.m.: Shatter Dead, dir. Scooter McCrae

6:00 p.m.: The Pope of Utah, dir. Chaim Bianco and Steven Saylor

6:00 p.m.: Pink Flamingos, dir. John Waters

7:45 p.m.: Dirty Money, dir. James Bruce

7:45 p.m.: The Road Taken, dir. Clayton Ellis
4 Films in 5 Minutes, dir. Skizz P. Cyzyk
Lick of Fury, dir. Matthew Sidle
Krazy Teens USA, dir. Jeffrey Sommerville
Critizen, dir. Michael LaHale

9:30 p.m.: We Are Not Who You Think We Are, dir. Robin Smith
Flashback, dir. Clement Lachance
Untitled, dir. Cyan Meeks
Corazon Mundial, dir. Muire Dougherty
The Deflowering, dir. Alyce Wittenstein

9:30 p.m.: Memoirs of a Madman, dir. George and Mike Baluzy

11:15 p.m.: The Operation, dir. Jacob Pander
A Lot of Fun For The Evil One, dir. M.M. Serra and Maria Bealty
The Mulberry Bush, dir. Arlene Sandler
Extreme Unction, dir. David Aaron Clark and Ivan Lerner
Our Us We Bone One So Naked Known, dir. Anie Stanley
From Beijing to Brooklyn, dir. Arlene Sandler and Anie Stanley

11:15 p.m.: I Am a Sex Addict, dir. Vikram Jayanti

March 26

4:00 p.m.: Cycle Slut Christmas, dir. Super 8 Union
Pipsqueak Pfollies, dir. Danny Plotnick

4:00 p.m.: Date, dir. Super 8 Union
A Breakdown After the Mental Institution, dir. Anne C. Robertson
Warzone, dir. Maggie Hadleigh-West

6:00 p.m.: Nothing, dir. Evan Aaronson

6:00 p.m.: Desperate Living, dir. John Waters

7:45 p.m.: The Safeway, dir. Daniel Martinico
20 Pieces of Time, dir. Mark Zero
My Daddy & Animal Daddies, dir. Mark Taylor
800 Flowers, dir. Ben Boodman
The True History of Crime: X Equals X, dir. Michael Garoh and Rodney Ascher
Wishful Thinkers, dir. Donal Tavey

7:45 p.m.: Cracking Up, dir. Matt Miller

9:30 p.m.: State of the Union, dir. Robert Attansio
Warm Leatherette, dir. Clement Lachance
Dirty, dir. Tessa Hughes-Freeland
The Spy (Hester Reeve Does the Doors), dir. Suzie Silver
Huncke, dir. Christian Bruckner

9:30 p.m.: Half-Cocked, dir. Suki Hawley (READ THE REVIEW)

Blazes by Robert Breer (1961)

Robert Breer is one of the few filmmakers who rose to prominence during the 1960s underground film movement who worked exclusively in animation. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in painting in 1949, Breer moved to Paris where he started making films a few years later.

In this regard, Breer was not unlike the European avant-garde filmmakers of the 1920s, such as Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling, who moved from painting to making films. However, according to P. Adams Sitney in Visionary Film, Breer would have had only a casual understanding of these early pioneers. In the mid-1950s, Breer would move back to the U.S.

Blazes is one of Breer’s most well-known films and was created using 100 cards painted with “bold, free-drawn shapes and rough calligraphic lines,” as described in Visionary Film. Breer then shuffled the cards and photographed them in “irregular alternations of one and two frames each”.

Breer’s own description of the film in the Film-makers’ Cooperative Catalogue No. 4 in 1967 says Blazes is “100 Basic images switching positions for 4 thousand frames. A continuous explosion.” It was filmed in 16mm, runs 3 minutes, and rented for $5.

As a pioneering avant-garde work, several books have written about Blazes‘ effect on viewers:

The single-frame accumulation results in the viewer receiving impressions without retaining any one single image.
— Film Is, Stephen Dwoskin

As in Vertov’s experiments, two different images immediately following each other on consecutive frames create super-impostions that do not exist in reality.
— Film as a Subversive Art, Amos Vogel

…the chain of different images means the eye has to choose what it wants to see.
— Experimental Cinema, David Curtis

Despite the acclaim that Blazes would eventually garner, Jonas Mekas noted in his “Movie Journal” column of January 16, 1964 in the Village Voice that the film was rejected by the jury of the Third International Experimental Film Exposition at Knokke-le-Zoute, which was one of the most important avant-garde film festivals of the time.

The Underground Film Journal recognizes that the above embedded version of the film is not the ideal way to experience it at all. Breer’s work doesn’t seem to be available from the Film-makers’ Cooperative anymore, but is currently for rent from Canyon Cinema for $35.

A title card is shown a few moments into the film, saying:

Blazes by Robert Breer

The film then ends with a title card saying simply “The End”.

According to Jonas Mekas‘s diaries, on May 17, 1961 he was contacted by Jerome Hill about the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Hill had convinced the festival’s organizer, Gian Carlo Menotti, to include a section on the New American Cinema for that year’s edition to be held in June and July.

Mekas declined to participate, as he was busy editing his first feature film Guns of the Trees, but he convinced an eager David C. Stone to organize the event in his stead.

Hill, a filmmaker himself, was an unusual figure in the then burgeoning New American Cinema — he actually had money, unlike the typical, perpetually broke filmmakers in the scene. Thanks to inheriting a family fortune made from a railroad-building business, Hill was both an artist and a philanthropist. In the May 17 diary entry, Mekas claims that Hill was the “main financial support” of the Spoleto Festival, so of course Menotti would agree to Hill’s request.

