Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas, ‘Godfather’ of American Avant-Garde Film, Is Dead at 96. Jonas Mekas in 2017. Part intellectual, part enthusiast, part provocateur, Mr. Mekas could be counted on to sound off on behalf of experimental films. By Bruce Weber Jan. 23, 2019 Jonas Mekas, a filmmaker, curator, archivist, critic and all-around evangelist for independently made movies in general, and for those variously known as experimental, underground or avant-garde in particular, died on Wednesday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 96. His son, Sebastian, confirmed the death. It is rare to have consensus on the pre-eminence of any person in the arts. But few would argue that Mr. Mekas, who was often called the godfather or the guru of the New American Cinema — his name for the underground film movement of the 1950s and ’60s — was the leading champion of the kind of film that doesn’t show at the multiplex. A Lithuanian immigrant who, with a younger brother, Adolfas, arrived in New York City in...
