Notes on the Circus

Jonas Mekas

Jonas Mekas  was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema" on many occasions. His work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide.

Watching the movie "Notes on the Circus", Jonas Mekas

The film expresses his experience, not the circus itself. He uses parts of the film in other of his video moments from his daily experiences.

Questions and tasks: What geometric elements are found in the film, what human characters. They make a connection with other films (colors, impact of music, etc.). Experiment as the author of the film with mistakes that are used to reinforce his feelings (eg it is seen that in the film the camera is not focused at times, passes very quickly from one frame to another or mix different characters.) Students they can find the pauses that have been in the film for a longer period of time and tell when they happened.

Task to all partners: Drawings can be made with actions of characters that are shuffled. The challenge here can be to line up properly.