Called the “Festival of Two Worlds,” the Spoleto event was founded in 1958 by Menotti, a composer, as a live performing arts festival. The 1961 event included two film programs, one of which we know was of the New American Cinema, but the other we have no info. (An American spin-off of the Spoleto festival, also founded by Menotti, still continues every year in Charleston, South Carolina.)

Mekas doesn’t write any more about the festival, but the book collection I Seem to Live, Vol. 1 does include a letter from filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos who helped Stone set up the screenings and showed his own film Serenity. The letter was most likely published in the June 29 Village Voice, which unfortunately is not archived online. In the letter, Markopoulos does not paint an overly enthusiastic portrait of the screenings. A screening of Mekas’s own Guns of the Trees included several walkouts, a countess fainting, and Markopoulos damning the film with faint praise.

Stone, who had just quit his job in publishing, was introduced to Mekas by filmmaker Louis Brigante. After Spoleto, Stone would produce Mekas’s second feature film The Brig and Adolfas Mekas‘s Hallelujah the Hills. He would go on to produce other independent films, but in the 1970s he moved to London to become both an indie film theater owner and a film distributor. The first films he distributed were by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

The “Il Nuovo Cinema Americano” section — as it was called in Italian — ran for an entire month from June 16 to July 16. A new program ran every day for the first two weeks at 5:30pm and Midnight, then the programs repeated the following two weeks. The full lineup of films is below, and includes work by Ron Rice, James Broughton, Stan Brakhage, Hilary Harris, John Cassavetes, Stan Vanderbeek, Robert Breer, and many more.

The Underground Film Journal recently acquired for its archives a collection of posters from the 1961 Spoleto Festival, with only one mentioning the “Il Nuovo Cinema Americano” screenings. A scan of that poster is below, as are scans from I Seem To Live, Vol. 1 of the film program and the letter from Markopoulos to the Village Voice.

“Festival of Two Worlds”

June 16 & July 3

The Sand Castle, dir. Jerome Hill
The Language of Faces, dir. John Korty

June 17 & July 4

Guns of the Trees, dir. Jonas Mekas
Sunday, dir. Dan Drasin

June 18 & July 5

Downfall, dir. Graeme Ferguson
Nightscapes, dir. Richard Preston
The Maze, dir. Richard Preston
The Candidates, dir. Richard Preston
Conversations in Limbo, dir. Richard Preston

June 19 & July 6

The Sin of Jesus, dir. Robert Frank
Pull My Daisy, dir. Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie
The Cry of Jazz, dir. Edward O. Bland

June 20 & July 7

Night Tide, dir. Curtis Harrington
The End of Summer, dir. Ralph Hirshorn

June 21 & July 8 (matinee)

The Flower Thief, dir. Ron Rice
Pow Wow, dir. Jerome Liebling and Allen Downs
The Pleasure Garden, dir. James Broughton

June 22 & July 9

Time of the Heathen, dir. Peter Kass
Polaris Action Pilot, dir. Hilary Harris
Highway, dir. Hilary Harris

June 23 & July 10 (matinee)

Anticipation of the Night, dir. Stan Brakhage
Daybreak & Whiteye, dir. Stan Brakhage
Recreation, dir. Robert Breer
Man and His Dog Out for Air, dir. Robert Breer
Jamestown, dir. Robert Breer
Cats, dir. Robert Breer
Inner and Outer Space, dir. Robert Breer
Blazes, dir. Robert Breer
Homage to New York, dir. Robert Breer

June 24 & July 11

Blast of Silence, dir. Allen Baron
When They Sleep, dir. Joseph Marzano
From Inner Space, dir. Joseph Marzano
Changeover, dir. Joseph Marzano

June 25 & July 12 (matinee)

Serenity, dir. Gregory J. Markopoulos
What Who How, dir. Stan VanDerBeek
Ala Mode, dir. Stan VanDerBeek
Mankinda, dir. Stan VanDerBeek
Science Friction, dir. Stan VanDerBeek

June 26 & July 13

Changing Tides, dir. Erich Kollmar
Integration Report 1, dir. Madeline Anderson

June 27 & July 14

On the Bowery, dir. Lionel Rogosin
Come Back Africa, dir. Lionel Rogosin

June 28 & July 15

The Quiet One, dir. Sidney Meyers
Journey Alone, dir. Michael and Philip Burton
In the Street, dir. Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb and James Agee

June 29 & July 16

Weddings and Babies, dir. Morris Engel
A Light for John, dir. Warren Brown

June 30 & July 10 (evening)

The Savage Eye, dir. Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers and Joseph Strick
Primary, dir. Richard Leacock, Donn Alan Pennebaker and Albert Maysles

July 1 & July 12 (evening)

Jazz on a Summer’s Day, dir. Bert Stern
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, dir. Stuart Hamish, Barbara Squire and Russ MacGregor

July 2 & July 8 (evening)

Shadows, dir. John Cassavetes
Broadway Express, dir. Michael Blackwood

The third annual New York Film Festival Downtown was once again organized and presented by filmmakers Tessa Hughes-Freeland and Ela Troyano in 1986.

In the festival’s program notes, the pair continued to bemoan the lack of attention given to Lower East Side filmmakers in their own city:

Three years later the situation remains virtually unchanged … Most of the filmmakers included in this year’s program have over the past year had numerous screenings in West Germany, Australia, Switzerland, Italy and Canada, as well as in various cities in the U.S. In sharp contrast is New York City itself: there are fewer clubs or alternative venues open for screenings on a consistent basis … nor reviews covering these infrequent though well-attended shows.

The festival included both short films and expanded cinema performances, including slide shows, multi-image projections; and a film performance that involved “pencils, balloons, electric machines and hammers”. (That was Dragan Ilic’s Cluster #1 on the first night.)

