Jonas Mekas' WALDEN now available on VOD - HD streaming

"DIARIES, NOTES & SKETCHES - also known as WALDEN" (1969)

Poet and hero of the American counter-culture, Jonas Mekas, born in Lithuania in 1922, invented the diary form of film-making. WALDEN, his first completed diary film, shot between 1964-1969, is an epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s and a groundbreaking work of personal cinema.

We are pleased to announce the release of an HD 1080p video version of "Walden", originating from a pristine 16mm print that was scanned in New York and tailor-compressed in close-collaboration with the Vimeo staff, to fit the modern demands of digital video streaming and at the same time remain truthful to the original 16mm film aesthetics. We have also added subtitles in six languages: French, Italian, German, Japanese, Lithuanian and Spanish to help make this available to the public all over the world. Nevertheless, to fully appreciate the beauty of "Walden", we encourage you to seek out a 16mm projection of the film in a screening event near where you live.

"Walden" (three hours long) comprises a total of six reels, each marking an episode of approx. 30 minutes in length. The film can be rented as a series of six-episodes or as individual episodes. The author itself has once released it this way, in installements, and recommends it be watched sequentially, "like a Dostoyevski novel."  To help navigate the six reels, a visual map was conceived by Jonas Mekas to help the public identify the vast array of characters and stories appearing in the film. It is available here: http://bit.ly/walden_reels

Walden Six-Reels' Map

P. Adams Sitney on Walden:

"After nearly thirty years Jonas Mekas' "Walden" looms as a central cinematic document of daily life in the New York community of artists during one of its moments of splendor. Although Mekas is neither shocking nor confessional, he has marked every moment of this very long film with the nuances of his own personality. In the grand array of characters, mostly unnamed, or identified only by a Christian name, -- although some others are internationally famous -- the only psychological portrait is that of the filmmaker himself: an exiled Lithuanian poet fascinated and tortured by his slow Americanization. The film is possessed by a nervous, staccato rhythm that repeatedly opens out into expansive raptures. 

The massive accumulation of images provided Mekas with a unique archive for constructing this visual diary, the first of many he completed. Watching it now, we can recover a sense of that place and time that no other film can give us. As a minor character, periodically passing before my friend's camera, I recognize how fragmentary and elliptical his representation of others can be, and yet these images have become for me the strongest visual indices of who I was thirty years ago. That may be the core of Mekas' art: in finding a cinematic form in which he could capture his changing moods without imposing a coherent mask of himself, he has made a work that lets others appear in their phenomenal ambiguity."  P. Adams Sitney (1997)

Michael Snow on Jonas Mekas:

"The autobiographical direction taken by Jonas in his films parallels that taken by Stan Brakhage in many of his 60s and 70s films and this cinema form remains profoundly radical. An artist, his camera and the life around him can furnish all that is necessary for rich and public works of art.

Construction in this form has nothing theatrical; it is a fusing of the camera gesture spontaneously called for, by and with the event being recorded. Sequences can be as shot or revised on reflection later. Montage can be "played" with the event or with the film strip in editing. I think that in general our memories are not seen in the mind's eye as novels but are more frequently fragmentary essentialist visions. 

The methods of shooting, frequently single frame, used by Jonas have logical connections. The camera is not an instrument of memory (the life in its images is dead). The latent poignancy of the preservation of glimpses of always-over life is thus emphasized. Jonas has spent most of his life in New York but pastoral longing is a strong sentiment in his film diary. The presentness of his images, in two senses, when the events they depict took place and when one, a living spectator, is seeing them is enriched by his unpictured past, often represented by the "pastoral." [...]

The historic importance of the personally made film has been bravely stated by his saying, with Anthology Film Archives, that such films ought to be carefully treated, collected and shown, that the achievements of the past nurture the continuity of creative personal uses of cinema. [...]" Michael Snow, Codroy, Newfoundland, August 1997

Check out our ever-growing selection of films available for purchase through our VOD platform on Vimeo. http://vod.re-voir.com

You will find here trailers and links to the films we currently offer, but be sure to check back often, as this selection of films will be growing. All of the titles we have on our VOD will still be available for purchase as a DVD that you can add to your collection. Our DVDs include extensive booklets and design elements that we hope will enhance your experience of the film. Feel free to contact us at info@re-voir.com if there are any titles you would like to see added to this list in the near future.

