Aesthetic Puzzlements: Jonas Mekas’sDiary Films and Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ieva Jasinskaite, University of Edinburgh

Abstract:In this article, I argue that by considering Ludwig Wittgenstein’s methods,we can better understand and appreciate Jonas Mekas’s diary films. Based onWittgenstein’s notion of “aesthetic puzzlement”, I identify the main confusionsencountered by the viewer upon watching Mekas’s films, such as: 1)fragmentation; 2) persistent repetition; and 3) the importance placed on theeveryday. I discuss three films – Walden (1969), Lost Lost Lost (1976), and As I WasMoving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) – anddemonstrate that the aesthetic puzzlements within them may be dissolved bylooking at the format of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (1953). Mekas’slifelong interest in filming the most mundane and domestic scenes can beunderstood as a puzzlement in itself: why not just admire the ordinary whilst livingin it? Wittgenstein’s thought experiment in Culture and Value helps us understandthe aesthetic puzzlement of Mekas’s interest in filming, remembering andpresenting an extensive array of everyday activities, and also explains why theviewer can find the most mundane and domestic activities in his films remarkable.Additionally, I discuss howMekas’s diary films may be regarded as coming close toWittgenstein’s aesthetic ideal of art as being able to represent “life itself”. I aim toshow how Mekas’s cinematic practice places extreme importance on ordinary actsand offers a mode of thinking which echoes Wittgenstein’s own views onphilosophy. I conclude with a discussion of “nomadism”, a notion that elucidatesthe peculiar form of the works of both Wittgenstein and Mekas.

Keywords: Jonas Mekas; Ludwig Wittgenstein; diary film; aesthetic reactions;aesthetic puzzlements; the everyday; nomadism.

Film-Philosophy 24.2 (2020): 162–184DOI: 10.3366/film.2020.0137© Ieva Jasinskaite. This article is published as Open Access under the termsof the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Licence(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permitsnon-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the original work iscited. For commercial re-use, please refer to our website at: www.euppublishing.com/customer-services/authors/permissions.www.euppublishing.com/film

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“Philosophy is the attempt to be rid of a particular kind of puzzlement.”(Ludwig Wittgenstein, WL, 1980 p.35)

The diary film differs from all other personal cinematic genres becausethe diary filmmaker is not driven by the aim of making a film, but simplyby filming itself. Such an intention presents the viewer with a complexand private film. Jonas Mekas’s films may be labelled “difficult” for anumber of reasons: 1) their highly fragmented style; 2) their complextemporal, thematic and spatial structures; 3) their persistent repetition;and 4) their extensive duration. These aspects of his cinema cometogether to create a complicated viewing experience, one which can leavethe viewer confused about the motivations behind such a peculiar film.This difficulty can be better understood through Ludwig Wittgenstein’snotion of “aesthetic puzzlement” (LC, III.8)1.Richard Allen and Malcolm Turvey (2006) suggest that, although

Wittgenstein did not propose the application of his philosophy to thestudy of the arts, there is good reason to do so, especially in terms ofdeveloping approaches to how art can be studied. This article is anexploration of the possibility that by considering Wittgenstein’s methods,we can better understand and appreciate JonasMekas’s diary films. This isnot to imply that the films in question are incomprehensible or unappeal-ing to audiences; rather, I am interested in exploring whether the applic-ation of a philosopher’s ideas can open up new possibilities for engagingwith these films. I will draw upon three films to illustrate my argument:Walden (1969), Lost Lost Lost (1976), and As I Was Moving AheadOccasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000; from now on As I WasMoving…). The reasoning behind the choice of films is partiallychronological – these films cover Mekas’s cinematic oeuvre from itsbeginning to the end of the twentieth century. They are also representativeof the grand project in which Mekas had been engaged since he startedmaking films, namely to portray his life and to reveal his own “characterand soul through little daily activities, without any plot” (Mekas, 2019,p. 111). I will argue that these films exemplify and stimulate the type ofthinkingWittgenstein practiced and encouraged as a replacement for what

1. Abbreviations: Throughout, the standard abbreviations for Wittgenstein’s works areused. These are as follows:CV – Culture and ValueLC – Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious BeliefNB – Notebooks 1914–1916PI – Philosophical InvestigationsWL – Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1930–32, ed. Desmond Lee.

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he saw as the unnatural and enforced organisation of thought prevalent inacademic philosophy of his time. Mekas’s images emphasise encounterswith ordinary life through a series of shots presented without narrativeemphasis or explanation. By drawing on Simon Glendinning’s discussion(2004) of Philosophical Investigations, wherein he argues that Wittgensteinencourages a “nomadic” understanding of philosophy, I will suggest thatMekas’s non-narrative films can be considered nomadic because they relyon fragmentation, repetition, and glimpses of the everyday. I hope to showhowMekas’s diary films lead the viewer on a journey similar to the one onwhich Wittgenstein takes his readers, the former through exploration ofthe visual world, and the latter through the complexity of language.

