Film Comment Publishes 1964 Jonas Mekas Statement After Arrest for Screening Flaming Creatures

Film Comment has dug up a statement by Jonas Mekas, published in the Winter 1964 issue after his arrest "on obscenity charges for screening Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures at the New American Cinema." Mekas proceeded to run, as the editors quote the Village Voice (RIP), "continuous half-hour showings of the Jean Genet film 'Un Chant D'Amour,' a homosexual love story set in a prison, at the Writers’ Stage Theatre," with police watching from outside." From the statement:

The detective from the District Attorney’s office, who arrested us with Flaming Creatures, told us that he was not interested in the film as a work of art; he also admitted that he was not competent to judge it; he said he was looking at it strictly as a matter of “duty”; he was looking only for “objectionable” images according to his interpretation of the law.

That is O.K., as far as the duty of a hired man is concerned-but what the hell does this have to do with truth or justice? The meaning and essence of a detail in a work of art can be understood only if grasped in the context of the whole.

You may ask why, with already one “obscenity” charge against me, I am screening another film which in the eyes of the police is considered “obscene.”

I am doing so because I consider the police actions unlawful, unconstitutional and contrary to man’s spiritual growth.

It is my duty as an artist and as a man to show the best work of my contemporaries to the people.

It is my duty to bring to your attention the ridiculousness and illegality of the licensing and obscenity laws.

The duty of the artist is to ignore bad laws and fight them every moment of his life...

Read it all at Film Comment! And you can actually watch Un Chant D'Amour here, it seems, thanks to the internet.