Adolfas Mekas (1925–2011)
June 1, 2011
To: The Bard Community
I regret to inform the Bard community of the death on the morning of Tuesday, May 31, of Adolfas Mekas, professor emeritus of film. He was 85.
Adolfas taught at Bard from 1971 until his retirement from active teaching in 2004, when he received the Bardian Award. He founded the Film Program, which he directed from 1971 to 1994. From 1983 to 1989, he was also the director of the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts.
Born in 1925 in the village of Semeniskiai in the Republic of Lithuania, Adolfas was forced to flee his homeland with his older brother, Jonas, in the last year of World War II. Before immigrating to the United States in 1949, they were slave laborers in a concentration camp run by the Nazi war machine, and, after liberation, spent time in several postwar displaced person camps in Germany. During that time, the brothers found it possible to attend classes at Johannes Gutenberg Universitat in Mainz, where Adolfas studied theater arts and literature.
Adolfas served in the U. S. Army Signal Corps as a still photographer from 1951 to 1953. In 1954, he and his brother founded and edited "Film Culture," which became, over the next twenty years, a major journal of wide recognition and influence. They also founded the Filmmakers’ Cooperative, an artist-owned distribution house of independent cinema. Associated with the neo-Dadaist art movement Fluxus, Adolfas took part (along with Yoko Ono) in the first Fluxus performance, in 1961, and made several short films that showed his essentially comic and anarchic spirit, culminating in the feature "Hallelujah the Hills," in 1963, which played at the Cannes Film Festival that year and is now considered a classic of American film. "Hallelujah the Hills" established Mekas’s reputation as a key member of the so-called New American Cinema of the 1960s. Subsequently, he produced several other features, including "Going Home," in 1971. That film, along with Jonas Mekas’s 1972 "Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania," follows the brothers on a trip to their hometown in Lithuania for the first time since the end of World War II. In recent years, Adolfas was working with David Avallone '87 on a feature centered on the Italian Dominican thinker Giordano Bruno titled "Burn Bruno Burn," among other projects. He also appears in his brother’s most recent film diary project, "Sleepless Nights Stories."
Adolfas is survived by his wife of 46 years, Pola Chapelle, and their son, Sean. He is also survived by his brother, Jonas, and his ex-wife Hollis Melton; niece, Oona Mekas; nephew, Sebastian Mekas; and extended family in Lithuania.
Family and friends will gather at the Chapel of the Holy Innocents on the Bard campus at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, June 3, to walk to the Bard cemetery, where he will be buried.
REMEMBRANCES
Robert KellyA very dear colleague has died, and my grief is greater because I can't get to Annandale for the memorial walk tomorrow.
How lightly and wisely he wielded his authority in the infant film department and in the minerval stages of the Milton Avery Graduate School, where we worked together for many years after 1980. Adolfas was extraordinary in his ability to get things to work, to help people do their work, to find ways of making things happen. He had been through a lot in his life, and knew how to take things seriously but still without ever giving up a wise and playful humanity.
He brought remarkable people to the Film Department -- Bruce Bailey, Warren Sonbert, come to mind -- and made the department one of the most powerful academic bastions of experimental film in America. His own work in film, which Leon has aptly described in his eloquent note, had a huge presence and importance in the glory days of the New American Cinema, and from his work many generations of students, here and elsewhere, learned to look, and laugh, and love. His work in the graduate school was all the richer because he understood, as few artists do, the immense integration of all the arts in our common work.
I think of several days some years ago, when he and I sat reading over translations of his brother Jonas' Lithuanian poems. Adolfas' ear, despite his famous Baltic accent, was flawless for the sense and sound of words in English. He was an artist and friend -- I miss him.
David Avallone '87
Click HERE to see a video interview conducted with Adolfas Mekas. Adolfas opens up about his life, his philosophy, and his 1963 masterpiece Hallelujah the Hills.
Robert Selkowitz, MFA '84
Adolfas was a very sweet and generous man. I was in the founding class of the Milton Avery Graduate School and he was a favorite professor of mine. I had the good fortune to see him at the opening reception of my solo show of paintings at the Woodstock Artists Association in 2005, he asked if I remembered him! That was humility, because of course I was very pleased to see him and had fond memories from those Bard summers. My condolences to his family and the Bard community.
Michael Patrick Hearn '72
I too was saddened to hear of Mr Mekas' death. He was one of my favorite people at Bard. A delightful man. I used to get rides into New York with him. He was a wonderful raconteur and he filmed me once for what purpose I have no idea. I knew little about his personal history as he made up so many fascinating and clearly absurd stories! Having been to Lithuania recently, I can only imagine the hardships he and his brother must have gone through. I was very fond of him and will miss him greatly.
Bob Reselman '77
Adolfas taught me to pay attention to the details and to be genuine, no matter what.
Lynn Tepper
A memorable man, intense & clever.
Philip Pucci '85
Dear Leon,
Thank you for your note regarding Adolfas Mekas.
I regret that I will be unable to attend the gathering in honor of Adolfas tomorrow as I am currently in Hollywood making movies, as was Adolfas’ charge of me. I will however, be there in mind and spirit.
As I am sure you are aware, Adolfas was much more to me than just my film professor and college advisor. He was my mentor, my grandfather, my father, my friend, and a fellow brother in arms in the battle to create inspiring images and stories despite any force that would dare try to stop us.
If it were not for Adolfas having taken me under his wing, I would never have had any success of any kind at Bard, let alone been able to build any sort of career for myself in the motion picture and television industry. Adolfas knew this.
I believe that due to his intense love, caring, and dedication that Adolfas was able to accomplish more for his students and Bard College than any other professor in the history of the college.
His anarchic spirit and self made persona may not have been appreciated by all, but he knew that his natural and innate irreverence inspired a positive love for the often challenging medium of filmmaking. His wildly clever choice to use a sense of utter and constant chaos as an inspirational tool was visionary. In doing so Adolfas succeeded in elevating himself to the status of that of a veritable force of nature to all of us. As such, I believe it terribly wrong, even some sort of crime against man, nature and all that may be holy, even to contemplate anything befalling Adolfas. Therefore instead, I choose to happily proclaim,
Long live Adolfas!
Margaret Gilman Jaouen '85
Many thanks for sharing this with us. I had many friends in the film department for whom Adolfas Mekas was an inspiration and guide. I had no idea about his background before Bard…
Blanca Lista '01
Adolfas taught me to embrace the absurd both in film and in my personal life. I will always remember his joy of life, his sound advice, his devotion to Saint Tula. He once told me our lives are made out of beads, like a necklace, and it is up to each of us to gather as many beads as possible, to make the necklace long and our lives fulfilled. His passion for film was contagious, there are many films I will never see the same way anymore. He taught me to reach for the stars and believe in the endless possibilities. He inspired, nourrished and enriched so many lives. Thank you Adolfas, for being always you, true to your ideals and your thoughts. I am still working on gathering more beads, just to make you proud. With much love, Blanca
Post Date: 05-31-2011