Anthology Film Archives & John Mhiripiri

Our visit to Anthology Film Archives today introduced Roadtrippers to an old friend, John Mhiripiri, Administrative Director and Exhibitions Coordinator at the Archives. John is a Carleton graduate, and it was gratifying to hear him describe how his love of experiment cinema began in my Avant-garde Cinema class. I recall John being knocked out by Bruce Baillie’s “Mass for the Dakota Sioux,” and I've imagined that John climbed on the back of the chopper ridden by Baillie’s beat existential hero and rode it all the way to Manhattan, and the Archives. You only have listen to John for five minutes to realize that he has found his life’s calling.

There's another wrinkle to this story, which increasingly seems to be about lineage. Last year John gave me a book about Jonas Mekas' work. Jonas is one of the founding fathers of the avant-garde and he's certainly the founding father of Anthology. Opening the book I found a "thank you" inside – scrawled in gold ink – that said: "To John Schott who gave to cinema John Mhiripiri. Jonas Mekas." And so the circle closes: Jonas early inspires me with his films; John is inspired in my class and finds his way to Jonas and the Archives; and in turn Jonas is inspired to pen a thanks...for John.

John arranged a special screening for our group in the Maya Deren Theater. It included several avant-garde classics – Brakhage, Connor, Clarke, Sharits – several of which he had seen in his Carleton days. Did he choose these because they're classics, or was there some nostalgic agenda at work? It was a thrill to see such pristine prints. In some cases the work seems entirely new, and fearsomely contemporary, even though it's now some forty years old.

Anthology's staff are a group of cinema zealots with absolutely uncompromising standards. They described with evident pride their new projection screen, imported from France, and the sumptuous black velour surround that makes the image seem to float in space. Many projection prints at the Archives are made from the camera originals. Archivists are on constant prowl to acquire the very best materials for preservation, and they are able to give the full preservation treatment – an process much more elaborate and expensive than simply making a DVD – to about 25 films a year. Marty Scorsese’s name floated several times in the conversation, since he’s a big supporter of the Archives.

Anthology is the largest repository of avant-garde film in the world, with something close to 20,000 films residing in its vaults. According to their own history it “evolved from roots and visions that go back to the early Sixties, when Jonas Mekas, the director of the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, a showcase for avant-garde films, dreamed of establishing a permanent home where the growing number of new independent/avant-garde films could be shown on a regular basis.This dream became a reality in 1969 when Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas drew up plans to create a museum dedicated to the vision of the art of cinema as guided by the avant-garde sensibility.

At its current home in a converted courthouse, Anthology has found an ideal home as a chamber museum, dedicated to the preservation, study and exhibition of independent and avant-garde film. It is the first museum devoted to film as an art form, committed to the guiding principle that a great film must be seen many times, that the film print must be the best possible, and that the viewing conditions must be optimal.”

Keep an eye on this space. We shot a lot of material which we'll shape into a film and post in a few days. [JS]

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