Avant-garde director best known for Hallelujah the Hills
Adolfas Mekas, who has died aged 85, was the director of Hallelujah the Hills (1963), perhaps the most light-hearted, amusing, innovative, allusive and freewheeling film to come out of the New American Cinema Group established in 1962. One of the clauses in its manifesto reads: "We believe that cinema is indivisibly a personal expression. We therefore reject the interference of producers, distributors and investors until our work is ready to be projected on the screen." Mekas, his older brother Jonas, and other avant-garde members of the group, such as Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, Shirley Clarke and Gregory Markopoulos, lived by this doctrine in all their film-making.
Shot in black and white in 16mm, Hallelujah the Hills, which cost only $75,000 from concept to can, was directed, written and edited by Mekas, with Jonas as assistant; a young friend, David Stone, as first-time producer; Stone's wife, Barbara,...
Adolfas Mekas, who has died aged 85, was the director of Hallelujah the Hills (1963), perhaps the most light-hearted, amusing, innovative, allusive and freewheeling film to come out of the New American Cinema Group established in 1962. One of the clauses in its manifesto reads: "We believe that cinema is indivisibly a personal expression. We therefore reject the interference of producers, distributors and investors until our work is ready to be projected on the screen." Mekas, his older brother Jonas, and other avant-garde members of the group, such as Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, Shirley Clarke and Gregory Markopoulos, lived by this doctrine in all their film-making.
Shot in black and white in 16mm, Hallelujah the Hills, which cost only $75,000 from concept to can, was directed, written and edited by Mekas, with Jonas as assistant; a young friend, David Stone, as first-time producer; Stone's wife, Barbara,...
- 6/8/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Even as the wires and the waves buzz with anticipation for Quentin Tarantino's next project, Django Unchained, which, as the Guardian's Ben Child surmises, "seems to be an homage to Sergio Leone set in the deep south (rather than the old west) which tackles the predictably difficult subject of 19th-century American slavery," and which will likely feature Christoph Waltz and Franco Nero and, who knows, maybe Will Smith as well, along comes first-time contributor Jd Markel, headlining Issue 72 of Bright Lights Film Journal with a detailed map of influences on Tarantino's 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds.
As always with Bl, there's a full season's worth of reading in this new issue, but if you've got a moment, editor Gary Morris will talk you through it, piece by piece. Or head straight to the Toc for an overview of all the articles, reviews, profiles, empirical studies and rampant speculations.
For Reverse Shot's 29th symposium,...
As always with Bl, there's a full season's worth of reading in this new issue, but if you've got a moment, editor Gary Morris will talk you through it, piece by piece. Or head straight to the Toc for an overview of all the articles, reviews, profiles, empirical studies and rampant speculations.
For Reverse Shot's 29th symposium,...
- 5/9/2011
- MUBI
In an effort to mix things up a bit, I’ve tried to do some searching to find random oldies, but goodies. I’ll try to keep doing this in the future so these weekly link roundups don’t start to get stale.
First, I dug up an interesting, older article by longtime underground film writer Fred Camper about the problems naming the avant-garde, experimental, underground, etc. He also comes up with a six-part “test” to determine if a film is underground or not. And, yes, there’s lots of hostility to the term “underground,” but, obviously, it’s what I personally go with. On the other hand, there’s this cute attempt at underground film history. Back in 2002, Gary Morris wrote an interesting appraisal of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls for Bright Lights Film Journal. The Los Angeles Times reports that Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil,...
First, I dug up an interesting, older article by longtime underground film writer Fred Camper about the problems naming the avant-garde, experimental, underground, etc. He also comes up with a six-part “test” to determine if a film is underground or not. And, yes, there’s lots of hostility to the term “underground,” but, obviously, it’s what I personally go with. On the other hand, there’s this cute attempt at underground film history. Back in 2002, Gary Morris wrote an interesting appraisal of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls for Bright Lights Film Journal. The Los Angeles Times reports that Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil,...
- 12/19/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Updated through 11/17.
Gary Morris takes us by the hand and leads us into the new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal: "This issue, #70, with a mere 26 articles may seem shorter than usual, but we've tried to compensate for that by featuring several exceptionally long pieces, including the longest we've ever published — your editor's practically book-length discussion of the Corman Poe films. Also pushing the boundaries this time is Jack Stevenson's ambitious look at 'Haunted Cinema,' those glorious grindhouses that purveyed porn to the lonely, love-starved masses in the years before Disneyfication, corporatization, and the looming return of workhouses and debtors' prisons."...
