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Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas has made substantial contributions to film history as an organizer, as an editor and writer, and as a filmmaker. The driving force behind the New American Cinema Group, Mekas sought to change the film society model of noncommercial exhibition and distribution epitomized (in the United States) by Amos Vogel's Cinema 16. In place of what he called the "potpourri" approach to programming standard at Cinema 16 (on any given program, Vogel might present an experimental animation, a scientific documentary, a cartoon, a psychodramaall by different filmmakers), Mekas established the single film-artist show, first at New American Cinema Group presentations, and later at the New York Cinematheque and Anthology Film Archives, which under his leadership became and has remained a leading institution devoted to the maintenance of the heritage of independent cinema. In place of Cinema 16's selective distribution policy (Vogel decided which films by an independent filmmaker he would distribute), Mekas promoted the cooperative distribution system in which filmmakers decide which of their films to distribute and receive all rentals minus the basic expenses of keeping the cooperative afloat. The result was the New York Filmmakers' Cooperative.
Mekas's commitment to making a cultural space for avant-garde film also energized his editorship of
Film Culture,
which published several issues a year, beginning in 1955 and continuing into the seventies (in more recent years, the journal has appeared irregularly).
Film Culture
remains a remarkable compendium of information and commentary about many forms of cinema. Mekas may have had his broadest influ-