Aesthetic PuzzlementsForWittgenstein, every philosophical inquiry begins with a recognition ofhaving lost one’s way: “a philosophical problem has the form: ‘I don’tknow my way about’” (PI §123). Accordingly, in film studies we may askourselves, “why is the director doing what they are doing?” We start ourdiscussion not with a certain methodology, but with our individualrecognition of this puzzlement. If the film scholar has no sense ofconfusion, if nothing is problematic or uncertain for them, there is nogood reason to analyse it. Thinking about a film must have the aim ofreaching clarity of some sort regarding that initial aesthetic reaction to thefilm. Accordingly, the evolution of this article begins with my ownfascination with the aesthetic puzzlements in Jonas Mekas’s films.According to Wittgenstein, “perhaps the most important thing in

connection with aesthetics is what may be called aesthetic reactions, e.g.,discontent, disgust, discomfort” (LC, p. 13). That is, a discussion ofaesthetics starts as an attempt to dissolve a certain confusion about an“aesthetic reaction”: there is a work of art, a person looks at or listens to it,then a certain reaction occurs. Depending on this reaction – whether it isone of admiration, dissatisfaction, or confusion – the person might bepuzzled. In terms of Mekas’s films, the viewer may be puzzled about whyMekas is so reliant on fragmentation, why he repeats himself so often, orwhy he is interested in filming the most mundane scenes which theviewer, to their surprise, finds remarkable.Wittgenstein makes explicit the distinction between aesthetic and

psychological explanations for these reactions. In one of his lectures, hestates, “people often say that aesthetics is a branch of psychology. The ideais that once we are more advanced, everything –all mysteries of art– willbe understood by psychological experiments” (Wittgenstein, LC, p. 17).He admits that this is a tempting idea, but later declares, “I wish to make itclear that the important problems in aesthetics are not settled by

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psychological research” (LC, p. 19). A science of aesthetics could not solvethese puzzlements because it would inform us about our own reactions,rather than about the work of art. In other words, if aesthetic puzzlementswere psychological problems, they would be concerned with thesubjective response of the viewer, whereas aesthetic puzzles are to dowith the work itself: “there is a ‘why’ to aesthetic discomfort not a ‘cause’to it” (LC, p. 14). Francis J. Coleman (1968) gives an illustrative exampleof this. If an aesthetic puzzlement were the same as a psychologicalproblem in terms of the effects a work of art has on a person, to describeEl Greco’s St. Sebastian in Martyrdom of St. Sebastian as “anguished”would suggest that the face of St. Sebastian causes anguish in the personwho is looking at the painting, but that is not the case. For Wittgenstein,it is crucial to make a distinction between the face painted by El Grecoand the emotion of anguish which the spectator might ascribe to thepainted face.But what exactly does Wittgenstein have in mind when speaking about

aesthetic puzzlements? The particular puzzlements he discussed werequestions to do with his interest in music and poetry – e.g., one mightread a poem or hear a piece of music and think “why does this linesound so old-fashioned?” or “why do these bars sound so peculiar?”(LC, pp. 20–21). He draws an analogy between explaining a puzzlementand the experience of searching for the right word: “what is it I want tosay? Oh yes, that is what I wanted” (LC, p. 18). How can we be sure that wehave found the word we want? Simply because the word satisfies us, it isthe word that we were looking for.So let us suppose that a person watching a film by Mekas feels that

there is something unusual about it. The viewer may be able to pinpointthe unusual factors and identify the appropriate explanations becausethey satisfy the viewer; they are therefore no longer puzzled. This seems tobe the only criteria to solve these puzzlements, but is it not too subjective?There is a risk that the viewer feels satisfied with the wrong explanation.Cyril Barret (1967) summarises the problem as follows: “the troubleabout an aesthetic explanation is not that it is fallible but that there are noindependent checks on it” (p. 162). Even though there cannot be a factualverification of such an explanation, Wittgenstein argues that there is amethod to dissolve puzzlements and also endorse one’s explanation:comparison. He contends,

as far as I can see the puzzlements I am talking about can be cured only bypeculiar kinds of comparisons, e.g. by an arrangement of certain musicalfigures, comparing their effect on us. “If we put in this chord it does nothave that effect; if we put in this cord it does”. (Wittgenstein, LC, p. 20)

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By way of an example, Wittgenstein observes, “you can make a person seewhat Brahms was driving at by showing him lots of different pieces byBrahms, or by comparing him with a contemporary author” (as quoted inMoore, 1955, p. 19). The sort of explanation one requires “is not a causalexplanation” (Wittgenstein, LC, p. 21). Rather, one can only dissolvethe puzzlement by comparing the piece to other works. Only then, byre-arranging familiar things and looking for connections, can we explainour reaction (PI §126, LC, p. 29).Coleman (1968) identifies a particular type of puzzlement that can

occur: when one is struck by the “correctness or rightness” (p. 263) of aparticular feature in a work but is unable to point out what it is. As aresult, one attempts to come up with a “story” explaining why the artistdid what they did. Coleman gives an example: “why did Chopin concludethe ‘B flat minor Sonata’ with such an eccentric movement?” Someonemight respond: “Well, that’s just what he wanted – that’s all.” This answerwould be right, but is distinct from responding: “Well, that’s just what hedid” (p. 263). Coleman notes that it is obvious what he did compose; thepuzzle can be dissolved if we explain it “as a story”. He goes on to explainChopin’s Sonata by comparing its different elements with possiblereasons why it was composed this way, because, as Wittgenstein pointsout, “what we really want, to solve aesthetic puzzlements, is a certaincomparison – grouping together of certain cases” (LC, p. 29).To compare means to develop an understanding of the reasons for the

