Jonas Mekas

The definitive book on filmmaker, writer, founder of Anthology Film Archive and all-round cinema avatar Jonas Mekas, this compendium of materials is essential for all fans of independent American cinema. Since the early 1950s, when he acquired his first Bolex camera (shortly after moving to New York from Lithuania), Mekas has practiced a kind of diaristic filmmaking, which developed into a distinct style in the 1960s, where his documentations of John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg and other member of the New York counterculture were blended with footage of the city's street life and everyday incidents. Since the 1990s, he has also produced so-called "frozen film stills" and installation video pieces. This book presents his newest work (such as the huge video piece "365 Day Project," for which he filmed a video every day for a year) alongside his texts--journals, poems, letters, essays and interviews--and a huge array of historical photographs, posters and other ephemera.