Director/writer/photography/editor: Jonas Mekas
Music: Auguste Varkalis
With: Jonas Mekas, Hollis Melton, Oona Mekas, Sebastian Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Allen Ginsberg, Nam June Paik, Andy Warhol, Robert Breer
Jonas Mekas’s lengthy “diary film” from the turn of the century lasts nearly five hours, gathering up the home movies of his life from about the late ‘60s on and splicing them together with no obvious method or strategy, accompanied by bursts of voiceover. He explains at the beginning of the picture that even the thought of trying to organize all the material was overwhelming. He started out trying to do so but quickly gave it up. He managed to divide it into 12 chapters, but only Chapter Three, about his wedding, honeymoon, birth of Oona, his daughter ... and more, coheres his themes even remotely. He reports to us from his “little editing room,” usually late at night. All of it is amateurish—these are home movies, after all—even if Mekas was known as an experimental filmmaker (and poet, and artist). The sound, if it is even there, is often terrible, with inconsistent audio levels. The images are not much better than that. The camera shakes a lot and there are many, many cuts.
Jonas Mekas’s lengthy “diary film” from the turn of the century lasts nearly five hours, gathering up the home movies of his life from about the late ‘60s on and splicing them together with no obvious method or strategy, accompanied by bursts of voiceover. He explains at the beginning of the picture that even the thought of trying to organize all the material was overwhelming. He started out trying to do so but quickly gave it up. He managed to divide it into 12 chapters, but only Chapter Three, about his wedding, honeymoon, birth of Oona, his daughter ... and more, coheres his themes even remotely. He reports to us from his “little editing room,” usually late at night. All of it is amateurish—these are home movies, after all—even if Mekas was known as an experimental filmmaker (and poet, and artist). The sound, if it is even there, is often terrible, with inconsistent audio levels. The images are not much better than that. The camera shakes a lot and there are many, many cuts.
“You must, by now,” he says at the beginning of Chapter Five, 91 minutes in, speaking in his gravelly, measured Lithuanian accent, “come to a realization that what you are seeing is a sort of masterpiece of nothing. Nothing.” I was thinking that myself but at the same time it occurred to me that just previously he showed Oona’s first steps (to the accompaniment of the Velvet Underground’s “Run Run Run”). It’s arguable that first steps are profound in terms of human development. He captured that, even dwelt on it. It’s a beautiful moment. Then Mekas, at the beginning of Chapter Five, catches himself on the point. He speaks of the importance of those images of Oona’s first steps, emphasizing the word “importance.” He calls them “little moments of paradise.” It’s not the first or last time he will use the phrase—and, indeed, many others.
Mekas’s voiceover usually emerges from the ongoing chaos of images, signaled by the ambient noise of his little editing room when he turns on the microphone. He rarely has much of real substance to say. He often feels overwhelmed with emotion (not to say sentiment). His breath is heavy into the microphone, he searches for what to say, or perhaps how to say it, he’s consumed by self-consciousness. It’s the voice of an old man, nearing 80.
The picture is full of redundancies and repetitions. Sometimes Mekas puts his thoughts and themes onto intertitle cards, which just show up. Sometimes he speaks them aloud. Sometimes they are felt palpably in the images. Intertitle cards we see frequently include: “home scenes,” “through our window,” “Life goes on --,” “Beauty of the ... [various, e.g., ‘moment’],” “Ecstasy of the ... [various, e.g., ‘New York summers’].” Some are more cryptic, or poetic, or perhaps even pretentious: “this is a political film,” “nothing happens in this film,” “Keep looking for things in places where there is nothing.”
The music here is as random as everything else, intruding and departing. The connections to the images feel real enough but seem more tenuous if you try to rationalize them. The music comes in many styles (and audio levels): solo piano is perhaps the most common. Is that the credited Auguste Varkalis? Then there are what sound like excerpts from recordings: jazz, strange sounds of African folk, well-known orchestral pieces, Bach, Judy Collins singing “Both Sides Now,” other snippets from the radio. They just cut in and out.