Some of the more well-known underground filmmakers who screened work at the festival were Peggy Ahwesh, Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, Cassandra Stark, Manuel De Landa, and — of course — Hughes-Freeland and Troyano.

You can read a little bit more about the festival at the Underground Film Journal’s article about the 2nd annual edition of the festival.

Below is the full lineup of the festival; and below that are some images from the poster-sized program guide.

OCTOBER 19

8:00 p.m.
3D slides, dir. M. Henry Jones
Parade, dir. Joey Ahlbum
C’est La Guerre, dir. Karen Mandelbaum
Alive With Pleasure, dir. Anthony Chase and the Avenue A Ladies Auxiliary
Demeter and Persephone, dir. Leslie Lowe

9:00 p.m.
Witness Chamber, dir. Ruby Ray
8D, dir. Nile Southern. Music by Phoebe Legere.
White Rabbit, dir. Andy Soma
Monsieur Albet’s Kaleidoscope Eroticon, dir. Stephen Holman
Black Goddess, dir. Ellen Fisher. Shot by Tom Palazzolo.
In a Storm Even Dinosaurs Trip, dir. Penelope Wehrli. With Laurie Perricci, Guto Pereira, Plauto, Uri Katzenstein.

10:00 p.m.
Cluster #1, dir. Dragan Ilic
If We Don’t Stop Now, dir. Kaja Gam
Heartburn, dir. Dancenoise
La Belle Fleur, dir. Carl George

11:00 p.m.
Untitled, dir. David West
Short films, dir. Stuart Sherman
Disposable, dir. Penelope Buitenhuis
Bananafish, dir. Sue Graef. Starring Kai Eric and Patty Van Tassel.
Brains By Revlon, dir. Jack Waters

OCTOBER 20

8:00 p.m.
Corrective Measures; Politically Speaking, dir. Peter Cramer
Titere, dir. Ileana Montalvo
Bath House, dir. Ira Abromowitz
I Ride a Pony Named Flame, dir. Peggy Ahwesh. With Margie Strosser.
Presentation by Julius Klein
A Suicide, dir. Richard Klemann. Starring Andrew McCormick.
Vampire Terror Party, dir. David Wicked

9:00 p.m.
Memorias De La Revolucion, dir. Carmelita Tropicana
The Black Monster, dir. Lung Leg
Bad Blood For The Vampyr, dir. Lis-san Tibodo. Starring Olsiver M. Schutz, Blixa Barged, Maria Zastrow, Dorean Grey, Mata D’Or. Music by Einsturzende Neubauten, The Golden Vampires, Die Artze.
Coney Island, dir. Max Henry

10:00 p.m.
Parental Guidance Suggested, dir. Amy Turner and Tommy Turner
You Killed Me First, dir. Richard Kern
Submit To Me, dir. Richard Kern
Go To Hell, dir. Nick Zedd. Co-director David Rutsala.
Kiss Me Goodbye, dir. Nick Zedd
Human Waste, dir. Mark Zero

11:00 p.m.
The Deal, dir. Mad Max
Pus, dir. John Spencer. Music by Pussy Galore

OCTOBER 21

8:00 p.m.
a place to beware, dir. David Schmidlapp
Mild Seven: The Cowboy Stories, dir. Kembra Pfahler
Good Luvin’ Guitarman, dir. Direct Art Ltd.
Heterosexual Lsove, dir. Direct Art Ltd.
The Wages of Sin, dir. David Rutsala
Devil’s in the Dish, dir. Jo Andres
Girls Can’t Help It, dir. Uzi Parnes. Starring Consuelita, Jeep Reese, and Randy Roma.
Police Sexuality, dir. Manuel De Landa
Black Cat Tea, dir. Marzy Quazar. Starring Mosnte Cazzaza.

10:00 p.m.
Pure War (part two of Amor Amorte), dir. Erotic Psyche
Where Evil Dwells, dir. Tommy Turner and David Wojnarowicz. (Excerpts). Starring Scott Werner, Baby Gregor, Gnatz, Richard Klemann, Joe Coleman, and Rockets Redglare. Title track by Wiseblood.
Rat Trap, dir. Tessa Hughes-Freeland and Tommy Turner
Wrecked on Cannibal Island, dir. Cassandra Stark

11:00 p.m.
Dumb Blond, dir. Ela Troyano
Stone Age Lament, dir. Tony Caplan. Starring Nick Zedd.
Tatoo Suite, dir. R.S. Wolkstein

12:00 a.m.
Fantasmagoria, dir. Richard Bruce Byron

The Surf Theatre in San Francisco was a beloved independent movie theater located at 4520 Irving Street, just a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

In the 1960s, the Surf jumped on the underground film bandwagon, occasionally screening the typical “midnight movies” shorts programs of the time; as well as sprinkling in feature-length underground cinema among their usual repertoire of foreign films and second-run independent movies.

The Underground Film Journal has acquired a complete set of programs from the Surf Theatre between the years 1964 and 1967. The earliest example of an underground film screening that we found was a July 1964 weekend event of John Cassavetes’ breakout hit, Shadows. Since the film was completed in 1959, this may not have been the first time it screened at the Surf, but just the first time it appears in the Journal’s collection of programs.

It’s clear from going through the programs that the Surf frequently screened films numerous times over this four year period. Case in point, most of the midnight movie shorts programs featured Jean Genet’s notorious 1950 classic Un Chant D’amour paired with either more modern underground films, like Mike Kuchar‘s Sins of the Fleshapoids and Ron Rice’s Senseless, or with older classics like James Sibley Watson’s Lot in Sodom and Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks.

The Surf was also a big supporter of local filmmakers. Their Winter 1964-65 program heralds the American premiere of The Burning Ear by Edd Dundas that the theater claims it helped “launch” — although it’s not clear what “launch” means here. This is not a film nor a filmmaker that the Underground Film Journal has come across before.