Gary Morris takes us by the hand and leads us into the new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal: "This issue, #70, with a mere 26 articles may seem shorter than usual, but we've tried to compensate for that by featuring several exceptionally long pieces, including the longest we've ever published — your editor's practically book-length discussion of the Corman Poe films. Also pushing the boundaries this time is Jack Stevenson's ambitious look at 'Haunted Cinema,' those glorious grindhouses that purveyed porn to the lonely, love-starved masses in the years before Disneyfication, corporatization, and the looming return of workhouses and debtors' prisons."...
- 11/17/2010
- MUBI
Editor Gary Morris, freshly relocated to San Francisco, introduces the new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal and these are just a few of the highlights that leap out to my eye: Alan Vanneman "contributes another fine entry in his epic trek through the work of Fred Astaire, this one on Minnelli's The Band Wagon.... Lesley Chow finds fascinating perversity in the pianist motif in films like Preminger's Angel Face and of course Haneke's The Piano Teacher. Jacob Mikanowski has three articles this time: an ambitious discussion of five experimental films and reviews of the Hitchcock curio Double Take and the woefully underrated King Vidor-Bette Davis masterpiece Beyond the Forest.... New contributor Jonathan Simmons explains why Zizek's reading of The Birds is full of shit.... André Bazin makes another Bl appearance courtesy of Bert Cardullo's translation of everybody's favorite critic's review of De Sica's Umberto D. Frank Tashlin,...
- 8/14/2010
- MUBI
Two topics, all-too-often inseparable — politics and horror — course through the veins of the new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal, featuring "a whopping 40 articles, profiles, and reviews," as editor Gary Morris notes in his lively-as-always overview. Gregory Stephen's piece on King Corn and Fast Food Nation is "a tour de force that riffs mightily on eco- and economic exploitation, racism, and a host of other timely themes.... Maximilian Werner manages an entirely new approach to films like The Ring, The Shining, The Exorcist et al. in his discussion of the evolutionary basis of fear. Mark Chapman disinters the postmodern vampire through a persuasive discussion of Claire Denis's Trouble Every Day. He also sketches that depressingly prescient Michael Powell classic Peeping Tom. Jon Lanthier clarifies much about Scorsese's overrated Shutter Island through an inspired conceit: phrenology."
There are also fresh takes on classics, obscure (Cullen Gallagher on Preston Sturges's The French,...
There are also fresh takes on classics, obscure (Cullen Gallagher on Preston Sturges's The French,...
- 5/2/2010
- MUBI
Just a very quick Daily roundup from within the Rotterdam maelstrom. First and foremost, a new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal is up - but hold on, as editor Gary Morris explains, there's more: "Yes, we've joined the contemporary makeover craze, redesigning, restructuring, and recoding every single page of Bright Lights. We've also merged our popular blog, Bright Lights After Dark, with the site." As for Issue 67, "It's one of our biggest standalones, with lots of new writers joining the Bl stalwarts in one of our most exciting issues."...
- 2/3/2010
- MUBI
"Like most issues of Bright Lights, this one doesn't have a particular theme, though we wish you readers would start referring to our approach as 'serendipity' (perhaps 'charming serendipity'?) rather than the usual cries of 'chaos!' 'bite me!' and 'Wtf?!?'" Editor Gary Morris introduces the charmingly serendipitous Issue 66, so full of charm and serendipity, in fact, that each of us will likely be drawn first to different pages - though, the way the front one's laid out, it'll be hard not to start with Karin Luisa Badt's ruminations on the Polanski case. While she argues that "Polanski himself is a minor issue in the thicket," she does ultimately offer her own opinion as to whether or not the extradition should proceed.
- 11/1/2009
- MUBI
"The missing link between punk and riot grrl wasn't a band or even a fleeting subgenre, but an amazing 1982 Paramount music-biz satire that was never properly released, seen only on late-night cable, crappy bootlegs, and at art-house revivals. That mistake will finally be mended when Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains hits DVD on September 16, its borderline-obsessive cult following all but guaranteed to expand virally. Have we mentioned it costars two Sex Pistols, a founding member of the Clash, and an underage Diane Lane in a see-through top?" Aaron Hillis tells the would-you-believe story behind the movie in Spin, which has also posted a mini-doc introduced by John Pierson.
For more, see Gary Morris in Bright Lights, Filmbrain and LAist's report on Sunday night's screening at Cinefamily with Lane on hand. By the way, the DVD features audio commentary from Lane and co-star Laura Dern, who, when they were Stains,...
For more, see Gary Morris in Bright Lights, Filmbrain and LAist's report on Sunday night's screening at Cinefamily with Lane on hand. By the way, the DVD features audio commentary from Lane and co-star Laura Dern, who, when they were Stains,...
- 9/10/2008
- by dwhudson
- GreenCine
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