Écouter Jonas Mekas : Diaries, Notes and Voices - Cécile Tourneur

Jonas Mekas exerted a major influence on the history of cinema in the second half of the 20th century through his activities as a critic, advocate of New American Cinema and filmmaker.

Diaries, Notes and Sketches (Also Known as Walden), his first “film-journal” completed in 1969, initiated an autobiographical practice that continued until the end of his life. For half a century, Jonas Mekas assembled his film and sound notes. In the space of the editing room, he records his voice and addresses the viewer: he shares his thoughts, quotes from his written diary and develops narratives freely inspired by mythology. Oral improvisation, reading and singing are fleshed out by a reflection on the essence of this cinema that follows the fluctuations of his existence. His accent is that of a man “who never wanted to leave home” and carries the sounds of rural Lithuania mixed with those of New York, his adopted city.

Ècouter Jonas Mekas : Diaries, Notes and Voices immerses us as much in the common history of so many Europeans exiled after the Second World War as in the liberating history of underground cinema.

Cécile Tourneur holds a doctorate in History and Aesthetics of Cinema. Her thesis focused on the cinematographic work of Jonas Mekas, and she published an essay on his poetic and critical writings (Mekas et le cinéma, Quidam, 2024). She has taught in the Cinema departments of the Universities of Paris VIII and Picardie-Jules Verne. She has also specialized in the history of photography through her work in several institutions.

Author: Cécile Tourneur, Daniel Deshays
Publisher: Paris Experimental
Distributor: Belles Lettres
Publication date: 22/08/2025
EAN: 9782912539694
Availability: To be published
Number of pages: 120 Pages
Length: 18 cm
Width: 14 cm
Thickness: 1.1 cm
Weight: 178 g
Additional info: Paperback