Most interesting to underground film history buffs may be the October 1, 1966 benefit screening “to help establish a SAN FRANCISCO FILMMAKERS COOPERATIVE.” There is no mention in the program of Canyon Cinema, but this benefit was clearly an event to raise money for the distribution arm of the then fledgling filmmakers association. Canyon Cinema would publish their first distribution catalogue two months later in December, so it can be imagined that this benefit screening of works by Bruce Baillie, Ben Van Meter, Robert Nelson, and others was hopefully a success.

Some other screenings of note include Adolfas Mekas‘s feature-length Hallelujah the Hills, which regularly screened paired with Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising, as it did here. Two of Shirley Clarke‘s acclaimed feature films were also screened: The then recent The Cool World, and a re-release of her first film The Connection.

Below are the listings of these underground film screenings that we found in the Surf Theatre programs, as well as selected scans of the programs below that.

The Surf Theatre did remain open for another twenty years after these screenings, but closed for good on July 7, 1985, according to the site Cinema Treasures.

1964

Program Calendar: June 26 – August 29

July 5-7
Shadows, dir. John Cassavetes (1959)

Program Calendar: Fall

November 6-12
Hallelujah the Hills, dir. Adolfas Mekas (1963)
Scorpio Rising, dir. Kenneth Anger (1963)
The Case of the Mukinese Battle Horn, dir. Joseph Sterling. Starring Peter Sellers.

Program Calendar: Winter 1964 – 65

December 12
Un Chant D’amour, dir. Jean Genet (1950)
Lot in Sodom, dir. James Sibley Watson (1933)

December 19
Un Chant D’amour, dir. Jean Genet (1950)
The Burning Ear, dir. Edd Dundas (1964)

December 26
Un Chant D’amour, dir. Jean Genet (1950)
Fireworks, dir. Kenneth Anger (1947)

December 25-31
The Servant, dir. Joseph Losey (1963)
The Burning Ear, dir. Edd Dundas (1964)

1965

January 1-7
The Servant, dir. Joseph Losey (1963)
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, dir. Kenneth Anger (1954) (Original version)

February 12 (beginning on or about)
The Cool World, dir. Shirley Clarke (1964)
Scorpio Rising, dir. Kenneth Anger (1963)

Program Calendar: Winter 1965 – 66

December 10-18
The Cool World, dir. Shirley Clarke (1964)

1966

Program Calendar: Spring 1966

March 12
Un Chant D’amour, dir. Jean Genet (1950)
To L.A. … With Lust, dir. Vernon Zimmerman (1961)

March 19
Un Chant D’amour, dir. Jean Genet (1950)
Lemon Hearts, dir. Vernon Zimmerman (1960)

March 25-31
The Connection, dir. Shirley Clarke (1961)

March 26
Un Chant D’amour, dir. Jean Genet (1950)
Senseless, dir. Ron Rice (1962)

April 2
Un Chant D’amour, dir. Jean Genet (1950)
Sins of the Fleshapoids, dir. Mike Kuchar (1964)

Program Calendar: Summer 1966

July 9
Underground Film Series
Titles To Be Announced

July 16
Underground Film Series
Titles To Be Announced

July 23
Underground Film Series
Titles To Be Announced

July 30
Underground Film Series
Titles To Be Announced

August 6
Underground Film Series
Titles To Be Announced

August 13
Underground Film Series
Titles To Be Announced

Program Calendar: September – October 1966

Filmmakers Benefit
Saturday, October 1 at Midnight
New and recent works by leading Bay Area filmmakers Bruce Baillie, Robert Nelson, Larry Jordan, Ben Van Meter and others in a special benefit program to help establish a SAN FRANCISCO FILMMAKERS COOPERATIVE, one of the most promising developments on the cultural scene. Here is an opportunity to assist a group who stand unrivaled for the richness and variety of their creative expression. Admission $1.50.

October 9-15
An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, dir. Robert Enrico (1962)
Castro Street, dir. Bruce Baillie (1966)

Program Gallery:

ISM ISM by Manuel DeLanda (1979).

ISM ISM is a documentary chronicling director Manuel DeLanda’s own graffiti work. He focuses on his collage manipulation of public advertisements — primarily cigarette ads — as well as spray-painted philosophical text. The film was shot in Super 8mm and blown up to 16mm.

DeLanda was active in the New York City underground film scene in the late ’70s to the early ’80s. He was one of the names called out in Nick Zedd‘s Cinema of Transgression manifesto that was published in 1984 in the Underground Film Bulletin. Zedd listed:

“such underground ‘invisibles’ as Zedd, Kern, Turner, Klemann, DeLanda, Eros & Mare, and Direct Art Ltd.”

After making just a handful of films, DeLanda focused his career on philosophy, a subject on which he has written several books. He also lectures on the subject at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. In an interview in the book Deathtripping, first published in 1995, Zedd remarks to Jack Sargeant that DeLanda had stopped returning his phone calls.

Also in Deathtripping, author Sargeant describes ISM ISM as having a “punk soundtrack”. However, the restored version of the film that is online is audibly silent. The Anthology Film Archives preserved ISM ISM with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The film screened on October 22, 1985 as part of the second annual New York Film Festival Downtown.

There are no credits on-screen except possibly the phrase “ISM ISM,” which may be referring to the title of the film or that “ISM ISM” was the graffiti name that DeLanda used to sign his work.

A book on the film was published in 2018, written by DeLanda and edited by Andrew Lampert and John Klacsmann.

