Diaries, notes, and sketches

Diaries, notes, and sketches

experimental, diary, NYC, documentary, immigration, diary

Intoxicating, moving, brilliant entre into bohemain NY by one of experimental cinema's giants. I love a diary film; the East Village; this film's pacing and dreamy focus; its slowness. I watched part of the film on 16mm one day with Minohla Dargis, when we were both in grad school at NYU. It was very cold in Anthology Film Archive's back room. Jonas was walking around behind us. A truly magical and memorable film moment.

The box is labelled "Lost Lost Lost" (1976, 178 mins). This may be a mistake.

Jonas Mekas

Museum of Modern Art

Mubi: Lost Lost Lost

Film-makers Coop

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
Lost Lost Lost

1976

English

Tape seems to have the wrong label on the front: lost, lost, lost.

Preserved by Anthology Film Archives through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation: https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=12&year=2012#showing-40275

“No figure appears more firmly rooted in both the American avant-garde and downtown New York than Jonas Mekas …. Yet LOST LOST LOST, his…three-hour diary collage, tells a very different story, one of exile, displacement, and longing. It was completed in 1976 out of footage shot during an almost 15-year span, from his arrival in New York in 1949 (as a postwar Lithuanian refugee) to his engagement with the budding independent film scene of the early ‘60s. […] These are gnomic records of self-discovery, sealed in celluloid amber by their very act of creation. But this potently intimate epic transcends mere personal record to tap a universal sentiment. A photographic Homer of his own odyssey, Mekas journeys – like us all – in irrevocable exile from his own past, attempting to reconstruct that invisible nation of youth to which he can never return.” –Ed Halter, VILLAGE VOICE

"Filmed in 1949-1963, edited 1976. These six reels of my film diaries come from the years 1949-1963. They begin with my arrival in New York in November 1949. The first and second reels deal with my life as a Young Poet and a Displaced Person in Brooklyn. It shows the Lithuanian immigrant community, their attempts to adapt themselves to a new land and their tragic efforts to regain independance for their native country. It shows my own frustrations and anxieties and the decision to leave Brooklyn and move to Manhattan. Reel three and reel four deal with my life in Manhattan on Orchard Street and East 13th St. First contacts with New York poetry and filmmaking communities. Robert Frank shooting THE SIN OF JESUS. LeRoy Jones, Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara reading at The Living Theatre. Documentation of the political protests of the late fifties and early sixties. First World Strike for Peace. Vigil in Times Square. Women for Peace. Air Raid protests. Reel five includes Rabbit Shit Haikus, a series of Haikus filmed in Vermont; scenes at the Film-Maker's Cooperatives; filming HALLELUJAH THE HILLS; scenes of New York City. Reel six contains a trip to Flaherty Seminar, a visit to the seashore in Stony Brook; a portrait of Tiny Tim; opening of TWICE A MAN; excursions to the countryside seen from two different views; that of my own and that of Ken Jacobs whose footage is incorporated into this reel. The period I am dealing with in these six reels was a period of desperation, of attempts to desparately grow roots into the new ground, to create new memories. In these six painful reels I tried to indicate how it feels to be in exile, how I felt in those years. These reels carry the title LOST, LOST, LOST, the title of a film myself and my brother wanted to make in 1949, and it indicates the mood we were in, in those years. It describes the mood of a Displaced Person who hasn't yet forgotten the native country but hasn't gained a new one. The sixth reel is a transitional reel where we begin to see some relaxation, where I begin to find moments of happiness. New life begins. What happens later, you'll have to see the next installment of reels ..." – J.M., March 31, 1976. Jonas Mekas. the filmmaker's coop

Reels 1-2: “Young Poet and a Displaced Person in Brooklyn”
Reels 3-4: “My life in Manhattan on Orchard Street and East 13th St.”
Reel 5: Projects in New ¥ork City
Reel 6: “New life begins.”

2 hours 56 minutes

16 mm

31 mins

Jonas Mekas

For research, teaching, and educational use please use CONTACT US in About section to make a request for access.

Excerpt from "Lost Lost Lost" by Jonas Mekas 1976 from Jonas Mekas on Vimeo.