Jonas Mekas Quotes

I would certainly say that films like Time Code and the Loss of Sexual Innocence were far more rewarding to me in terms of being able to move forward as a filmmaker.

They seem much rarer now, those auteur films that come out of a director's imagination and are elliptical and hermetic. All those films that got me into independent cinema when I was watching it seem thin on the ground.

I like the absurd and the surreal: the Coen brothers, Bunuel, Kubrick.

When I discovered European filmmakers, it affected me so deeply. It redefined what cinema could be. I mean, 'Blow-Up' ends with a dead body and mimes playing tennis. What?

The movies I respond to are by guys like the Coen brothers and Edgar Wright, where it's hard to fit them into any one box.

Ulrik Ottinger was the most real and experimental of all the German New Wave directors. She was probably the most out-there, too. She's a fascinating artist in that world.

I went to film school, and I came in when video art was king, weird stuff was king, and there, you don't have a script as your bible.

I want to do experimental films.

All of my heroes, like Dali, are people who pioneered various forms of cinema.

There is certainly a part of my filmmaking that harkens to a more simpler commercial kind of taste, but then with this there's certainly a kind of avant-garde, abstract, existential element to it.

I don't think American independent films have ever really been particularly experimental, except for the original guys from the '60s who were huge influences, like Stan Brakhage, Robert Breer, and Stan van der Beek. They were the true independents.

'Pierrot le Fou' is something I keep coming back to. It's so surreal but still really engaging - it proves narratives within narratives are a landscape that can be pursued well.

I'd love to do a Michel Gondry film. That would be ideal! I'd love to do an Almodovar film; you know, I think he's very, very talented. I don't care that people say he's pretentious. So what? He's a good director; he can be pretentious.

The cinema that interests me departs from realism.

I'm a New Wave baby, so I got very stimulated by foreign film.

I loved 'Goodbye to Language.'

I'm very influenced by documentary filmmaking and independent filmmaking, by a lot of noir and films from the '40s. Those are my favorite. And then, filmmaking from the '70s is a big influence for me.

My Hippy' is filled with futuristic fashion, bright colors, beautiful camera work, trippy effects, and even has a cameo from the infamous 'Sunset Blvd Jesus.'

I don't think 'Road' is an experimental film.

Movies tend to be dislocated and non-linear in their process.

I watched a lot of avant-garde films, like Maya Deren's work, and I love film's technical ability to do things that are impossible in real life. It's related to the way collage allows you to manipulate reality and the hierarchies that are inherent in our awful but amazing world.

A lot of the surreal filmmakers, like David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, or countless other underground filmmakers... Their sense of explosive images have always dominated their films. It's a way to shock the senses, to make them open themselves.

I really liked the Jean-Luc Godard movie, 'Film Socialisme.'

Actually I don't watch a lot of films but when I do, I like experimental, avant garde, European and world cinema. That is the language of cinema I am drawn towards. I don't watch much Hollywood or Bollywood.

As much as I love Antonioni films, I love the Three Stooges.