Filmmakers Tessa-Hughes Freeland and Ela Troyano founded the New York Film Festival Downtown in 1984. In the program for the second annual edition in 1985, they laid out the need for such an event:

“Most films made in this society fall into two categories: those financed and marketed commercially, and their counterparts in the arts and academic worlds. Most people are entirely unaware of filmmaking occurring outside these structures.

[…]

This hasn’t stoped filmmakers in downtown New York from producing films without the help — and interference — of market and art-funding forces.”

NYC’s Lower East Side has been a fluctuating hotbed of avant-garde filmmaking since the early to mid 1950s. In the sixties, this became a full-on explosion of underground filmmaking that felt like it had a shot at garnering acceptance on a national, and even international, level.

After the movement’s brief moment in the sixties’ sunlight, it largely retreated into academia until the rise of the punk-fueled No Wave Cinema in the late 1970s. Films and other no-budget media performances were being presented in an unorganized way in music clubs, art galleries, and other unorthodox screening spaces around NYC. Thus, Freeland and Troyano founded the Downtown festival to bring a cohesion and, hopefully, some much needed attention to their scene.

The lineup of the second Downtown festival features a heavy punk aesthetic of films and media performances challenging cultural norms. The festival ran on October 20-22, which was just a month after Nick Zedd first published his Cinema of Transgression manifesto in his photocopied zine, the Underground Film Bulletin.

In the description of Zedd’s film Thrust in Me that screened at the festival, it says:

“This film perfectly embodies all the esthetic imperatives manifested by the Cinema of Transgression, the secret underground movement which is currently on everyone’s lips.”

Indeed, the festival was filled with many of the filmmakers associated with Transgression; such as Zedd, Richard Kern, Manuel De Landa, and, of course Freeland and Troyano. However, other than that brief mention, there’s also only one reference to “underground cinema” in the program’s opening editorial.

So, there’s no real sense that Freeland or Troyano were trying to impose any kind of connection to the festival’s selections other than just to simply present an accurate representation of who was currently working in the LES at the time.

Some highlights of the festival were:

Jacob Burckhardt’s feature It Don’t Pay To Be An Honest Citizen, starring countercultural figures William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; Manuel De Landa’s grafitti documentation Ism-Ism; Freeland’s own Rhonda Goes to Hollywood; and James Nares’s popular Super-8 epic Rome ’78 that concluded the festival.

The full lineup of the second annual New York Film Festival Downtown is below, followed by images from the program acquired by the Underground Film Journal:

OCTOBER 20

8:00 p.m.: “Slide Performance”, performed by Stephen Holman & Torture Chorus
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, multimedia performance by Nan Goldin

9:00 p.m.: Pyrotechnics, performed by Bradley Eros & Aline Mare (Erotic Psyche)
“Film / dance Performance” by Jo Andres

10:00 p.m.: The Outsiders, dir. Dan Ochiva
Fall in a Faint, dir. Sokhi Wagner
Last Nights, dir. Sandy Tate; co-dir. Gretchen Bender

11:00 p.m.: Spectre Woman — On the Road, dir. Ellen Fisher, Mary Schulz, Tone Blevins, John Van Wagner
Work at Nine, dir. Julius Klein
You Touch You Buy, dir. Julius Klein
Frankie Teardrop, dir. Edit De Ak & Walter Robinson
Spills & Thrills, dir. Sur Rodney Sur

12:00 a.m.: The Agent, dir. Mary Bellis

OCTOBER 21

8:00 p..m.: A La Vueltecita, dir. Ileana Maria Montalvo, with slides by David Schmidlapp
The Day Koch Gets Electrocuted, dir. David Schmidlapp
Dead on My Arm, dir. Cassandra Stark
Untitled, dir. Lung Leg

9:00 p.m.: Slight Show, dir. Christof Kohlhofer
Simonland, dir. Tommy Turner
Live Ammo, dir. Terry Stacey
Chett Grant: A Portrait of the Man, dir. Directart Ltd. Productions

10:00 p.m.: Thrust in Me, dir. Nick Zedd
Submit to Me or From Sex to Death (film in progress), dir. Richard Kern
Richard Kern performance with Brian Moran
Manhattan Love Suicides, dir. Richard Kern

11:00 p.m.: Tender H.B.I., dir. Dragan Ilic (film of performance Bloody Nights by Dumas)

12:00 a.m.: It Don’t Pay To Be An Honest Citizen, dir. Jacob Burckhardt

OCTOBER 22

8:00 p.m.: Pompeii New York, Part I, dir. Ivan Galietti
Asparagus, dir. Suzan Pitt
“Excerpts from Apple, Heart, Daisy film”, M. Henry Jonas and Susan Tremplay
How About Me, dir. Bobby G

9:00 p.m.: Ism-Ism, dir. Manuel de Landa (Watch now)
Cyanide Time, dir. David West
White Rabbit, dir. Andy Soma

10:00 p.m.: MasterRay, slide performance by Ruby Ray
Loisada Lusts, dir. Uzi Parnes & Ela Troyano
Stars and Stripes (slide show)

11:00 p.m.: Revenge of the Dearest, dir. Anthony Chase
Rhonda Goes To Hollywood, dir. Tessa Hughes-Freeland
Mime 2 Mind, dir. Arleen Schloss
Voyage to the Wall, dir. Johan Donner & Ulf Nilsson

12:00 a.m.: Presentation of Awards
Rome ’78, dir. James Nares

Jonas Mekas (1922 – 2019) accomplished much in his long life. And that’s not just in the realm of underground film! Mekas practically lived a lifetime under Nazi rule before reluctantly coming to the United States in 1949.

At the Underground Film Journal, we love our timelines, so we’ve decided to maintain this list of important events in Mekas’s life whether it relates to his passion for the cinema or his personal achievements not related to film.

The plan is to update this timeline using multiple reference sources. Currently, we are using four.

