Ken Jacobs

Born: 1933-05-25

A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists. A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.


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As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

as Self
Released: 2000-11-05

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American...

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Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

as Self
Released: 1968-03-01

An epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s.

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What Is Cinema?

as Self
Released: 2013-09-06

Using the words and ideas of great filmmakers, from archival interviews with Alfred Hitchcock...

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Fragments of Paradise

as Self
Released: 2022-08-31

For over 70 years, Jonas Mekas, internationally known as the "godfather" of avant-garde cinema,...

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Lost, Lost, Lost

as Self
Released: 1976-09-14

Jonas Mekas adjusts to a life in exile in New York in his autobiographical film, shot between...

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Jonas in the Desert

as Self
Released: 1994-01-01

Not a documentary in the strictest sense of the word. Rather, it is a journey through the world...

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Momma's Man

as Dad
Released: 2008-01-18

In Momma's Man an adult decides to escape the pressures of life and return to his old bedroom at...

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Blonde Cobra

as uncredited
Released: 1963-04-08

A man fondles objects, looks at himself in the mirror, poses in different clothes, smiles and...

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Scotch Tape

as uncredited
Released: 1962-01-01

Shot in 1959, Scotch Tape is Jack Smith's first film -- a joyous, three-minute romp, in color,...

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Birth of a Nation

as Self
Released: 1997-08-06

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.

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Sleepless Nights Stories

as Self
Released: 2011-12-15

Director Jonas Mekas travels through New York nights, through apartments, studios, backstage...

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Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

as Self
Released: 2007-04-11

In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker...

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He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

as Self
Released: 1986-02-22

A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community...

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Lavender

as Self
Released: 2010-06-01

A wholesome moment: Jonas Mekas, MM Serra, Ken Jacobs, and Flo Jacobs take lavender from a...

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Huge Pupils

as Himself
Released: 1968-05-28

In 1968, Noren finished Huge Pupils, a gorgeous, sensuous, sexually outrageous visual study of...

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Quartet Number One

as uncredited
Released: 1991-07-03

Quartet Number One (1991) 8 min.

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Bill's Hat

as uncredited
Released: 1967-01-01

"The whole film are non-art portraits of people in which they do what they want with this hat –...

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Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film

as Himself
Released: 2011-07-24

Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov traces the course of experimental film in America, taking...

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Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas

as uncredited
Released: 2016-05-29

A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french filmmaker Jackie Raynal, originally...

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Home Movies 1971-81

as uncredited
Released: 1985-01-01

Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.

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Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin

as Himself
Released: 2011-04-09

A series of video letters between José Luis Guerín and Jonas Mekas.

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Star Spangled to Death

as Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor
Released: 2004-05-21

An examination of the history of the U.S. through archival footage and contrasting views of...

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Emma's Dilemma

as Himself
Released: 2012-06-18

Henry Hills’s Emma’s Dilemma reinvents the portrait for the age of digital reproduction. In a...

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Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?

as Himself
Released: 2010-10-03

The documentary’s starting point is the discovery and restoration of a rare and unknown...

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