Outtakes From the Life of a Happy Man

USA2012documentary68'Mistrzowie (2022)

In this film, the American avant-garde guru takes a journey after 60 years of creative work. The images rush in front of the screen in disordered, non-chronological order, followed by the director’s comments – sort of like in his famous 1970s film journal Lost, Lost, Lost. Mekas inserts another film reel filled with the past into the projector where child’s play, written into the files of memory, and the shimmering streets of New York create an intimate collage. Among these excerpts from everyday life, you can pick out the key figures of America’s intellectual circles, Mekas’ friends and co-workers, William Burroughs and the poet James Broughton, among others. The private chronicle from the second half of the 20th century reflects Mekas’ artistic attitude which, as he stated in one of his interviews, always relies on searching for the intensity of the moment that which is important in the incidental and inconspicuous. Outtakes… questions the nature of memories and is a confession of faith in the saving power of the cinema. (Mariusz Mikliński for New Horizons Film Festival)