Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film Page #6

from distribution,

the coop even helped

sponsor some filmmakers.

Jack Smith,

when the cooperative advanced

monies for Normal Love,

he pulled out, he refused to pay,

so that the filmmakers suffered.

In 1970, Jonas and friends

founded a museum for film

called Anthology Film Archives.

The idea behind its founding was to

create a museum for the art of film,

that was solely focused

on film as an art form,

and it came out of the screenings

that were happening at a place called

the Filmmakers' Cinematheque in

New York City in the mid-1960s.

And Jonas Mekas, Jerome Hill,

Peter Kubelka and P. Adams Sitney

were the four people who are

responsible for founding Anthology

and for realizing this

idea to create a museum

that would be a permanent

home for the kinds of

avant-garde and experimental

and personal films

that they were screening at

the filmmakers' cinematheque.

The idea was that we'll

establish a collection

which will slowly

grow as time goes,

always every year adding new

titles of the most representative,

the best of what is being done

in cinema as we move ahead.

What you see on the first floor here

where the prison cells used to be,

that is the first floor film

preservation area, or vault.

It took nine years, from the time Jonas

acquired this building for Anthology

to raise the funds and do the

work to renovate this building.

During the last 20-30 years,

cinema has branched out into

numerous directions and branches,

very personal documentary

films, diary films,

very personal, small, poem,

little poems maybe one minute

long, maybe ten minutes long,

maybe six-seven hours long.

There's a variety of

different approaches to cinema

that has developed during

the last 2 or 3 decades.

And Anthology Film Archives

is dedicated to the screening,

preservation and study

of all these directions.

I remember going to - what was

it called, the invisible cinema? -

that was built by Peter Kubelka,

where you sat encased in a black box,

with only one opening namely forward

where you could see the screen,

isolated from everyone

else in the theater.

It was only the screen and

you, only you and the screen.

It was a very specially designed

theater that was Kubelka's...

dream. -Did you like it?

Yes, that was a dream theater.

Jonas Mekas was in charge, and

he was the most exciting person,

I mean he just got

excited about anything,

and he got excited

about just leader.

And so I decided well if he can get

excited about leader I'd just do leader.

And so I just did a lot of

leader, and it was exciting.

Since 1970 when we

opened, what happened?

The native American

Indian cinema happened,

the black cinema, the

Asian-American cinema,

the gay-lesbian cinema,

so many varieties of other cinemas

came in and they all need homes

because commercial movie theaters

are not going to show them,

so Anthology became home to all

the alternative forms of cinema.

Even with no funding, no audience,

no way to make a living, no

means to finance their art,

the poets of cinema, the

experimental filmmakers, go on.

New young filmmakers

appear on the scene,

children replace their

parents, the coops continue.

Life goes on, cinema goes on.

One of the things that's

happening now on the scene is fear.

You know, evictions,

the economy's bad...

When I went to

Hannover, I went to...

the Hannover museum had a

recreation of Kurt Schwitter's studio

that was bombed by of

course the US forces

while he was in the

studio creating his art.

It was like, all right, if

you're an artist you create,

no matter what the political

climate, it's part of your...

it's part of being political, is to

create, to express your personal vision.

My ambition was to capsize

the United States of America.

Did it work?

Art is something really necessary

for the survival of mankind.

That's the challenge as

I see it, for the artist

and as well for the fabric

of our whole society.

We must reach out,

somehow, communicate,

balance our senses,

and live a good life.

I don't know what it means, but

art means nothing in this sense.

It means only what it is.

Art means being.

It's a new form of being.

The artist is not a holy man, but

he is on the way to be a holy man,

and when he creates, he is holy.

That is the duty of the artist.

That does not mean that

he has no social duty,

of course, but he is a part of the

time, he is a product of the time.

What he expresses is only what

the ordinary people do not hear,

do not hear, feel or sense

as clearly as he does.

My dear friends, we've only

seen a handful of filmmakers.

This is only a very

small part of the story.

We've only scratched the surface.

From generation to

generation, cinema is evolving.

Today, dozens of filmmaking

communities everywhere

are inventing new techniques

and bringing us new images.

Some use new technologies, but the

old ones are still surprising us.

Artist-run film labs, coops,

festivals and microcinemas

are multiplying all over the world.

Today, making a film is

easier than ever before.

There are so many, hundreds

of films to see, and to make.

But today I only have one for you.

This one. Free Radicals.

karagarga.net

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