Quotes from Jonas Mekas

In a meadow full of flowers, you cannot walk through and breathe those smells and see all those colors and remain angry. We have to support the beauty, the poetry, of life

Aš, vaikas, s?d?davau ant lauko ežios ir ži?r?davau, kaip mano t?vas su s?tuve ant kaklo eidavo per lauk?, l?tai, vienodu žingsniu, mostas buvo sujungtas kartu su žeme, su lauku, su tom s?klom: joks jogas niekados nebus ar?iau šito pasaulio, šitos žem?s, kaip ?kininkas.

Keista švytuokl? žmogus. Atrodo, kiek išsimeti žv?rin, tiek sugr?žti žmogun. Kartais pamanau: net kad Diev? pajustum, reikia pirmiau b?ti geru velniu. Po moment?, kada neju?iom pasileidi, ištirpsti kurion nors padugn?n - tokiu ryškumu stojas prieš akis priešingyb? - švytuokl? jau kitoj pus?j.

Kult?ra yra basose kojose. Kult?ra yra šaltuos ryto rasos gintaruos. Ir arklio prunkštime. Neužmirškime savo arkli?!

En estos tiempos en los que todo el mundo ansía tener éxito y vender, yo quiero brindar por aquellos que sacrifican el éxito social por la búsqueda de lo invisible, de lo personal, cosas que no reportan dinero, ni pan, y que tampoco te hacen entrar en la historia contemporánea, en la historia del arte o en cualquier historia. Yo apuesto por el arte que hacemos los unos para los otros, como amigos.

I always work only with friends, but it must be about them and myself. Because I film only very personal moments, nothing preplanned, staged or written, it has to be real and spontaneous. Some of them have become famous, some are not yet famous, some will never be famous. But they are all my friends.

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.

As a film-maker and a poet, I feel it's my duty to be an eye and an antenna to what's happening around me. I always felt a solidarity with those who are desperate and confused and misused and are seeking a way out of it.

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.

My life is essentially not so unique. On some deeper levels we feel the same, we know the same things. Therefore if I show my life 365 days, moments from those days, it will reflect and it will have connection with lives of all of us.

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.

There is no other way to break the frozen cinematic conventions than through a complete derangement of the official cinematic senses.

I'm not an abstract artist; I leave that to others. To me, abstract art ended with Kazimir Malevich's 'Black Square.' To continue it is senseless.

We are the measure of all things. And the beauty of our creation, of our art is proportional to the beauty of ourselves of our souls.

Once you change the technology - from a film camera to a video camera, or from an 8-mm camera to 16 mm - you change completely the content. With 8 mm, a leaf on a tree will be made up of maybe four grains. So it's very impressionistic, almost like Seurat. If you switch to 16 mm, the technology gives you hundreds of grains on that leaf.

I'm not so much in the future as always in the present. The future always takes care of itself. What I do now with my video camera, it can only record what is happening now. I am celebrating reality and the essence of the moment. And that's the greatest challenge that I have.

Most of my videos consist of fragments, one or two minutes long. They are haikus or sketches. I have thousands.