particular arrangement of an artwork, which leads to an understanding ofthe work as a whole. In the following sections, I will implement thiscomparative approach to dissolve puzzlements in Mekas’s films in twoways: 1) by drawing comparisons between the films themselves; and 2) byidentifying connections between the method of Wittgenstein and that ofMekas.As a side note, although the comparison Wittgenstein encouraged

renders a certain objectivity to the explanation of an aestheticpuzzlement, ultimately, only an explanation that satisfies the puzzledperson can be correct. According to Wittgenstein, if you engage anotherperson in a discussion of aesthetics, you should try “to draw […] attentionto a thing” to make the other person “see what you see” (as quoted inMoore, 1955, p. 19). If the other person does not find your reasonscompelling, that is the “end of discussion”, because we should think ofaesthetic discussions as a court of law, where you “clear up thecircumstances” of aesthetic puzzlements (as quoted in Moore, 1955,p. 19). Therefore, in the following sections, I describe aestheticpuzzlements that I have experienced myself in watching Mekas’s films.I do not suppose that they are universal. The explanations I provide thus

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contain a certain degree of subjectivity and might not satisfy anotherfellow diary film admirer.

Wittgenstein on AutobiographyKeeping a diary was a life-long habit for Wittgenstein. He contemplatedwriting an autobiography, inspired by the determination to “spread outmy life clearly, in order to have it clearly in front of me, and for others too.Not so much to put it on trial as to produce, in any case, clarity and truth”(as quoted in Monk, 1991, p. 291). He even asserted that St. Augustine’sConfessions was “the most serious book ever written” (as quoted inMonk, 1991, p. 291), acknowledging the value of recording one’slife. Wittgenstein stipulated a clear description of his life: “in myautobiography I would have to try to represent and to understand mylife completely truthfully” (as quoted in Klebes, 2006, p. 46). The reasonhe ultimately did not write an autobiography may be interpreted as aclash between his desire to produce a clear and cohesive account of his lifeand his acceptance that a complete and linear overview would beimpossible. Wittgenstein envisaged that an autobiography should nothave an enforced narrative, a chronological structure, or attach specialnarrative weight to certain events – similar to Philosophical Investigations(1953/1984), where, despite his initial aspiration for the ideas to“proceed from one subject to another in a natural order withoutbreaks”, the work turned out as “sketches of landscapes” and“remarks” (preface, vii).Nevertheless, Nicole H. Burgund (2016) argues that Wittgenstein’s

entire philosophical oeuvre can be described as autobiographical. As sheexplains, “his work demanded a complete personal involvement; he evenjotted down philosophical notes on the same pages as his personal diaryentries” (p. 2). Wittgenstein’s post-Tractatus philosophy encourages us torethink our understanding of memory and autobiographical writing byurging us to stop relying on traditional causal narratives. Instead, weshould try to picture a broad overview containing a multitude of differentconnections, and “to travel over a wide field of thought criss-cross inevery direction” (PI, vii). Given that Wittgenstein did not write anautobiography, the question which the author of an autobiography ordiary film should ask themselves is why they are attempting to produce itin the first place. InWittgenstein’s understanding, an autobiography – or,in this case, diary film – should allow the author to see the links andrepetitions in their life because, as Wittgenstein (PI §122) notes,“understanding consists in seeing connexions”. In other words, followingWittgenstein’s ideas about autobiography, the practice of diaryfilmmaking should be seen as an attempt to understand one’s life by

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looking at certain connections between events and the correspondingemotions which they provoke. I can only speculate, but I imagine that ifWittgenstein were to see one of Mekas’s diary films, he would approveof it in terms of its effect of producing a truthful representation ofMekas’s life.

The Diary FilmTalking to Interview Magazine, Mekas (2017) described how he firststarted making films, shortly after arriving in the United States in 1949 asa Second World War refugee:

I just went into the play and filmed what was happening, my reactions towhat was happening right in that moment. There was no plan. My kindof filmmaking has no plan. In the very personal kind of cinema I do,recording my daily life and around me, you cannot plan, you don’t knowwhat’s coming.

At first, this quote appears unremarkable, but I believe that it in factidentifies the main features of diary film as a unique genre: thesubjectivity of the diarist (“I”), the purpose (“recording my daily life”),and the fragmented, non-narrative nature of the practice (“you cannotplan, you don’t know what’s coming”). Before getting into the specificanalysis of Mekas’s diary films, it is useful to locate the diary film in termsof genre.Discussions of diary film usually involve comparisons to a few other

similar cinematic genres, such as autobiographical film, essay film, anddocumentary. The differences and similarities between these genres canbe blurry. For example, Michael Renov (1989) places them all into thesame category of filmmaking because they share an “essayistic impulse”(p. 9). I am sceptical towards this particular classification, because theterm “essayistic” tacitly implies that the filmmaker should provide acoherent argument with a clear structure and a sense of objectivity. Whileits neighbouring genres share a certain degree of similarity, I agree withLaura Rascaroli (2009) that diary film deserves to be studied separatelyfrom essay film, mainly because its stylistic and thematic structures aremuch more personal and subjective than those of the essay film.Interestingly, in his book The Subject of Documentary (2004), Renovreconsiders his previous views on the subject. In the more recent work, hedistinguishes diary film from other types of documentaries by re-definingit as an “act of documentation, if only through the preservation offragments of everyday life that envelop the self” (p. 112). I can only guesswhat made him recognise diary film as a separate genre which is not