One is a profile of Jonas written by Calvin Tomkins that was first printed in the January 6, 1973 issue of the New Yorker magazine; and reprinted in the book collection The Scene: Reports on Post-Modern Art.

Another source is the “Introduction” to the book of essays To Free the Cinema: Jonas Mekas & The New York Underground. The “Introduction” is written by David E. James, who also edited the book.

Lastly, the Journal is pouring through Jonas’s personal diaries. I Had Nowhere To Go covers his years in Europe (1944-1955) and his first few years in America. I Seem To Live, Vol. 1 covers his years in New York City, from 1950 to 1969.

The first two diary books do overlap a few years. In that overlap, I Had Nowhere To Go focuses more on Jonas’s personal struggles adapting to America as an immigrant, while I Seem To Live, Vol. 1 has more on his experiences in filmmaking.

Below the timeline is a gallery of photographs used to illustrate Jonas’s chapter in The Scene.

The Journal cannot promise we’ll keep this timeline updated, but that’s currently the plan as, obviously, we’re fascinated by Mekas’s life.

1922

Jonas Mekas is born in Semeniskiai, Lithuania.
The Scene, pg. 166

He is born on Christmas Eve.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 4

1936

Age: 13
Jonas graduates from primary school and becomes an agricultural laborer.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 4

1938

Age: 15
Jonas attempts to enter high school, but is too old for the beginning grades.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 4

1940

Age: 17
Jonas gains admission to high school.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 5

1942

Age: 19
Jonas graduates from the Gymnasium.
The Scene, pg. 166

Jonas works for a local newspaper; and contributes to an anti-Nazi underground paper.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 5

1943

Age: 20
Jonas becomes an assistant editor of a literary weekly. (This may be the newspaper mentioned in To Free the Cinema above with an incorrect year here.)
The Scene, pg. 166

1944

Age: 21
A pastor forges papers so Jonas and his brother Adolfas can travel to Vienna to avoid the Nazi occupation. That pastor was Jonas and Adolfas’s uncle — their mother’s brother — who gave his nephews the names of some contacts in Vienna who could lead them to safety in Switzerland.
The Scene, pg. 167
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 20

However, in July, their train is diverted and they end up in a prison camp at Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg, where they are forced to work in a German factory.
The Scene, pg. 167
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 23

1945

Age: 22
After the German factory where they are working as forced laborers is closed down, Jonas and Adolfas, talk their way into being allowed to travel to find work on a German farm.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 51

In May, as WWII is winding down, Jonas and Adolfas leave the farm where they have been working as slaves and end up in Camp Mürwick. This was what was known as a Displaced Person camp, for liberated people like Jonas and Adolfas who did not want to return to their home country, which was now under Soviet rule.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 68

1948

Age: 25
A book of Jonas’s poems, Semeniskiy idiles (Idylls of Semeniskiai), and a book of his short stories are published.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 5

1949

Age: 26
Jonas and Adolfas move to the Displaced Persons camp at Schwaebisch Gmuend.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 5

On April 1, Jonas and Adolfas receive a letter from Povilas Variakojis, offering them work in his bakery in Chicago. Povilas is a friend of their uncle’s.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 203

On April 10, Jonas and Adolfas go to the emigration office to see about emigrating to Israel. Although not Jewish, the brothers are excited by the prospect of helping to rebuild that country, especially their film production industry. Their plan is stymied by an official. Also, despite the offer to go to Chicago, the brothers do not think they will be happy in America.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pgs. 205-206

On September 29, Jonas and Adolfas leave their D.P. camp to begin their journey to America.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 284

After ten days at sea, on October 28 at 10:00 p.m., Jonas and Adolfas arrive in New York harbor. While staring at the urban skyline, the brothers decide to stay in New York City, and not travel to Chicago to work in the bakery. Instead, they stay in a friend’s parents’ apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pgs. 293-294

On their third night in New York City, Jonas and Adolfas attend a screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Fall of the House of Usher, which was sponsored by the New York Film Society and programmed by Rudolph Arnheim.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 5

For the rest of the year, Jonas works a series of odd jobs in manufacturing; and is quite miserable.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pgs. 295-299

1950

Age 27:
In January 1950, Jonas sees Musical Poster #1 by Len Lye.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 20

On March 22, Jonas sees four avant-garde films at the Museum of Modern Art. His favorite is Germaine Dulac’s La souriante Madame Beudet, but he also sees Ballet Mécanique by Fernand Léger, Entr’acte by René Clair, and Ménilmontant by Dimitri Kirsanoff.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 309
(Note: You can watch Ballet Mécanique and Ménilmontant on Kino’s first Avant-Garde collection; Entr’acte on the Anthology of Surreal Cinema DVD; and La souriante Madame Beudet on the Early Women Filmmakers DVD.)

In March, Jonas and Adolfas put a deposit down on a 16mm Bolex camera, but cannot secure financing to pay for the rest.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 12

In early 1950, perhaps April, Jonas notes in his diaries that he and Adolfas have begun making movies, and have joined “a few” experimental film clubs where they have screened their work.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 313

Although Jonas’s diary film Lost Lost Lost opens with a statement saying that he and Adolfas bought a 16mm Bolex camera just a week after landing in America — which would have been November 1949 — his written diaries state that the brothers didn’t “buy” a camera until April 1950. However, he does note that he and Adolfas had rented cameras before purchasing one, which may be what he’s referring to in Lost Lost Lost.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 316

On April 29, Jonas and Adolfas finally get the money to buy their Bolex camera. They borrow the money from a Lithuanian man named Klybas, who had been the mayor of Birzai before emigrating to Brooklyn. Klybas’s daughter Vida was instrumental in convincing her father to give the Mekas’s the money.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 16

