{"id":1035,"date":"2010-07-02T18:06:28","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T23:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2021-08-26T10:26:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:26:17","slug":"notes-on-marie-menken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/02\/notes-on-marie-menken\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on Marie Menken"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a child I lived only a block from Marie Menken, so that might explain why I always have had a tender spot in my heart for this major pioneer of American avant-garde cinema. Marie and her husband Willard Maas lived in a penthouse apartment at 62 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights. Menken is the subject of Martina Kudl\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s documentary, Notes on Marie Menken <\/em>(2006), a biographical portrait of this largely neglected figure. The film is now available on DVD.<\/p>\n

Marie Menken was an extremely tall and imposing woman. There\u2019s a famous photo of her dancing with Tennessee Williams, in which she towers over him. Like Jonas Mekas, she was also from Lithuania. Menken was married to the poet\/filmmaker Willard Maas, who was gay. They met at the artist\u2019s colony Yaddo and married in 1937 \u2013 it was his second marriage. In Film at Wit\u2019s End<\/em>, Brakhage tells the story of first meeting the two of them, in which Maas gets into a fistfight with his lover, Ben Moore, and ends up a bloody mess in the snow.<\/p>\n

Marie and Willard had a very difficult life together. As a couple of interviewees note in Kudl\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s film, they are reported to be the model for Edward Albee’s well-known play, Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf \u2013<\/em> after he had occasion to observe their constant fighting. The couple lost a child and proceeded to torture each other over it for the rest of their lives. Marie was accepting of Willard\u2019s gayness and befriended his many lovers. Together they started Gryphon Films. Brakhage, Charles Boultenhouse, and Gregory Markopoulos were associated with Gryphon, which represented an important early attempt at cooperative filmmaking. Marie supported herself for thirty years by working the graveyard shift at Time Magazine.<\/p>\n

Marie was the camerawoman for Maas’s Geography of the Body<\/em> (1943). She was the technical person, not Maas, which was the opposite situation of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. Her first film was Visual Variation on Noguchi<\/em> (1945), but she didn\u2019t make another, Glimpse of the Garden<\/em> (1957), for another twelve years. Menken made small, highly personal and lyrical films. Among them are: Hurry, Hurry<\/em> (1957, Dwightiana<\/em> (1959) Eye Music in Red Major <\/em>(1961), Arabesque for Kenneth Anger <\/em>(1961) Bagatelle for Willard Maas<\/em> (1961), Mood Mondrian <\/em>(1961), Notebook<\/em> (1962-63), Go Go Go<\/em> (1962-64) Wrestling <\/em>(1964), Lights <\/em>(1965) and Andy Warhol<\/em> (1965). Many of them are interspersed throughout Kudl\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s richly evocative portrait of Menken.<\/p>\n

Menken exerted a major influence on other avant-garde filmmakers. Brakhage acknowledged that he owed her an tremendous debt and claimed she gave him the courage to be completely free with the camera. Menken was overshadowed by Maas (who is now forgotten), even in the early issue of Filmwise<\/em> devoted to them. Maas apparently ridiculed her filmmaking efforts. She didn’t appear in the first edition of P. Adams Sitney’s Visionary Film \u2013 <\/em>an oversight he later corrected. Even Maya Deren reportedly only respected Marie as a painter, but not as a filmmaker. Although Menken never received the credit she deserved during he lifetime, her work is included as part of the permanent collection of Anthology Film Archives, which is where I first saw her magnificent films.<\/p>\n

Why was she ignored? One reason no doubt has to do with sexism. At the time Menken worked, there were less than a handful of women filmmakers. The heavily symbolic \u201ctrance\u201d films were very much in vogue. In the context of the high seriousness of a more literary poetic cinema, Menken\u2019s more playful and painterly films were simply an anomaly. In Notes<\/em>, Jonas Mekas, who gave Menken her first film show at the Charles Theatre, observes that they contained “no big action, nothing spectacular, no unusual content.” Menken\u2019s work is visually poetic. She pioneered the autobiographical diary film \u2013 a tradition that includes such filmmakers as Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Peter Hutton, Warren Sonbert, Andrew Noren, Nathaniel Dorsky, Madeleine Gekiere, as well as a host of others.<\/p>\n