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driven by a mere “essayistic purpose”, but by the aim to “envelop the self”.Perhaps he had the chance to see Mekas’s As I Was Moving… and realisedthat diary film does not rely on narration or aim to reveal the truth asdocumentary does, entertainingly tell someone’s story as biographicalfilm does, or invoke a certain response in the audience, present anargument and inspire social or political change as essay film does. In anutshell, there is no better way to distinguish diary film from otherpersonal cinematic genres than to say that the diary filmmaker is notdriven by the aim to make a film, but simply by filming itself.

Discontinuity and FragmentationIn his preface to Philosophical Investigations (1953/1984), Wittgensteinintroduces his intentions and gives the reader his reasons for the peculiarform of the book – “this book is really just an album” – warning thereader that the book lacks a unifying philosophical argument, supportsabstraction and fragmentation, and expects the reader to make sense ofthe text themselves. Despite the apologetic tone of the preface, MarjoriePerloff (1996) points out that there is something quite unique andrevolutionary in his refusal to adopt “any totalizing scheme” (p. 66),especially given the extremely well structured and systematic form of hisfirst book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). As Wittgenstein notes,the nature of his investigations, and of language games themselves,requires a “criss-cross” method (PI, §66). Given the distinctive mode oforganisation, it seems that there is no particular reason to read the text inthe numerical order in which it has been arranged. The practice ofbuilding an “album” is evident in Mekas’s cinema, and the structure ofthe diary film is also “non-organic”. For example, in the program notes forWalden, Mekas states – in the third-person – that

the Author won’t mind (he is almost encouraging it) if the Viewer willchoose to watch only certain parts of the work (film), according to the timeavailable to him, according to his preferences, or any other good reason.(as quoted in James, 1992, p. 170)

Since Wittgenstein and Mekas share the method of fragmentation,we can draw connections between their work to elucidate the aestheticpuzzle presented by breaking the film into thousands of fragments orentries.Wittgenstein informs the reader that he has been collecting ideas for

this book for sixteen years. Mekas also takes his time, editing his footageyears after shooting it. Although the remarks contained in the PI mightappear to be arranged in a random order, Wittgenstein in fact put a lot of

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thought into making sure the order of the remarks was correct, but wasnever fully satisfied with the result. The preface begins as follows:

The best that I could write would never be more than philosophicalremarks; my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in anysingle direction against their natural inclination. (PI, vii)

Here, Wittgenstein admits that this mode of philosophising cannot havea beginning, middle, or end. There cannot be an organic unity, astructural, causal, or rational organisation of ideas, undisclosed argu-ment, or central subject. Wittgenstein aimed to make sure his “thoughtsproceed from one subject to another in a natural order without breaks”,but he failed in this task because the “natural order” he initially soughtwould require a progressive argument, a methodological philosophising,and some kind of re-imposed structure and narrative, to which he wasfundamentally opposed. The paradox of Wittgenstein’s initial desire tostructure the book clearly, “to weld the results into a whole”, is just one ofmany we may observe when thinking about him. As Perloff (1996) writes,“it is ironic that this iconoclast, who refused to listen to Mahler andSchnönberg and paid little attention to the great art movements of his day,was himself the most radical of modernist writers” (p. 66). I want tosuggest that the radicalism Perloff ascribes to Wittgenstein is just anotherway of saying that he did not see it as necessary to force himself toproduce an artificial coherence:

If I am thinking about a topic just for myself and not with a view towriting abook, I jump about all round it; that is the only way of thinking that comesnaturally to me. Forcing my thoughts into an ordered sequence is a tormentfor me. Is it even worth attempting? (CV, 28e)

Wittgenstein’s approach of staying truthful to himself and following thenatural inclination of his thought can shed some light on why Mekasassembled his films without a clear structure or chronology.At the very beginning of As I Was Moving…, Mekas introduces the

film in an apologetic, inconclusive manner, echoing Wittgenstein’spreface to PI:

I have never, never been able to figure it all out. So when I began nowto put all these rolls of film together, to string them together, the firstidea was to keep them chronological. But then I gave up and I just begansplicing them together by chance, the way I found them on the shelf.Because I really don’t know where any piece of my life really belongs.(Mekas, 2000)

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After several attempts to weld my results together into such a whole,I realized that I should never succeed […]. [M]y thoughts soon grew feeble ifI tried to force them along a single track against their natural inclination.(Wittgenstein, PI, 3e)

