Evidently shot over a decade, this documentary portrait of Lithuanian-born filmmaker-poet Jonas Mekas examines his life and career as a director (The Brig, Guns of the Trees), film critic, film historian, magazine editor, teacher (NYU), film distributor (Film-Makers’ Cooperative), and founder of Manhattan’s leading avant-garde film showcase (Anthology Film Archives). Mekas had a significant influence on the New York avant-garde, as indicated in interview segments with Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Martin Scorsese, Allen Ginsberg, and others. Past films made by Mekas are seen in clips. German filmmaker Peter Sempel has chosen to assemble this profile in an oblique and elliptical manner not inappropriate for his unique subject.
Category: Documentary
Nanni Moretti’s documentary, La cosa (The Thing, 1990), represents the painful transformation of the PCI (Italian Communist Party) through the voices of the party’s members who met throughout Italy to discuss the changes proposed by the PCI’s leadership. From the confronting debates depicted in La cosa, the re-evocation of the history of the Italian Left and of its founding principles emerge as a background, creating a nostalgic longing for a style of politics that had disappeared in Italy.
Director Robert Altman’s 1996 film, Kansas City – a jazz-tinged melodrama about a corrupt politician and a determined gangster – was notable if only for some remarkable 1930s music as arranged by the innovative John Cale. This documentary is the offspring of that movie, featuring sessions recorded on the set of the earlier film. With Jazz ’34‘s pumping, grinding blues all set to elevate the spirits.
Ten days of preparation for the Monte Carlo rally. The two Polish drivers battle with the technical shortcomings of the Polish Fiat 125 and overwhelming bureaucracy. They did not finish the race. An allegory of the country’s industrial and economic problems.
A documentary profiling a Japanese taiko drumming group based in the remote Sado Island, Japan. The film blurs the line between real-life documentary footage of the troupe’s training and practice regimes, and staged performances of their varied musical acts, with sets designed by artist Tadanori Yokoo and an additional experimental electronic music score by Toshi Ichiyanagi.
Glauber Rocha films the funeral of his friend Di Cavalcanti, one of the most important Brazilian painters and artists of all time. The director/writer pays his tribute to Di by narrating an eloquent speech, referencing poets such as Augusto dos Anjos e Vinicius de Moraes, along with images of Cavalcanti’s work and the funeral as well – with the latter event being a spur of the moment to the director who rushed with his camera to the place when he heard the news.
Confessions of a Sociopath is an autobiographical film on digital video and Super 8 film, conceived as a real-life version of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. In this film, Joe Gibbons plays a fictionalized version of himself as he discovers a roomful of Super 8 footage from his own life, detailing events he can no longer recall. This footage shows his earlier film experiments, his descent into destructive behavior, and his “bottoming out” on drugs and alcohol. At a certain point, the films are replaced by random photos, police records, and psychiatric hospital records.
Documentary about the legendary musician and infamous wild man Hasil Adkins. Filming takes place in Adkins’ own yard, his shack, and at various concerts. Adkins is notable for helping create an entirely new form of rock/rockabilly/country fusion, which he plays entirely by himself (with a guitar and drums simultaneously).