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certain age, anything in the world seems possible, and I leapt into it without a second thought. My first film was
A Change of Heart,
16mm, black and white, sound, feature length, influenced by
Breathless
[1959]. I worked in the news department during the day and worked on the film at night and on weekends, a pattern that continues to this day. My first show came about through Louis Brigante, who worked beside me in the news department and who was associated with
Film Culture
and knew Jonas Mekas. He was a very kind and good person who helped many young filmmakers. Jonas at that time was showing a lot of independent features, like
Shadows
[1957],
Guns of the Trees, Twice a Man
[1963],
The Flower Thief
[1960], and many other things in the various fugitive venues of the Cinematheque, which was literally at that time a fly-by-night operation. Sometimes the location would change from week to week with Jonas dodging corrupt cops, avaricious fire marshalls looking for payoffs, and various other harassments. It was a true guerrilla activity. Through his "Movie Journal" column in
The Village Voice,
Jonas was a revolutionary commandante, operating from the hills, striking at night and vanishing before the "authorities" could get there. It was exciting.
Also, I worked at the Film-makers' Co-op for a while, and that was interesting because I got to meet many filmmakers. There was much exchange of ideas and clash of raging egos. For a while at least, there was a strong sense of revolutionary possibility, that anything could happen and was likely to happen. A rough and unrefined situation in many ways. At that time there were no university courses in avant-garde film, no doctoral candidates, no wildest dreams of tenured positions. With a few exceptions, most were poor, cold, and hungry, not to mention insulted and injured and angry. I remember discussions about whether to buy film or food. There were also dilettantes, as there always are: rich kids looking for something to do.
MacDonald:
Are there filmmakers you especially remember? Did you know Brakhage? Frampton?
Noren:
Brakhage would descend on New York from the mountains once a year or so, grandiloquent and Promethean, lightning bolts in one hand and film cans in the other, talking everyone under the tablewhat a talker! And in general burning the place to the ground. It's impossible to overestimate his influence on absolutely everyone: you could run, but you couldn't hide. I remember thinking
Mothlight
[1963] was one of the best films I'd ever seen, and I still think so. I was very impressed by Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland, who were both hilariously intelligent, clear-minded, and highly elevated. They couldn't help but laugh, and it was very contagious. They loved jokes and puns. I often felt they were on the verge of levitation by laughter.
Harry Smith interested me also. I spent many hours back then puz-