Happy viewing,
RE:VOIR

JONAS MEKAS THE MAJOR WORKS

JONAS MEKAS

THE MAJOR WORKS

(six DVD Boxset PAL interzone), public price: 79.95 euros

English, French and Lithuanian subtitles

DVD single titles, public price: 19.90 euros each

Co-edition: Potemkine, Re:Voir and Agnès B DVD

Distribution Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland: Potemkine

Distribution the rest of the world: Re:Voir

In addition the following five titles by Jonas Mekas are forthcoming from Re:Voir:

Guns of the Trees (1962) - Sixties Quartet (Andy Warhol, John and Yoko, George Maciunas, Kennedy) (1964-1999)

- Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (Allen Ginsberg) (1997) - Letter from Greenpoint (2004) - Sleepless Nights Stories (2011)

Jonas Mekas - Six-DVD Box Set: The Major Works:

The Brig (1964) -  Walden (1969) - Reminiscences of a Jouney to Lithuania (1972) - Lost Lost Lost (1976) -

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) - Short Film Works

This box brings together the key works of Jonas Mekas, one of the most prolific avant-garde film artists and an acclaimed poet. Born in Lithuania in 1922, chased west by Soviet and Nazi forces, Mekas and his brother spent four years in German displaced persons' camps before arriving in New York in 1949 where they started shooting 16mm films on exile, military domination and poetic freedom. Jonas developed his diary style of filmmaking while busying himself as a film critic, programmer, organizer and distributor.

LOST LOST LOST

(DVD PAL interzone) 19,90 euros

16mm, 1976, color and black & white, 178'

"These six reels of my film diaries come from the years 1949-1963. They begin with my arrival in New York in November 1949. The first and second reels deal with my life as a Young Poet and a Displaced Person in Brooklyn. It shows the Lithuanian immigrant community, their attempts to adapt themselves to a new land and their tragic efforts to regain independence for their native country. It shows my own frustrations and anxieties and the decision to leave Brooklyn and move to Manhattan. Reel three and reel four deal with my life in Manhattan on Orchard Street and East 13th St. First contacts with New York poetry and filmmaking communities. Robert Frank shooting The Sin of Jesus. LeRoy Jones, Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara reading at The Living Theatre. Documentation of the political protests of the late fifties and early sixties. First World Strike for Peace. Vigil in Times Square. Women for Peace. Air Raid protests. Reel five includes Rabbit Shit Haikus, a series of Haikus filmed in Vermont; scenes at the Film-Maker's Cooperative; filming Hallelujah the Hills; scenes of New York City. Reel six contains a trip to Flaherty Seminar, a visit to the seashore in Stony Brook; a portrait of Tiny Tim; opening of Twice a Man; excursions to the countryside seen from two different views; that of my own and that of Ken Jacobs whose footage is incorporated into this reel.

The period I am dealing with in these six reels was a period of desperation, of attempts to desperately grow roots into the new ground, to create new memories. In these six painful reels I tried to indicate how it feels to be in exile, how I felt in those years. These reels carry the title Lost Lost Lost, the title of a film myself and my brother wanted to make in 1949, and it indicates the mood we were in, in those years. It describes the mood of a Displaced Person who hasn't yet forgotten the native country but hasn't gained a new one. The sixth reel is a transitional reel where we begin to see some relaxation, where I begin to find moments of happiness. New life begins. What happens later, you'll have to see the next installment of reels ..."

- Jonas Mekas

THE BRIG

(DVD PAL interzone) 19,90 euros

16mm, 1964, black & white, 65'

"I went to see The Brig, the play, the night it closed. The Becks were told to shut down and get out. The performance, by this time, was so precisely acted that it moved with the inevitability of life itself. As I watched it I thought: Suppose this was a real brig; suppose I was a newsreel reporter; suppose I got permission from the U.S. Marine Corps to go into one of their brigs and film the goings-on: What a document one could bring to the eyes of humanity! The way The Brig was being played now, it was a real brig, as far as I was concerned. This idea took possession of my mind and my senses so thoroughly that I walked out of the play. I didn't want to know anything about what would happen next in the play; I wanted to see it with my camera. I had to film it."

-- Jonas Mekas

REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA

(DVD PAL interzone) 19,90 euros

16mm, 1972, color, 82'

After a twenty-seven year absence, Adolfas and his brother Jonas returned to their birthplace in Lithuania. They had left Lithuania as young men, destined for a German labor camp. Now they came home for a visit, Adolfas with his wife, the singer Pola Chapelle.

"The film consists of three parts.

The first part is made up of footage I shot with my first Bolex, during my first years in America, mostly from 1950-1953. It shows me and my brother Adolfas, how we looked in those days; miscellaneous footage of immigrants in Brooklyn, picnicking, dancing, singing; the streets of Williamsburg.

