The Brig
“Late in February 1964, I went to see The Brig, the play, the night it closed. The Becks were told to shut it down and get out. The performance, by this time, was so precisely acted that it moved with the inevitability of life itself. As I watched, I thought: Suppose this was a real brig; suppose I was a newsreel reporter; suppose I got permission from the US Marine Corps to go into one of their brigs and film the goings on: What a document one could bring to the eyes of humanity! … This idea took possession of my mind and my senses so thoroughly that I walked out of the play. I didn’t what to know a thing about what would happen next in the play; I wanted to see it with my camera. I had to film it, not knowing what will come next, like real life.” – Jonas Mekas, Scrapbook of the Sixties
Early Monthly Segments is pleased to present a screening of The Brig on the month that Jonas Mekas turns 94 years young! After being evicted from their 2nd floor Greenwich Village auditorium, the Collective for Living Theater was persuaded by Jonas Mekas to break into the space for one final performance in a single take for Mekas’ camera to capture the single room “inferno” of a Marine Corps prison based on a play by Kenneth H. Brown. Mekas’ camera closely follows the prisoners through torturous days and nights, sharing in vivid B&W photography the brutality that men exert over others in a penal system hierarchy. A powerful metaphor for militarism and resistance, The Brig ironically won Best Documentary at the 1964 Venice Film Festival.
Programme:
The Brig, Jonas Mekas (with Adolfas Mekas), USA, 1964, 16mm, 68 min.
@ Gladstone Hotel, Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West
Monday, December 19, 2016 | 8:00 PM screening | $5-10 suggested donation
Jonas Mekas shooting The Brig
#92 = January 2017 = TBA