Menken was also a painter. She had a one-person show at Betty Parsons Gallery in 1949, but we learn from Alfred Leslie in Notes <\/em>that John Bernard Myers later regretted giving her a show at Tibor de Nagy gallery in 1951 because her work “lacked edge.” According to Roger Jacoby in an old issue of Film Culture<\/em>, all or most of her work was destroyed by a flood at her loft on Baltic Street, and by theft. Menken and Maas knew all the artists, the beautiful people, including Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller, Richard Wright, and Truman Capote. Menken and Maas were notorious for their parties. They would invite all the celebrities, so it\u2019s easy to see why Menken would connect with the Warhol crowd.<\/p>\n

In POPism<\/em>, Warhol says he met Marie Menken and Willard Maas through the surrealist poet Charles Henri Ford, who was a close friend of Parker Tyler, the film critic, who edited View <\/em>magazine in the 1940s. Ford is the one who suggested Gerard Malanga as an assistant to Andy Warhol. Malanga\u2019s high school English teacher was the poet Daisy Aldan. Through Aldan, Malanga was invited to a party, where he first met Maas, who taught at Wagner College in Staten Island, where, not coincidentally, Malanga wound up a student. At the very end, Marie and Willard were hopeless alcoholics. Marie and Willard died within days of each other.<\/p>\n

Both Willard and Marie appeared in Warhol\u2019s films. Willard\u2019s major part was offscreen. He is rumored to be the guy giving head to DeVerne Bookwalter in Warhol’s infamous Blow Job<\/em> (1964). Marie played Fidel\u2019s rebellious sister, Juana, in the Warhol-Tavel collaboration, The Life of Juanita Castro <\/em>(1965), in which cold war politics are portrayed as stemming from family squabbles and incidents from childhood. Marie becomes inebriated during the course of the film, which causes her to rebel against her brother Fidel and having to repeat Tavel\u2019s dialogue verbatim. Menken is absolutely wonderful, as she butchers Tavel\u2019s language, makes snide asides, and manages to epitomize the contrarian personality of Fidel’s sister. Marie also played Gerard Malanga\u2019s mother in a scene in The Chelsea Girls <\/em>(1966), where Marie puts on a frightening and sadistic display, as she rails against her son, while cracking a whip.<\/p>\n

Martina Kudl\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s portrait isn\u2019t really an in-depth scholarly documentary that has unearthed a lot of new facts and information on Menken. It\u2019s more like a primer on her life and films in a similar manner to Jennifer M. Kroot\u2019s homage to George and Mike Kuchar, It Came from Kuchar<\/em>. Kudl\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s approach actually fits her subject matter in employing its own quiet poetry, such as when she focuses on the peeling paint of the rusty radiator in Alfred Leslie’s loft.<\/p>\n

Kudl\u00e1\u010dek has assembled a noted group of prominent individuals to talk about Marie Menken\u2019s life and work. We hear Brakhage lecturing about Menken\u2019s aesthetic in his booming voice. Peter Kubelka demonstrates her technique as reflecting the inherent properties of a Bolex camera in Go Go Go<\/em>, which he demonstrates for us, complete with sound effects. Kenneth Anger tells about assisting Menken in making the film that became Arabesque for Kenneth Anger<\/em>. He talks about her uncanny ability to edit in-camera as she filmed, noting that “she had a feeling for movement and rhythm that was like a dancer.” Anger indicates that Menken had a “halo around her head.” Anger also points out that if it wasn\u2019t for staying at her place in Brooklyn, he would have never made his underground classic Scorpio Rising<\/em> (1964). Billy Name (Linich) compares Marie to the legendary Tugboat Annie.<\/p>\n