The second part was shot in August 1971, in Lithuania. Almost all of the footage comes from Semeniskiai, the village I was born in. You see the old house, my mother (born 1887), all the brothers, goofing, celebrating our homecoming. You don't really see how Lithuania is today: you see it only through the memories of a Displaced Person back home for the first time in twenty-five years.

The third part begins with a parenthesis in Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg, where we spent a year in a forced labor camp during the war. After the parenthesis closes, we are in Vienna where I see some of my best friends - Peter Kubelka, Hermann Nitsch, Annette Michelson, Ken Jacobs. The film ends with the burning of the Vienna fruit market, August, 1971.

The soundtrack: For most of the film I speak of myself as a "displaced person," about my relationship to Home, Memory, Culture, Roots, Childhood. There are also a few Lithuanian songs sung by all the Mekas brothers."  - Jonas Mekas

WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES

(DVD PAL interzone) 19,90 euros

16mm, 1969, color, 180'

"Since 1950 I have been keeping a film diary. I have been walking around with my Bolex and reacting to the immediate reality: situations, friends, New York, seasons of the year. On some days I shot ten frames, on others ten seconds, still on others ten minutes. Or I shot nothing. When one writes diaries, it's a retrospective process: you sit down, you look back at your day, and you write it all down. To keep a film (camera) diary, is to react (with your camera) immediately, now, this instant: either you get it now, or you don't get it at all. To go back and shoot it later, it would mean restaging, be it events or feelings. To get it now, as it happens, demands the total mastery of one's tools (in this case, Bolex): it has to register the reality to which I react and also it has to register my state of feeling (and all the memories) as I react. Which also means, that I had to do all the structuring (editing) right there, during the shooting, in the camera. All footage that you'll see in the Diaries is exactly as it came out from the camera: there was no way of achieving it in the editing room without destroying its form and content.

Walden contains materials from the years 1965-69, strung together in chronological order. For the soundtrack I used some of the sounds that I collected during the same period: voices, subways, much street noise, bits of Chopin (I am a romantic), and other significant and insignificant sounds."

-- Jonas Mekas

AS I WAS MOVING AHEAD OCCASIONALLY I SAW BRIEF GLIMPSES OF BEAUTY

(DVD PAL interzone) 19,90 euros

16mm, 2000, color, 288'

"As I Was Moving Ahead... is a record of subtle feelings, emotions, daily joys of people as recorded in the voices, faces and small everyday activities of people I have met, or lived with, or observed -- something that I have been recording for many years. This, as opposed to the spectacular, entertaining, sensational, dramatic activities which dominate much of the contemporary film-making.

"Now, all this has to do with my understanding and belief of what acts really affect the positive changes in man, society, humanity. I am interested in recording the subtle, almost invisible acts, experiences, feelings, as opposed to the tough, harsh, loud, violent activities and political actions, and especially, political systems of our time. As a film-maker, I am taking a stand for the politics that have been practiced by some of the artists of my generation who believe that more essential, positive contributions to the upholding and furthering of the best in humanity, have been made, say, by John Cage or Albert Camus, and not by the great political figures of the 20th century.

The film is not conceived as a documentary film, however. It follows a tradition established by modern film poets. I am interested in intensifying the fleeting moments of reality by a personal way of filming and structuring my material. A lot of importance is being given to color, movement, rhythm and structure -- all very essential to the subject matter I am pursuing. I have spent many years developing and perfecting a way of catching the immediacy without interfering with it, without destroying it. I believe that some of the content that I am trying to record with my camera and share with others, can be caught only very indirectly though the intensity of personal involvement."

-- Jonas Mekas

SHORT FILM WORKS

(DVD PAL interzone) 19,90 euros

Cassis (1966, 4 min.)

Notes on the Circus (1966, 12 min.)

Hare Krishna (1966, 4 min.)

Report from Millbrook (1965-66, 12 min.)

Time and Fortune Vietnam Newsreel (1968, 4 min.)

Travel Songs (1967-81, 25 min.)

Quartet Number One (1991, 8 min.)

Imperfect Three-Image Films (1995, 6 min.)

Song of Avignon (1998, 5 min.)

Mozart, Wien & Elvis (2000, 3 min.)

Williamsburg (1949-2002, 15 min.)

This compilation of short film works brings together Jonas Mekas' many forms of expression throughout his career. At times funny, subversive, provocative, ironic, and fundamentally free, this panorama also shows us the sharp eye and acerbic wit that makes Jonas Mekas more than a filmmaker: a lover of life and people that he embraces with his camera, whose montages sing of eternity.

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