Double exposures crop up frequently, a known feature of amateur home movie makers, but sometimes these double exposures are so apt at striking a tone or underlining Mekas’s themes that I have to wonder if some postproduction might have been involved. Mekas willfully sticks to a semi-coherent unskilled simple man persona, breathing into the microphone, making lots of evident mistakes, singing off-key accompanied by a sad sawing accordion, with bursts of poetry in a robotic monotone. He focuses on somewhat obscure themes, for example asking again and again, “What happens during the silences?” Sometimes you might even feel a little sorry for him, this slightly demented voice trying to grasp elusive memories.
I would guess that more than half of As I Was Moving Ahead is devoted to typical home movie fare: wife and kids, family outings (usually to Central Park, in this case), family vacations (lots of berry-picking), baptisms, confirmations, school performances, get-togethers with friends. Film of Mekas’s wife Hollis Melton giving birth to Sebastian, their son and second child, is intensely moving, again suggesting the arch dissembling of the recurring intertitle, “nothing happens in this film.” Childbirth is one of the few definitive things that happen in life as well as film.
Look, I have to be honest. This film is exhausting to watch. I can’t really recommend it for that reason. The length alone makes it feel like a journey, but otherwise it feels mostly random. Per title, occasionally we see brief glimpses of beauty. Mekas declares himself a “filmer” as opposed to a “filmmaker.” He says repeatedly that he loves to film and has little interest or perhaps aptitude for assembling it later into something. Hence this shapeless behemoth, which somehow manages to be beautiful and moving in many surprising places. Beautiful and moving, but a lot of work to get there. Caveats.
The picture is full of redundancies and repetitions. Sometimes Mekas puts his thoughts and themes onto intertitle cards, which just show up. Sometimes he speaks them aloud. Sometimes they are felt palpably in the images. Intertitle cards we see frequently include: “home scenes,” “through our window,” “Life goes on --,” “Beauty of the ... [various, e.g., ‘moment’],” “Ecstasy of the ... [various, e.g., ‘New York summers’].” Some are more cryptic, or poetic, or perhaps even pretentious: “this is a political film,” “nothing happens in this film,” “Keep looking for things in places where there is nothing.”
The music here is as random as everything else, intruding and departing. The connections to the images feel real enough but seem more tenuous if you try to rationalize them. The music comes in many styles (and audio levels): solo piano is perhaps the most common. Is that the credited Auguste Varkalis? Then there are what sound like excerpts from recordings: jazz, strange sounds of African folk, well-known orchestral pieces, Bach, Judy Collins singing “Both Sides Now,” other snippets from the radio. They just cut in and out.
Double exposures crop up frequently, a known feature of amateur home movie makers, but sometimes these double exposures are so apt at striking a tone or underlining Mekas’s themes that I have to wonder if some postproduction might have been involved. Mekas willfully sticks to a semi-coherent unskilled simple man persona, breathing into the microphone, making lots of evident mistakes, singing off-key accompanied by a sad sawing accordion, with bursts of poetry in a robotic monotone. He focuses on somewhat obscure themes, for example asking again and again, “What happens during the silences?” Sometimes you might even feel a little sorry for him, this slightly demented voice trying to grasp elusive memories.
I would guess that more than half of As I Was Moving Ahead is devoted to typical home movie fare: wife and kids, family outings (usually to Central Park, in this case), family vacations (lots of berry-picking), baptisms, confirmations, school performances, get-togethers with friends. Film of Mekas’s wife Hollis Melton giving birth to Sebastian, their son and second child, is intensely moving, again suggesting the arch dissembling of the recurring intertitle, “nothing happens in this film.” Childbirth is one of the few definitive things that happen in life as well as film.
Look, I have to be honest. This film is exhausting to watch. I can’t really recommend it for that reason. The length alone makes it feel like a journey, but otherwise it feels mostly random. Per title, occasionally we see brief glimpses of beauty. Mekas declares himself a “filmer” as opposed to a “filmmaker.” He says repeatedly that he loves to film and has little interest or perhaps aptitude for assembling it later into something. Hence this shapeless behemoth, which somehow manages to be beautiful and moving in many surprising places. Beautiful and moving, but a lot of work to get there. Caveats.
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