The acknowledgment that a satisfactory structure is impossible isimportant in both cases, because it allows both authors to fullyimmerse themselves in fragmentation, and to focus on the naturalimpulse of thought. Additionally, it warns the reader or viewer that theywill have to pay close attention and actively engage with the work.Mekas’s films are structured as follows: Walden and Lost Lost Lost are

each divided into six reels, while As I Was Moving… is made up of twelvechapters. There are a number of reasons why the viewer may be confusedabout temporal and spatial structure in these films. First, the diary film iscomposed of numerous entries that are separated by title cards or byevident spatial differences. Sometimes a voice-over informs us of thebeginning of a new entry. Although the diary film, as a unified andfinished piece of work, progresses linearly in the sense that it has abeginning and an end, there is a chronological discontinuity among theentries. That is, there are temporal gaps between the elements, and eachentry has to work on its own to create a separate story. This lack ofconcern for chronology makes Mekas’s cinema unique – the numerousshort and minimalist entries are brought together by the nature ofMekas’s lifelong practice of continuous filming, and result in densefragmentation, temporal complexity, and immersion in every single entryseparately and in turn. In this way, the discontinuities create continuity.An example of such discontinuity can be found in As I Was Moving…

The continuity of real-life events is disrupted as Mekas edits the film in arandom order (fig. 1). His daughter Oona is one of the main subjects ofhis camera throughout the film. We see her first when she is about threeyears old, before later seeing her as a baby; her birth then follows. In thenext chapter she is older again, with a new-born brother, Sebastian.Mekas includes the footage of her birth twice, in Chapters six and nine.We see her grow up, but not chronologically.Recall Mekas’s opening statement that he wanted to “keep it

chronological” but failed to do so because there is no way of knowing“where any piece of my life really belongs”. Such discontinuity can beinterpreted as a representation of memory, which is fragmented andrandom. The scattered effect shows us that memory is not linear, andfollowing P. Adams Sitney (2008), this style “posits a mode of time thatescapes the categories of past, present, and future” (p. 95). In a way, bykeeping the film random, Mekas respects the complexity of memory and

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our understanding of it. In Chapter seven, he acknowledges that he is notproclaiming to film “reality”: “I may not be even filming the real life. I maybe just filming my memories. I don’t care”.A different type of discontinuity can be found inWalden. In reel one, the

first of several weddings that Mekas films take place. There is no inter-titlecard to tell us who is getting married, but the informed audience maynote that it is Mekas’s brother, Adolfas. The next inter-title card reads“AL MOVES OUT”, which is followed by images of the empty flat that thebrothers used to share. Next, Mekas suddenly cuts to footage shot inFrance, where he is eating. The two entries are not connected, either intheme (Adolfas moving out to start a new life and Mekas travelling), orin space and time (New York and Marseilles); they are connected byediting alone. Sitney (2008, p. 89) points out that by not providing toomuch information in this sequence (for example, not every viewer wouldknow that it was Adolfas’s wedding), Mekas modestly represents asignificant change in his life: for the first time since leaving Lithuania, hestarts living on his own. The very absence of explicit biographical

Chapter 1, Oona is around 8years old

Chapter 4, Oona is a teenager, and has ayounger brother, Sebastian

Chapter 5, Oona is a toddler Chapters 6 & 9, Oona's birth

Figure 1. Discontinuity in As I was Moving (2000).

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information and the discontinuity in these entries results in a personaland secretive mode of telling his life story.Another type of fragmentation occurs when the voice-over does not

match the images that we are seeing. In reel six of Walden, we arepresented with footage of a lake scene at dusk from outside a trainwindow. The voice-over, however, is taken from a recorded conversationbetween Mekas and a friend: “Look, the Empire State building is sobeautiful in the blue evening light”. The spatial discontinuity between thecountryside imagery and the conversation taking place in Manhattan is athought-provoking device here since the viewer must constantly remainattentive to these kinds of disruptions in order to understand thecomplicated relationships between images and sounds that make upmemories.The audience can only guess at the significance of the inconsistency

and lack of unity between the images and the voice over, but if we take intoaccount Wittgenstein’s idea of memory, it may become clearer. In PI, hesuggests that memory is itself a language game, “not mere threadbarerepresentations of the real experiences” (§649). The action of remember-ing occurs through language; memories are made up of the words we usewhen we recollect something. Wittgenstein ponders whether there issomething other than just words that we use to remember, but hedisregards this idea. Thus, in a way, one cannot write or make a film aboutthe past, one can only provide recollections of it, which explains whyMekas does not feel obliged to make his work chronological andsystematic.

RepetitionRepetition is key in Mekas’s films, both stylistically and thematically.Ever since his first film, Walden, Mekas has used a Bolex – a 16mmspring-wound camera. He developed a distinctive style of filming andused it consistently up until the point when he made the transition fromfilm to digital. He films in a rapid, varying exposure style; sometimes theimages are superimposed, causing them to flicker on the screen asfragments or, as Mekas describes them, glimpses. Some scenes are a fewminutes long, others only a couple of seconds. His style is so distinctivethat, as soon as you see a clip, you know who the filmmaker is.Along with the repeated use of the same style, prominent themes are

also repeated within Mekas’s works. Just as in a written diary, as acollection of short passages, snippets, and emotions, we can also findrepetitive motifs and subjects in diary film, with the three films of Mekas’sselected here being no exception. In Walden, Mekas includes six entrieson the seasons, six winters, four weddings, four eating experiences, and

