Marie Menken
- 1957Glimpse of the Garden
- 1961Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
- 1964Go! Go! Go!
A New York painter who took up a 16mm camera and became a mentor to Anger, Brakhage, Mekas and Warhol.
Menken was born Marie Menkevicius in New York City and began as a painter, working phosphorescent paint, crushed glass and sequins into her canvases. She married the poet and filmmaker Willard Maas in 1937, and they stayed creative partners, living in a Brooklyn penthouse for the rest of their lives.
She called filmmaking an extension of painting. She animated the chess sequence in Maya Deren's At Land, and her own shorts are small and quick. Glimpse of the Garden, set to birdsong, joined the National Film Registry in 2007. Arabesque for Kenneth Anger was shot at the Alhambra, and Go! Go! Go! remakes New York in single frames.
The Film-Makers' Cooperative calls her a mentor, muse and major influence for Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol, and she appeared in Warhol's Screen Tests and Chelsea Girls. She died on 29 December 1970. Maas died four days later.
Films
Where to start with Marie Menken, in the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Still from Glimpse of the Garden to come. Glimpse of the Garden
A few minutes in a garden, with birdsong on the soundtrack. It joined the National Film Registry in 2007.
Still from Arabesque for Kenneth Anger to come. Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
Menken shot it at the Alhambra, by her account in a single day, looking closely at its Moorish architecture and tile. She called it a thank-you to Anger for helping her shoot another film in Spain.
Still from Go! Go! Go! to come. Go! Go! Go!
Single-frame shooting turns postwar New York into a sped-up portrait of a city. Menken worked on it from 1962 to 1964.