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IMDbPro

He Stands in the Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

  • 1986
  • 2h 29m
IMDb RATING
7.7/10
85
YOUR RATING
Jonas Mekas in He Stands in the Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1986)
Documentary

A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.

  • Director
    • Jonas Mekas
  • Stars
    • Kenneth Anger
    • Robert Breer
    • Alberto Cavalcanti
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.7/10
    85
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Jonas Mekas
    • Stars
      • Kenneth Anger
      • Robert Breer
      • Alberto Cavalcanti
    • 1User review
    • 1Critic review
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Photos

    Top cast18

    Edit
    Kenneth Anger
    Kenneth Anger
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Robert Breer
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Alberto Cavalcanti
    Alberto Cavalcanti
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Richard Foreman
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Hollis Frampton
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Allen Ginsberg
    Allen Ginsberg
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Marcel Hanoun
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    John F. Kennedy
    John F. Kennedy
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Peter Kubelka
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Henri Langlois
    Henri Langlois
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    John Lennon
    John Lennon
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    George Maciunas
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
    Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Yoko Ono
    Yoko Ono
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Hans Richter
    Hans Richter
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Roberto Rossellini
    Roberto Rossellini
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Willard Van Dyke
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    Andy Warhol
    Andy Warhol
    • Self
    • (archive footage)
    • Director
      • Jonas Mekas
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews1

    7.785
    1
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    Featured reviews

    2ruedesursulines

    He Surfs the Internet Counting the Crappy YouTube Videos

    Jonas Mekas, by some considered the "godfather of American avant-garde cinema", with this effort proves himself moreso the godfather of countless crappy YouTube videos. The film is a collage of various home movie clips shot by Mekas circa the 1970's to 1980's, jumbled together randomly. Faces, feet, bits of bodies, a chicken, a duck, wide lapels and plenty of lawn parties, all captured in a wandering, choppy hand-held fashion. Most sequences are presented in fast motion time-lapse because if they were shown at normal speed they would crawl by at such a sluggish pace that the sheer monotony would drive the viewer comatose.

    The whole thing reminded me of very early John Waters stuff like "Mondo Trasho" only without the knowing camp aesthetic. Instead, we get the impression of a filmmaker so pretentiously self-important as to believe that total strangers might have an interest in seeing two hours of outtakes of his technically poor, aesthetically vacuous, flotsam of random home movie rubbish. Like "Mondo Trasho", this film contains very little dialogue, the soundtrack mostly consisting of forgotten ditties from the early to mid-20th century that seem to be selected primarily because they weren't under copyright and thusly wouldn't cost anything to use. They certainly weren't selected because people might enjoy hearing them.

    There is only one minor saving grace to all this, namely the fact that Mekas was lucky enough to rub shoulders with some other folks who are truly innovative noteworthy artists, people like Hans Richter, Roberto Rossellini, Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. However, the brief bits of footage that we get of these persons, totaling maybe 1% of the film's total runtime, cannot even remotely make up for the two hours lost in each of our lives.

    Oh sure, there will be indignant people who won't like this review, believing that I'm "missing the point", that perhaps the film is a grand meditation on the transitory elusiveness of life and the passage of time or some such twaddle, that my comments are too critical, etc. What I have to say to them is: watch this film several times, it's the punishment you deserve.

    In short, if your idea of fun is wading through two hours of random garbage video just to get to a few very brief unimportant snippets of archival footage of Fluxus artists or John Lennon eating an ice cream cone, then this is the film for you!

    2/10 (the few brief archival bits were the only thing that saved this from a 1/10)

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    Storyline

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • February 1986 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official sites
      • DVD
      • Official site
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Er steht in einer Wüste und zählt die Sekunden seines Lebens
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      2 hours 29 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono

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    Jonas Mekas in He Stands in the Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1986)
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