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two visits. In Lost Lost Lost, there are eleven meetings with friends, eighttrips outside the city, five community gatherings and protests, five trips tofriends’ houses, and four weddings. As I Was Moving…, the longest of thethree films, has many recurring themes. There are about forty homescenes, twenty-five trips, twenty gatherings with friends, eighteen scenesin Central Park, and five gallery visits. Mekas likes to make repeated use ofthe same title cards as well. For example, in As I Was Moving…, “HOMESCENES” appears twenty times, “Life goes on” appears seven times,“Fragments of paradise” appears six times, and “Nothing happens in thisfilm” appears five times. Mekas also chooses to include the same footagein more than one film: he ends chapters two, eight, and eleven of this filmwith footage he had previously used in both Walden (reel one) and LostLost Lost – a self-portrait of him playing an accordion.The last couple of reels in Lost Lost Lost feature Mekas’s constant

repetitions of the same English words and phrases, usually in correspon-dence with the images, but sometimes in contrast with what we see. Forinstance, in reel five, titled “Rabbit Shit Haikus”, Mekas presents us withfootage he filmed in Vermont in 1962. He utters “the road the road theroad”, “the trees the trees the trees”, and “the childhood the childhood thechildhood”. The repetitive voice-over evokes a certain feeling of con-templation, which Mekas is experiencing while being away from the cityin the countryside, which, the viewer may speculate, reminds him of hischildhood village in Lithuania. This constructed entry is neither simplyfootage from Vermont, nor an audio poem about the loss of his childhoodhome. Rather, it is a therapeutic exercise or a meditation, which becomesa unit of diary film.Several of those who attended Wittgenstein’s lectures were amazed by

how often he repeated himself (Fann, 1969, p. 51). It was not just alecturing style, but the style of his philosophical thought in general. Thebody of work he produced can be seen as a continuous repetitive creation,unified by similar concerns – he comes back to the same analogies manytimes, revising and slightly changing them to express what he wants tosay. In his diary, he acknowledged repetition as a part of his method:

I still find my own way of philosophising new, and it keeps striking me soafresh; that is why I need to repeat myself so often. It will have becomesecond nature to a new generation, to whom the repetitions will be boring.I find them necessary. (CV, 1e)

Later on, he admits that the nature of his investigation is dependent onrepetition: “each sentence I write is trying to say the whole thing, the samething over and over again; it is as though they were all simply views of one

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object seen from different angles” (CV, 7e). Wittgenstein uses repetition toillustrate concepts which refute our allegedly wrong view of the simplicityof language. Hewas concerned with the effect of his argument, and part ofthat concern involved repetition. He came back to “the same thing” toexamine it in many ways. Take, for example, his discussion of beingguided:

You are in a playing field […] ready for the tug of the leader’s hand […]Or: someone leads you by the hand where you are unwilling to go by force.Or: you are guided by a partner in a dance […]Or: someone takes you for a walk […]Or: you walk along a field-track, simply following it. (PI, §172)

Here, repetition is meant to advance his “family resemblance” argument.All these examples are similar to one another, but it is incorrect to thinkthat “being guided” has a single meaning. Such revision of analogies is forPerloff (1996) “a new way of ‘doing’ philosophy that is no longerphilosophy” (p. 66). This method, then, is what I understandWittgenstein to have meant when he said that “philosophy ought reallyto be written as a form of poetic composition” (CV, 24e). Just asWittgenstein repeatedly came back to “the same thing” (CV, preface, vii) toexamine it in many ways, Mekas repeatedly returns to the same footage,style, themes, and phrases. Repetition elucidates Mekas’s own fascinationwith certain aspects of his life. Only by returning to the same happymemories, gatherings of friends, and glimpses of nature, can Mekasappreciate his life to the fullest through his archive, and share it with theaudience who will grasp the beauty of it.

The EverydayCarrying a camera everywhere, shooting the world around him every dayis the basis for Mekas’s practice – what could appear to be inessential anduninteresting plays a major role in his films. The third aestheticpuzzlement the viewer encounters is confusion as to why theseinsignificant, domestic, and everyday scenes appear impressive andremarkable. The practice of filming daily and continuously is evident inall three films; eating is one example of this (fig. 2). In reel one ofWalden,there are three entries portraying Mekas eating. In the first, “SUNDAY ATSTONES”, Mekas is having dinner with friends. He puts the camera infront of himself so that we can only see him eating. In the second scene,“Morbid days of New York & gloom”, Mekas is in a diner. He points thecamera at a mirror so that the viewer can see his reflection eating eggs. Inthe third, “BREAKFAST IN MARSEILLES”, Mekas is having breakfast

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outside. He puts the camera on the table facing himself and frequentlyadjusts it with his left hand, while petting a cat and eating a pastry. In reelthree of Lost Lost Lost, Mekas does the same thing – while havingbreakfast with a friend, he places the camera on the table and filmshimself. He includes similar scenes in As I Was Moving…. Nothing majorhappens in these entries, and there is no narrative development of anykind; they simply portray the mundane activity of eating – yet the viewerstill finds it interesting. Such continuity of practice allows for the creationof unity in the diary film, but it does not explain why it leaves animpression on the viewer.Wittgenstein’s diary entry from 1930 helps to dissolve this puzzlement

(CV, 4e). It is the only known writing in which Wittgenstein defines hisaesthetic ideal. Michael Fried (2007) argues that this thought experimentis Wittgenstein’s “most original and sustained contribution to aestheticthought” (p. 519). Fried explores how some of Jeff Wall’s photographs,such as Adrian Walker (1992) andMorning Cleaner (1999) can be seen as“antitheatrical” and an example of art of the everyday. His discussion ofWall’s practice in relation to Wittgenstein’s diary entry is particularlyencouraging in linking Wittgenstein’s view on art with Mekas’s practice.

