Ken Jacobs

A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists. A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.

Cast

Scotch Tape

Momma's Man

(Dad)

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film

(Himself)

Lavender

(Self)

Home Movies 1971-81

Sleepless Nights Stories

(Self)

Fragments of Paradise

(Self)

Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages

Huge Pupils

(Himself)

Blonde Cobra

Shorts From the Underground

(himself)

365 Day Project

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

(Self)

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

(Self (archive footage))

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

(Self)

Birth of a Nation

(Self)

Bill's Hat

What Is Cinema?

(Self)

Star Spangled to Death

(Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor)

Jonas in the Desert

(Self)

Emma's Dilemma

(Himself)

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

(Self)

Lost, Lost, Lost

(Self)

Quartet Number One

Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin

(Himself)

Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?

(Himself)

Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
Crew

A Loft

(Editor)

Seeking the Monkey King

(Director)

Blonde Cobra

(Director)

Star Spangled to Death

(Director)

Double Wow

(Director)

Little Stabs at Happiness

(Director)

Razzle Dazzle: The Lost World

(Director)

New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903

(Director)

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

(Director)

Perfect Film

(Director)

Urban Peasants

(Director)

Incendiary Cinema

(Director)

A Primer in Sky Socialism

(Director)

Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #2

(Director)

Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #2

(Technical Supervisor)

Capitalism: Child Labor

(Director)

Abstract Eternalism

(Director)

Orchard Street

(Director)

Capitalism: Slavery

(Director)

The Surging Sea of Humanity

(Director)

Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise

(Director)

Two Wrenching Departures

(Director)

Cartoon

(Director)

Cartoonish 1-10

(Director)

XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX

(Editor)

Canopy

(Director)

Spasm

(Director)

The Georgetown Loop

(Director)

Buster Keaton Embossed

(Director)

Sergei Eisenstein Embossed

(Director)

Chaos Is Order Misunderstood

(Director)

A Small Misunderstanding

(Director)

A Tom Tom Chaser

(Director)

Let There Be Whistle Blowers

(Director)

Krypton Is Doomed

(Director)

Nervous Magic Lantern: 3D for One or Two Naked Eyes

(Director)

Adventures of Cookie Truck

(Director)

Hoffman Student

(Director)

Whims of Twenty Twenty-Three

(Director)

One Dozen Roses

(Director)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

(Director)

Up the Illusion

(Director)

Dimsum and Dragons

(Director)

The Guests

(Director)

Tourists of the Familiar 1

(Director)

Tourists of the Familiar 5

(Director)

Tourists of the Familiar 10

(Director)

Tourists of the Familiar 15

(Director)

Tourists of the Familiar 20

(Director)

America Let's Her Hair Down 1905

(Director)

Book of Eternalisms 1-6

(Director)

Chrysalis

(Director)

Cyclops Observes the Celestial Bodies

(Director)

Cyclops Observes the Celestial Bodies

(Writer)

DAY AND NIGHT

(Director)

Eternal Beach

(Director)

Soft Rain

(Director)

Wire Fence

(Director)

America at War, The Home Front: Film Opening

(Director)

Flo Rounds a Corner

(Director)

Window

(Director)

Window

(Editor)

Window

(Cinematography)

Window

(Producer)

A Loft

(Director)

Disorient Express

(Director)

Mountaineer Spinning

(Director)

The Doctor's Dream

(Director)

Spaghetti Aza

(Director)

Nissan Ariana Window

(Director)

Return to the Scene of the Crime

(Director)

Airshaft

(Director)

XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX

(Director)

Opening the Nineteenth Century: 1896

(Director)

Opening the Nineteenth Century: 1896

(Writer)

Keaton's Cops

(Director)

Keaton's Cops

(Writer)

Spiral Nebula

(Director)

Spiral Nebula

(Writer)

The Day Was a Scorcher

(Director)

The Day Was a Scorcher

(Writer)

The Pushcarts Leave Eternity Street

(Director)

The Pushcarts Leave Eternity Street

(Writer)

Another Occupation

(Director)

Another Occupation

(Writer)

Anaglyph Tom (Tom with Puffy Cheeks)

(Director)

The Green Wave

(Director)

The Signing

(Director)

Saturday Afternoon Blood Sacrifice

(Director)

Little Cobra Dance

(Director)

The Death of P'town

(Director)

Baud'larian Capers

(Director)

New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903

(Producer)

Blankets for Indians

(Director)

Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman

(Director)

Reichstag 9/11

(Director)

20 Little Films

(Director)

Windbreaker

(Director)

Popeye Sees 3-D

(Director)

Ulysses in the Subway

(Director)

Ontic Antics Starring Laurel and Hardy: Bye Molly

(Director)

Jerry Takes A Back Seat, Then Passes Out Of The Picture

(Director)

Globe

(Director)

Lisa and Joey in Connecticut

(Director)

Looting For Rodney

(Director)

New York Street-Trollys 1900

(Director)

The Sky Socialist

(Director)

The Scenic Route

(Director)

Gift of Fire: Nineteen (Obscure) Frames That Changed The World

(Director)

“Slow is Beauty”—Rodin

(Director)

Berkeley To San Francisco

(Director)

Sensoriums at Sea: Dr. Toothy's New Entranceway

(Director)

Sensoriums at Sea: Toothy Two

(Director)

Elbow Dance

(Director)

The Near-Collision

(Director)

Pushcarts of Eternity Street

(Director)

Amorous Interludes: His Favorite Wife Improved (or The Virtue Of Bad Reception)

(Director)

Hanky Panky January 1902

(Director)

Nymph

(Director)

Alone at Last

(Director)