On June 4, Jonas notes in his diary that he is editing his film Lost Lost Lost, a film that wouldn’t be completed and released until 1976.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 316

1951

Age: 28
January, 1951, after working a succession of odd jobs in manufacturing since arriving in America, Jonas finds work at Graphic Studios, a photograph printing studio that supplies photos to magazines such as Newsweek. Jonas is initially hired as a “delivery boy,” but is later promoted to a camera position.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 365

March 9, 1951 — Robert Flaherty writes a letter to Jonas rejecting his script called Lost Lost Lost.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 40

October, 1951, Jonas has a membership card for Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16 club.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 36

1952

Age: 29
August 1952, Jonas writes that he plans to study at the Film Institute with Hans Richter. Jonas tells Hans that he has no money for school, and that Hans tells Jonas to come to classes anyway.
I Had Nowhere To Go, pg. 429

1953

Age: 30
April 4, 1953, Jonas attends a screening of the film Kameradschaft at Club Cinema, an organization that Jonas describes as a film group for American leftists organized by Howard John Lawson. Jonas doesn’t give any other information about the film, but what he watched is likely the 1931 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. The English title is Comradeship.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pgs. 54 & 58

April 20, 1953, Jonas attends a film class at the new school where he sees James Broughton’s Four in the Afternoon; and meets Curtis Harrington, who screened Picnic. Jonas says he’s going to meet again with Harrington to discuss the “Film House idea”.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 62

May 16, 1953, Jonas does meet with Curtis Harrington again and they discuss the “Film House / Film Institute”. This may be an early idea that evolved into the Anthology Film Archive. Also on this day, Jonas visits with Ian Hugo and sees Bells of Atlantis.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 68

1955

Age: 32
The first issue of Film Culture, edited and published by Jonas, appears in January.
The Scene, pg. 171
To Free The Cinema, pg. 7

1958

Age: 35
In the fall, Jonas begins his weekly “Movie Journal” column in the Village Voice.
The Scene, pg. 172
To Free The Cinema, pg. 8

1959

Age: 36
In a “Movie Journal” column on February 4, Mekas writes about “the conventional, dead, official cinema.”
To Free The Cinema, pg. 8

1960

Age: 37
Jonas convinces the Village Voice to hire Andrew Sarris to review the commercial cinema releases.
The Scene, pg. 172

Jonas begins work on Guns of the Trees after buying some out-of-date film stock. To Free the Cinema notes that production began in the spring.
The Scene, pg. 173
To Free The Cinema, pg. 9

July 14, 1960, Jonas says “we” were arrested for scouting locations at a public lake in Connecticut. Adolfas was with him. They got out of the jam when “Barbara” called her brother in law, the state Attorney General. Jonas says they didn’t know Barbara, but she followed them around all day. (This “Barbara” may be Barbara Rubin.)
I Seem To Live, vol. 1,, pg. 235

Unclear when “the group” first met, but on Sep 28, 1960, Jonas gets them to agree to vote to become the New American Cinema Group.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 255

Early Dec. 1960, Jonas finishes filming Guns of the Trees and begins editing.
I Seem To Live, vol. 1, pg. 283

1961

Age: 38
Jonas finishes editing Guns of the Trees.
The Scene, pg. 174

Cinema 16 screens Guns of the Trees.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 7

The First Statement of “The Group” formed by Jonas is published in Film Culture 22-23. Members of “The Group” include Lionel Rogosin, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, Shirley Clarke, Gregory Markopoulos, Edward Bland, Ben Carruthers, Argus Speare Julliard, Emile de Antonio, Lewis Allen, Daniel Talbot, Walter Gutman and David Stone.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 9

1962

Age: 39
Guns of the Trees wins first prize at the Second International Free Cinema Festival at Porretta, Terme, Italy.
The Scene, pg. 174
To Free The Cinema, pg. 9

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative is formally established in 1962, partly because Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16 refuses to distribute Stan Brakhage’s Anticipation of the Night. The Cooperative is located at 175 Lexington Avenue. To Free the Cinema describes this even as the Cooperative “comes into being” on January 18.
The Scene, pgs. 164, 174
To Free The Cinema, pg. 10

1963

Age: 40
Jonas and Adolfas both work on Hallelujah the Hills through most of the year.
The Scene, pg. 176

Jonas’s screening series moves to the Gramercy Arts.
To Free The Cinema, pg. 10

In December; Jonas, P. Adams Sitney, and Barbara Rubin bring several American underground films to screen at the Third International Experimental Film Competition at Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium, including Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures, which causes a scandal when the judges refused to screen it publicly.
The Scene, pg. 178
To Free The Cinema, pg. 11

1964

Age: 41
On February 15, police issue a summons to the owner of the Gramercy Arts Theatre due to Jonas screening there the “obscene” film Flaming Creatures. The theater abruptly cancels all underground film screenings. On March 3, Jonas again screens Flaming Creatures at the New Bowery Theatre on St. Mark’s Place where he and the entire audience is arrested. A week later, Jonas is arrested again for screening Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour at the Writers’ Stage on East Fourth Street.
The Scene, pg. 179
To Free The Cinema, pg. 11

A few days before March 3, Jonas films a production of Kenneth Brown’s play The Brig by the Living Theatre.
The Scene, pg. 180

In July, Jonas acts as cameraman on Andy Warhol’s Empire.
The Scene, pg. 182

In November, Jonas starts the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque screening series at the New Yorker Theatre at Broadway and West Eighty-eighth Street. It moves a month later to the Maidman on West Forty-second Street. Then it moves to the City Hall Cinema at 170 Nassau Street; then to the Astor Place Playhouse on Lafayette Street; and then to the 41st Street Theatre near Sixth Avenue.
The Scene, pg. 183
To Free The Cinema, pg. 11