Walden, 'SUNDAY AT STONES’ Walden, ‘BREAKFAST IN MARSEILLES’

Lost Lost Lost, reel As I Was Moving Ahead, Chapter 1,‘Summers in Central Park’

Figure 2. An ordinary act such as eating helps to create continuity in diary film.

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Wittgenstein’s friend Engelmann confessed that his own manuscriptsand letters from relatives sometimes strike him as splendid and“glorious”, but he immediately dismissed the thought of using themin his work as impossible, because they would lose their charm andvalue if published. Wittgenstein responded to this paradox by composingan unusual thought experiment which encourages us to envision asituation: a theatre where we are observing a man who is engagedin a simple everyday activity, such as walking around a room, lightinga cigarette, or sitting down. The man is unaware of the audience,and we are observing him “from outside”, in a way that we can neverobserve ourselves, “it would be like watching a chapter from biographywith our own eyes”. We would find it quite interesting because“nothing could be more remarkable than seeing someone who thinkshimself unobserved engaged in some quite simple everyday activity”. Insuch a scenario we would see something exceptional – “we should beseeing life itself” (Wittgenstein, CV, 4e).Later on, Wittgenstein raises a question: why would we find “life itself”

so interesting? Similarly, why do we find an act as simple as eatinginteresting in Mekas’s films? We see such everyday acts in our lives all thetime, and they leave “not the slightest impression on us”. Wittgensteinargues that it is to do with the point of view the artist makes us take: “onlyan artist can so represent an individual thing as a work of art” – the objector scene which the artist presents is not significant in itself; it is significantbecause of the perspective we are provided with. Wittgenstein gives theexample of a landscape photo which is only “interesting to the man whotook it” because he was there himself admiring the scenery, but whichanyone else will perceive “coldly”. In his imagined theatre, the everyday ispositioned as a work of art, which “forces us to see it in the rightperspective” and shows “life itself”. In this setup, the beholder is able tobecome immersed in it, unlike in ordinary life, where such scenes areoverlooked as insignificant. Wittgenstein’s theatre scenario is notsignificant because it is a “chapter of biography”, nor because it providesa unique view of the world. It is simply a truly ordinary everyday moment,one that could be seen any time in a commonplace environment. Thisseems like a paradox: a theatre presents an obvious barrier which preventsus from seeing “real life” because the actors are acting, but it is onlythrough this setup that we can achieve this perspective on the ordinary: “inthe absence of art, the object is just a fragment of nature like any other”.What we are granted, in such circumstances, is a view “on a human beingfrom outside in a way that ordinarily we can never observe ourselves.”A question arises: what might Wittgenstein have in mind when he talks

about the “right perspective”? In PI , he writes, “the aspects of things that

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are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity andfamiliarity. (One is unable to notice something – because it is alwaysbefore one’s eyes.)” (§129). This assertion hints at our obliviousness tothe fact that there is something which is concealed from us. This may leadto the assumption that Mekas, by placing importance on the ordinary andshowing it to us through the artifice of the camera, aims to suggest to theviewer (and himself) that it is the beauty of life that is “hidden”. Thepresentation of ordinary, domestic scenes brings our attention back towhat Wittgenstein worried we were ignorant of – namely, the everydayand our place within it. This is a likely reason why it leaves an impressionon the viewer.Such everyday home scenes as making pancakes, children playing

with a cat, or ice-skating in Central Park, enable the audience toexperience what Stanley Cavell (1986) has labelled, in other contexts,the “uncanniness of the ordinary” (p. 84). This is not to say thatthe audience uncovers something significant, but rather that they“unconceal the obvious” (p. 99), which has been forgotten as a resultof overlooking such scenes as mundane, undramatic, and lackingmotivation or purpose.There are many scenes which show Mekas’s children engaged in

simple activities (fig. 3) such as stroking a cat, smelling flowers, lookinginside a shopping bag, playing with their parents’ things, learning how towalk, or picking dandelions in the park. Their depiction in particularhelps the film to become the type of work of art that Wittgensteinimagined as having the ability to portray the ordinary as remarkable.The children are unaware that they are being filmed, in the same way thatthe man on stage in Wittgenstein’s imagined theatre is unaware of hisaudience. Positioning his own life as a work of art, Mekas encourages us toimmerse ourselves in these trivial activities and see the beauty of theeveryday. The viewer, initially confused as to why such scenes arefascinating and absorbing, can dissolve the puzzlement by consideringWittgenstein’s thought experiment. Thus, the overly familiar domesticscenes become the “occasional glimpses of beauty” which the titleproclaims.Norman Malcolm (1958) informs us that Wittgenstein was an

enthusiast of visiting the cinema. He insisted on sitting in the frontrow, “so that the screen would occupy his entire field of vision, and hismind would be turned away from the thoughts of the lectures” (p. 28).Fried (2007, p. 523) is suspicious that cinema, even Italian neorealistfilms or works by Robert Bresson and Yasijiro Ozu, could fulfil theobjectives of Wittgenstein’s thought experiment. Nevertheless, Mekas’sdiary films – and As I Was Moving… in particular, I believe – may be

