The Avant-Garde Filmmaker Who Tried to Tell the Truth

An innovative retrospective of work by Jonas Mekas reveals the fundamental honesty of his “diary” films.

Jonas Mekas, in his hometown, Semeniskiai, Lithuania, in a 1971 photograph by Antanas Sutkus.Credit...Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / LATGA-A, Vilnius
Jonas Mekas, in his hometown, Semeniskiai, Lithuania, in a 1971 photograph by Antanas Sutkus.Credit…Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / LATGA-A, Vilnius

A Lithuanian refugee who landed in New York City in 1949 at the age of 27, Jonas Mekas became a founder of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, Film Culture magazine and Anthology Film Archives. He was the first full-time critic at The Village Voice, writing about film, and a widely published poet. But he also made scores of collagelike “diary” films that documented his busy, art-filled life.

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