Nam June Paik's Piano Piece

Nam June Paik's Piano Piece

2006 · 6 min · Documentary

This was filmed on November 1, 1997 at Anthology Film Archives during a tribute to Joseph Beuys. Nam June Paik destroys a piano. From the cycle of FIRST FORTY I made in late 2006 as an introduction to my work for my new, Internet audience. All of them are based on my earlier films but slightly, sometimes more than slightly, changed. I consider them works complete in themselves, seperate from the main body of my film work.

Directed by Jonas Mekas

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Nam June Paik

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Nam June Paik's Piano Piece

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

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As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty · 2000

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

MovieDocumentary

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches · 1968

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

MovieDocumentary

Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s New York, interweaving moments with family, friends, lovers, and artistic idols. Blending everyday encounters with portraits of the avant-garde art scene, it forms an epic, personal meditation on community, creativity, and the passage of time.

Guns of the Trees

Guns of the Trees · 1961

Guns of the Trees

Barbara, a young woman consumed by despair, contemplates suicide, while a man she meets in a church and a married couple struggle to persuade her that life is still worth living. Mekas’s film weaves this intimate drama into a larger reflection on alienation, politics, and the turbulence of early 1960s America.

Birth of a Nation

Birth of a Nation · 1997

Birth of a Nation

MovieDocumentary

Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania · 1972

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

MovieDocumentary

Jonas Mekas weaves an elegiac diary film from his 1971–72 return to Lithuania, chronicling a visit to his birthplace of Semeniškiai after decades in exile. Blending personal memory with documentary observation, the film becomes both a portrait of homecoming and a meditation on displacement, family, and the passage of time.

The Brig

The Brig · 1964

Jonas Mekas’s film captures The Living Theatre’s stage production of The Brig, an unflinching portrait of life inside a U.S. Marine Corps jail in Japan in 1957. Over the course of a single day, prisoners endure relentless drills, abuse, and dehumanization, exposing the brutality of military discipline with stark immediacy.

Notes on the Circus

Notes on the Circus · 1967

Notes on the Circus

Jonas Mekas transforms footage of the Ringling Brothers Circus into a rapid-fire montage set to music, structured in four segments that highlight different acts. Earlier images reappear in later sections as background to new performances, with the accelerated pacing of the clips mirroring the rhythm and energy of the soundtrack.

Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections

Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections · 1990

Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections

Jonas Mekas’s intimate diary film spans 1963 to 1990, capturing Andy Warhol alongside friends and collaborators from the New York avant-garde. Featuring figures such as Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Maciunas—as well as rare footage of the Velvet Underground’s first performance—it offers a personal portrait of Warhol’s world and his intersections with art, music, and counterculture.

In Between

In Between · 1978

MovieDocumentary

Footage from 1964-1968 that did not find its way into the Walden reels is joined in this classic period piece. Mostly centered in New York, it also includes travel footage and appearances by David Wise, Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Smith, Shirley Clarke, Jane Holzer and more. Mel Lyman plays his banjo on the roof.

20 Little Films

20 Little Films · 2012

20 Little Films

MovieDocumentary

Since 1995, the Viennale has invited renowned directors to create short, one-minute films as personal contributions to the festival. Ranging from home movies to political essays, musical sketches to abstract studies, these “little films” form a unique anthology of cinematic moments. 20 Little Films collects a selection of these works, premiering together for the Viennale’s 50th anniversary at the Locarno Film Festival.

42 One Dream Rush

42 One Dream Rush · 2010

42 One Dream Rush

An omnibus project bringing together acclaimed directors from around the world, each contributing a 42-second short inspired by a dream. Produced by 42 Below vodka, the collection blends surreal, poetic, and experimental visions into a mosaic of oneiric cinema.

River of Fundament

River of Fundament · 2014

River of Fundament

MovieDramaFantasy

Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

Notes on an American Film Director at Work · 2008

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

MovieDocumentary

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows his friend, film director Martin Scorsese, and his cast and crew, through various locations during the shooting of his film The Departed, released in 2006.

Hare Krishna

Hare Krishna · 1967

Jonas Mekas captures an afternoon in New York as a Hare Krishna group fills the streets with chanting and song. Filmed with his characteristic freewheeling style and later incorporated into Walden, the short stands as an impressionistic sketch of spiritual fervor and Mekas’s participatory approach to cinema.

Empire

MovieDocumentary

Filmed by Jonas Mekas from the 44th floor of the Time-Life Building, “Empire” explores the passage of time without the use of characters or a traditional narrative. The film, that consists of one stationary shot of the Empire State Building, was made from standard 1,200-foot rolls of 16mm film with a more than eight-hour runtime.

Laboratorium Anthology

Laboratorium Anthology · 1999

Laboratorium Anthology

MovieDocumentary

Scenes from the life and work at Anthology Film Archives. Much of the footage in this video was shot by Auguste Varkalis.

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