Jonas Mekas on Filmmaking

“To me cinema is cinema. Cinema is one big tree with many branches. The same as literature. In literature, you don’t just say, ‘Oh, I bought some literature’. No, you say, “I bought a novel” by so-and-so , or a book of essays by so-and-so. In narrative cinema a certain terminology has already been established: ‘film noir’, ‘Western’, even ‘Spaghetti Western’. When we say “Film Noir” we know what we are talking about. But in non-narrative cinema we are a little bit lost. So sometimes, the only way to make us understand what we are talking about is to use the term avant-garde. Cinema is still a little bit too young, we do not yet have developed terms for all the different, small branches of the cinema tree.

I’m working in a form of cinema that can be described, and has been described, as a diaristic form of cinema. In other words, with material from my own life. I walk through life with my camera, and occasionally I film. I never think about scripts, never think about films, making films. The result though, eventually, is a finished film, shorter or longer. But the film is determined by the material that I have shot. I’m not collecting material to illustrate a certain idea. The idea comes from how I put it together from the material that already exists. I’m a filmmaker but my working procedures are different. All my basic structuring is done during the filming. You know, how long I keep the shot, the exposure, or the speed – slower or faster, etc. That’s structuring. And then there is a second stage of structuring that comes later when I begin to put those pieces together. I play with those pieces to make it all into some kind of unity. Sometimes I have to eliminate some pieces. Usually I say, ‘When in doubt, cut it out’. The same in writing. You can never go wrong by eliminating. Don’t throw it out, just cut it out.”

Read the full interview here.