The Discovery

(Director)

We Are Charming

(Director)

What Happened on 23rd Street in 1901

(Director)

Fair And White: Parts I, II, III and Extra

(Director)

From Introduction to Orson Welles’s Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight

(Director)

Other Urban Lives

(Director)

The Whirled

(Director)

For Life, Against the War

(Director)

Shelley Duvall is Olive Oyl

(Director)

Get Up and Go

(Director)

A Spin Through Night City

(Director)

Along the Elevated

(Director)

Real Action Figures

(Director)

Aspiring To Music

(Director)

Street Vendor

(Director)

The Roses

(Director)

Writhing City

(Director)

When Timofeev Moves Everything Moves

(Director)

Circling Zero: Part One, We See Absence

(Director)

Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise

(Editor)

Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise

(Producer)

The Sky Socialist: Flight

(Director)

Afternoon Tide

(Director)

Mosco Street 3: Attack of The Perfect Camera (Fuji W3)

(Director)

Mosco Street 2

(Director)

Empty Seats

(Director)

Batchellor’s Dog and Beach

(Director)

Details of Pollock's White Light

(Director)

Joan Mitchell: Departures

(Director)

Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #1

(Director)

Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #3

(Director)

Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #4

(Director)

I'm Telling You

(Director)

Hydroelectric Dam

(Director)

The Lackadaisical Speed of Light

(Director)

Once Upon a Planet

(Director)

Above the Rain

(Director)

Star Spangled to Death

(Writer)

Star Spangled to Death

(Cinematography)

Star Spangled to Death

(Editor)

The Sky Socialist: The Environs

(Director)

Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days

(Director)

THE WHOLE SHEBANG

(Director)

Monks of Cinema

(Camera Operator)

Things to Come

(Director)

Chronometer

(Director)

TV Plug

(Director)

Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party

(Director)

Bitemporal Vision: The Sea

(Director)

Artie and Marty Rosenblatt’s Baby Pictures

(Director)

The Winter Footage

(Director)

We Stole Away

(Director)

Winter Sky

(Director)

Binghamton, My India

(Director)

Changing Azazel

(Director)

Rubble

(Director)

Naomi Is A Dream of Loveliness

(Director)

The Alps and The Jews

(Director)

Make Light On Film

(Director)

Keeping an Eye on Stan

(Director)

Insistent Clamor

(Director)

Le Prince: Leeds Bridge 1888

(Director)

Aimless Sightseeing, Seoul

(Director)

Love Story

(Director)

Bob Fleischner Dying

(Director)

Brain Operations

(Director)

Brook

(Director)

Excerpt From THE SKY SOCIALIST Stratified

(Director)

Hot Dogs At The Met

(Director)

Ronald Gonzales, Sculptor

(Director)

Gravity Is Tops

(Director)

Walkway

(Director)

Revolving Door

(Director)

Lurking

(Director)

Molten Landscape

(Director)

Celestial Bodies

(Director)

Popeye Sees 3-D, TOO

(Director)

Swee’pea’s Favorite Eternalisms

(Director)

Mosco Street Rapture

(Director)

The Moments: Evening Boat Ride

(Director)

Pygmalion Cubed

(Director)

Zazie Learns About Money

(Director)

Titles

(Director)

1st Window

(Director)

Failure

(Director)

Rain Clouds

(Director)

RECIPROCAL

(Director)

Red Green

(Director)

CRUSH

(Director)

Ken and Flo

(Director)

PAINTED POSTER

(Director)

DR. TOOTHY

(Director)

Barber

(Director)

Foliage in Moving Car Window

(Director)

Facade with Face

(Director)

Doyer Street

(Director)

Sleeping American

(Director)

DeKooning Passed

(Director)

Waiting Room Window

(Director)

Natural Collage

(Director)

Reading Society

(Director)

Roots of Manhattan

(Director)

Lazy City

(Director)

Bison

(Director)

Friendly Building

(Director)

Working Girls (short)

(Director)

Broadway Buildings II

(Director)

Bargains

(Director)

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero

(Director)

City Foliage

(Director)

Broadway Buildings III

(Director)

Brick Building with Red and Green Windows

(Director)

Broadway Building

(Director)

Fire Escape

(Director)

Duck

(Director)

Figures I - V

(Director)

Chinese New Years

(Director)

Chinese New Years II

(Director)

Street Commerce

(Director)

Resting Merchant

(Director)

Neon Sign

(Director)

Flowers and Bike

(Director)

Street Commerce II

(Director)

Halley’s Comet

(Director)

Water Balloon

(Director)

Spaceworks

(Director)

Period Piece

(Director)

Bandit

(Director)

Another Day in Days of Yore

(Director)

Garage Wall

(Director)

Hubble II

(Director)

Whirlpool

(Director)

Storefront

(Director)

Transparent Apartments

(Director)

Spiky

(Director)

Municipal Building Passage

(Director)

Clouds and Trees

(Director)

PAPPY SEES 3D, TOO

(Director)

MOVING ROAD

(Director)

Movie That Invites Pausing

(Director)

Turbulent Waters

(Director)

Ken Jacobs / diNMachine @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival

(Director)

Ken Jacobs / JG Thirlwell @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival

(Director)

Ken Jacobs / Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival

(Director)

Nervous Lantern at Kill Your Timid Notion Festival

(Director)

Ken Jacobs / Rick Reed & Tara Bhattacharya @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival

(Director)

Ken Jacobs / Robert Poss @The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival

(Director)

Ken Jacobs / Victoria Keddie @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival

(Director)

Ken Jacobs / Tom Chiu of Flux Quartet @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival

(Director)