1965

Age: 42
The Brig wins the Best Documentary Award at the Venice Film Festival.
The Scene, pg. 180

1966

Age: 43
Jonas, Shirley Clarke, and Lionel Rogosin create the Film-Makers’ Distribution Center, which is set up to distribute underground films that may have breakthrough commercial success, such as Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls. The Distribution Center is a separate branch of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative.
The Scene, pgs. 185-186

In June, the Philadelphia College of Art honors Jonas for his “devotion, passion, and selfless dedication to the rediscovery of the newest art.”
The Scene, pg. 186

1967

Age: 44
In the summer, Jonas and others transform the ground floor of 80 Wooster Street in NYC’s SoHo neighborhood into a small theater. The building had been purchased by Jonas’s Lithuanian artist friend George Maciunas with a $20,000 foundation grant as a place for low-cost housing for artists. This new Cinematheque opens in December. (To Free the Cinema places the opening in 1968; and writes that police harassment shuts it down almost immediately.)
The Scene, pg. 187
To Free The Cinema, pg. 12

1968

Age: 45
Six months after the Cinematheque opens, it is forced to close down because Jonas could not get the proper licenses to run a theater at that location.
The Scene, pg. 188

Jonas, Jerome Hill, and Allan Masur establish the Film Art Fund for the purpose of creating the first ever film museum, to be called the Anthology Film Archives.
The Scene, pg. 189

1969

Age: 46
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches is finished.
The Scene, pg. 161

1970

Age: 47
Jonas voluntarily closes down the Film-Makers’ Distribution Center due to a city marshall threatening to shut down both the Distribution Center and the Cooperative to settle a judgement to a theater owner the organizations owed money to. Jonas assumes all of the Distribution Center’s debts to keep the Cooperative’s operations going.
The Scene, pg. 188

In December, the Anthology Film Archives opens within Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre on Lafayette St. in the old Astor Library building. (To Free the Cinema gives the specific date of December 1 of the Anthology opening.)
The Scene, pg. 189
To Free The Cinema, pg. 13

1971

Age: 48
Jonas’s collected poems are published in Lithuania for the first time. The collection spans four volumes.
The Scene, pg. 193

1972

Age: 49
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania is shown at the New York Film Festival.
The Scene, pg. 164

1974

Age: 51
The Anthology Film Archives relocates to 80 Wooster Street. To Free the Cinema notes that this happens after the death of the Anthology’s biggest sponsor, Jerome Hill.
The Scene, pg. 190
To Free The Cinema, pg. 13

The November 12, 1958 edition of The Village Voice featured the first installment of the column “Movie Journal” by Jonas Mekas.

“Movie Journal” would become what the Underground Film Journal would argue was the most significant organizing tool of avant-garde cinema created by Jonas, even more so than the Film-makers’ Cooperative and the Anthology Film Archives he helped found. But what was the column like before it gained such notoriety?

Well, we don’t have to guess. The book collection Movie Journal doesn’t start reprinting Jonas’s columns until 1959, but the entire archives of the Voice are online.

As a weekly publication, the Voice only published twelve “Movie Journal” columns in 1958. The Underground Film Journal has read all twelve and extracted what films Jonas reviewed each week; as well as made notes of significant avant-garde film happenings.

Jonas reviewed only a few avant-garde films those first two months, including Maya Deren‘s then latest The Very Eye of Night, Stan Brakhage‘s Loving, Francis Thompson’s New York, New York, and some other films playing at Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16 screening series.

Below is the list of the films Jonas reviewed and notes, as well as direct links to each column:

Nov. 12, 1958

Movies Reviewed:
Pather Panchali, dir. Satyajit Ray
My Uncle, dir. Jacques Tati
New York, New York, dir. Francis Thompson

Notes: On Nov. 15 at 2:45pm, Thompson to speak on experimental film at the Museum of the City of New York.
New York, New York won a prize at the Brussels World Fair.

Read Full Column

Nov. 19, 1958

Movies Reviewed:
Around the World in 80 Days, dir. Michael Anderson
The Seventh Seal, dir. Ingmar Bergman
Another Sky, dir. Gavin Lambert

Notes: Another Sky was presented by Cinema 16.

Read Full Column

Nov 26, 1958

Movies Reviewed:
The Very Eye of Night, dir. Maya Deren
Mardi Gras, dir. Edmund Goulding (written by Curtis Harrington)
Witches of Salem, dir. Raymond Rouleau

Read Full Column

Dec. 3, 1958

Movies Reviewed:
Roots of Heaven, dir. John Huston
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, dir. Mark Robson
Ugetsu, dir. Kenji Mizoguchi

Read Full Column

Dec. 10, 1958

Movies Reviewed:
The Defiant Ones, dir. Stanley Kramer
Lonelyhearts, dir. Vincent J. Donehue

Read Full Column

Dec. 17, 1958

Movies Reviewed:
Life Is Beautiful, dir. Tadeusz Makarczyński
Two Men and a Wardrobe, dir. Roman Polanski
Dom, dir. Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica
Loving, dir. Stan Brakhage

Notes: Winners of the Brussels Experimental Film Festival were being shown at Cinema 16.

Read Full Column

Dec. 24, 1958

Movies Reviewed:
He Who Must Die, dir. Jules Dassin

Read Full Column

Dec. 31 1958

Movies Reviewed:
The Horse’s Mouth, dir. Ronald Neame

Notes: The Museum of Modern Art screened The Sex Life of the Polyp, dir. Robert Benchley; and Hallelujah, dir. King Vidor

Read Full Column

Starring: Marc Evan Jackson, Paul Alvarez, Ashley Ann — and Dean Stockwell in Werewolf of Washington