In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.

Documentary film directed by Veljko Vidak (2023)

In this radical meditation on image-making, Babette Mangolte puts the viewer of the film in a vantage similar to that of the photographer looking at her subject. This structural device reveals a series of studio portraits not as neutral observational exercises, but as a subtle accumulation of interpersonal tensions and meanderings. In the film’s second half, Mangolte captures street scenes and reflections from SoHo buildings in a light-drenched metaphor of interiority and exteriority equal to the artist’s legendary work lensing the films of Yvonne Rainer and Chantal Akerman (who appears in the film). In a work replete with dualities, the most revelatory is the film’s existence as both “a description of the act of making photographs” and a self-portrait at a singular moment in time.

“A motion picture composed of brief diaristic scenes not used in completed films from the years 1960-2000; and self-referential video footage taped during the editing. Brief glimpses of family, friends, girl-friends, the City, seasons of the year, travels. Occasionally I talk, reminisce, or play music I taped during those earlier years, plus more recent piano improvisations by Auguste Varkalis. It’s a kind of autobiographical, diaristic poem, celebration of happiness and life. I consider myself a happy man.” –J.M.
“In a film of amazing delicacy and poetic insight, Mekas celebrates the beauty of imperfect images…” –Amy Taubin
“OUT-TAKES starts with Mekas alone at night while the city sleeps, editing his old films. As he looks back over his life he starts to talk, insisting that his life’s work amounts to ‘just images, some fragments of this world’ that he will bring together for himself and a few friends. But as images of the people who brought joy into his life pass by, we realize that most of them are no longer alive. Mekas sees them again, but he is seeing them alone. As much as it is about his happy life, the film is also about emptiness, loss, and a longing for some sort of spiritual consolation. At one moment the cover of St John of the Cross’s MEDITATIONS appears on screen. This is Mekas’s long dark night of the soul.” – Richard Dorment, THE TELEGRAPH
Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man, Jonas Mekas
USA/UK, 2012, 68 min, 16mm&video, color, mono

Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage.