Ken Jacobs
Directing
1933-05-25 · Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA
A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists. A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.
movieArt Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse
as Self · 2025 · 8.7
movieKen Jacobs - from Orchard Street to the Museum of Modern Art
as Self · 2023 · 0.0
movieArt-House America: Austin Film Society
as Self · 2023 · 0.0
movieUp the Illusion
as · 2023 · 0.0
moviePlease Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
as · 2022 · 0.0
movieFragments of Paradise
as Self · 2022 · 6.5
movieReminiscences of Jonas Mekas
as · 2016 · 0.0
movieWhat Is Cinema?
as Self · 2013 · 6.5
movieThe Eternal Courtship
as · 2013 · 0.0
movieEmma's Dilemma
as Himself · 2012 · 1.0
movieSleepless Nights Stories
as Self · 2011 · 5.3
movieFree Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
as Himself · 2011 · 6.8
movieCinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
as Himself · 2011 · 7.0
movieCyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman
as · 2011 · 0.0
movieSantos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?
as Himself · 2010 · 5.0
movieLavender
as Self · 2010 · 0.0
movieMomma's Man
as Dad · 2008 · 6.2
movie365 Day Project
as Self · 2007 · 10.0
movieJack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
as Self · 2007 · 6.6
movieStar Spangled to Death
as Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor · 2004 · 7.7
movieNervous Ken
as · 2003 · 0.0
movieShorts From the Underground
as Self · 2002 · 0.0
movieAs I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
as Self · 2000 · 7.7
movieBirth of a Nation
as Self · 1997 · 7.0