Gerard Malanga discovers new footage of Marie Menken and Andy Warhol\u00a0 in which the two of them have a duel with Bolex cameras. The filmmaker and secret archivist in me cringes as Malanga opens an old rusty film can found in storage and uses hand rewinds to run the original footage through an old Moviescope viewer. What could be any harder on such priceless historical footage? Gerard later playfully criticizes Marie for underexposing some footage by not using a light meter.<\/p>\n

Malanga is given considerable time in Notes for Marie Menken<\/em>. He and Kudl\u00e1\u010dek take a field trip out to visit Gerard’s estranged father\u2019s vault and Marie\u2019s grave. Gerard discusses the fact that Menken wanted to adopt him as a son, except that he already had a living mother. Malanga is unsure whether he really wanted Maas as his surrogate father. Kudl\u00e1\u010dek also interviews Mary Woronov, who exudes her usual enthusiasm as she describes the harrowing scene with Marie in The Chelsea Girls<\/em>, in which Mary plays Gerard\u2019s sullen girlfriend.<\/p>\n

The most poignant scene in Kudl\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s film, however, involves Jonas Mekas. To the credit of Kudl\u00e1\u010dek and her editor Henry Hills, they keep the most riveting footage for the end. What\u2019s fascinating is that Jonas, who\u2019s appears to be a bit tipsy from drinking, decides to tell a remarkable story about Marie. First off, he addresses and toasts the filmmaker, Martina, by name. Jonas rubs his mouth, snorts several times, clears his throat, and waves his arms, upsetting the camera placement and framing before he shifts into \u201cinterview mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his heavy accent, Jonas begins, \u201cI do not remember how I met Marie and Willard.\u201d He hesitates, then remarks, \u201cHer films were like . . . about nothing . . . little feeling, little emotion, little image.\u201d He talks about pre-Christian Lithuanians being pantheists. Mekas suggests that Marie Menken\u2019s work conveys a sense of nature \u2013 \u201cflowers and trees and moon and the sun.\u201d Jonas talks about how initially he didn\u2019t know Menken\u2019s ethnic origin, but one day he heard her singing a Lithuanian children\u2019s song. Although the lower part of his face is cut off by the framing, Jonas sings the actual song for us.<\/p>\n

Jonas then attempts to explain the lyrics. Haltingly, he translates: \u201cLittle girl, I\u2019m like a little rose, like a lily in the flower garden.\u201d He rubs his mussed hair and sweaty face, and rocks forward and backward in the frame He comments, \u201cIt\u2019s another variation of how to attract [he moves his fingers] a young man.\u201d Jonas suddenly sings in English, \u201cI must know, I must know how to attract a young man. I must know, I must know, how to attract a young man.\u201d Jonas laughs and remarks, \u201cThat’s a funny song, no?\u201d As Jonas indicates it\u2019s been a hard day and tries to regain his composure, Kudl\u00e1\u010dek cuts to a shot of lily pads. Jonas laments, \u201cThere was so much love there. Poetry, and love, and cinema.\u201d Sadly, he toasts, \u201cOh, Marie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film cuts to scene where Marie\u2019s nephew plays audio tape of her singing boisterously over footage of a performance involving people with umbrellas on the boardwalk. A hand rewinds Marie’s film footage, leaving the blank white screen of a Moviescope. Most documentaries depend on creating some type of intense dramatic conflict, but Kudl\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s portrait of Marie Menken is rooted in something far more basic. Like Menken\u2019s films, Notes on Marie Menken <\/em>is infused with intense love for its subject. \u201cOh, Marie . . .\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a child I lived only a block from Marie Menken, so that might explain why I always have had a tender spot in my heart for this major pioneer of American avant-garde cinema. Marie and her husband Willard MaasRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":133,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4334,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions\/4334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}