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regarded as coming close to Wittgenstein’s vision of the representationof “life itself”. Keeping in mind that in 1954 Mekas made this note inhis literary diary, I Seem to Live, The New York Diaries (2019): “I amdreaming about a film which would depict a period of a man’s life,revealing his character and soul through little daily activities, withoutany plot” (p. 111), it is not an understatement to claim that in AsI Was Moving… the everyday receives its deepest account in Mekas’scinematic oeuvre. The 5-hour film demonstrates, by compiling the

Figure 3. Mekas’s children, Sebastian and Oona, engaged in simple activities, andunaware that they are being observed.

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most ordinary home scenes, Mekas’s true representation of the totalityof his existence.However, Mekas’s quest to make diary films and document the

ordinary so extensively may also appear puzzling – why not justappreciate it whilst living it? Why carry the camera everywhere andconstantly put up a barrier between himself and the world? It is importantto note that he also considered himself an audience member to his ownfilms – making diary films was a way to remember and make sense of hislife from a distance; hence, he would edit his films years after filming. Byediting the footage much later, he was able to get into “the rightperspective” and gain the necessary distance to see “life itself”. He couldachieve this point of view by making the distinction between himself asthe person who filmed the footage and himself as the person who edited ityears later and added another layer to it (voice-over and title-cardcommentary). Catherine Russell (1999) describes diary film as a “journeybetween the time of shooting and editing” (p. 277), whereby thefilmmaker becomes a “tourist, ethnographer, exile, or immigrant”(p. 279) in his own archive. In other words, it is not the final editedfilm and the audience’s response to it that is the driving inspirationalforce for Mekas; rather, it is the filming itself and the viewing of thefootage years later. In As I Was Moving…, Mekas frequently addresses thedivergence between the images and his personal recollections. In Chapterten, he tells the audience:

When I look now at this footage, I look at it from completely somewhereelse. This is me, there, here, and it’s not me anymore. I am the one who islooking at it now, at myself, at my life, my friends, the last quarter of theCentury.

Not only is he showing the beauty of the everyday to the viewer, it is away for him to see it in his life too (“I am the one who is looking”). At thevery end of the film, Mekas looks back at the whole film, his voice-oversuggesting that the diary film is a tool to reflect on life and makesense of it:

I do not know where I am, and where I am going to and where I’m comingfrom. I know nothing about life. But I have seen some beauty here, I haveseen some brief glimpses of beauty and happiness.

In other words, Mekas managed to dowhat Engelman thought impossiblewith his own letters andmanuscripts; that is, take snippets of his life, turnthem into a work of art, make them available to the public, and still bepleased with it.

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Philosophical NomadismWittgenstein does not present a set of doctrines or clearly laid outarguments; instead, he teaches us what Eagleton (1993) calls a “style ofseeing” (p. 9), which inspires many people to study his ideas and applythem – consciously or otherwise – to their own artistic practices. At theend of Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), Mekas visits Viennaand goes to film the house that Wittgenstein had designed for his sister.Clearly, he was very much aware of Wittgenstein and, although he nevermentions him elsewhere, I believe he was fascinated and inspired by thespirit and form of Wittgenstein’s philosophy.At this point, I want to explore the final quality that Wittgenstein and

Mekas share: a sense of nomadism. I draw on Glendinning’s (2004)discussion of PI, wherein he argues that Wittgenstein encourages anomadic understanding of philosophy. By focusing on fragmentation,repetition, and the everyday in the works of Mekas and Wittgenstein, thereader/viewer comes to comprehend, via the attention drawn to everydayglimpses of life in Mekas’s films and the everyday language examplesgiven in PI, a model of meaning that is dominated by the journey ratherthan the destination. This replaces the ideal of completeness and claritywhich rests on theory and has been so highly sought after in Westernphilosophy in general. This newmodel of meaning, in which meaning is ajourney, is, as Glendinning argues, Wittgenstein’s key point in PI.Glendinning believes that PI is an example of “philosophical nomadism”

(p. 162). This concept is meant to show thatWittgenstein is less interestedin giving us a map that takes us “from a to b” than in showing us how toaccept that neither such a map nor absolute clarity are required to traversepuzzling points in the journey, and that we should focus less on our aimof reaching a final destination. Glendinning points out that Wittgensteinfrequently encourages the reader to “take some breaks along the way”(p. 162). Such breaks, or what Andrew Klevan (2011), in his discussion ofWittgenstein’s influence on Stanley Cavell, calls “film moments” (p. 49),are the tools Mekas uses to engage with the ordinary.Mekas crowds our viewing experience with thousands of “film

moments” of everyday and mundane images that, multi-exposed andout of focus, make us look differently at such everyday things as trees,houses, friends having dinner together, or a child playing on the floor.These superimposed images create a tangible artefact of collection, asthey consist of footage layered and arranged as in an actual photoalbum (fig. 4).This fragmentary style, with its rapid variation of images and frequent

brief superimpositions, repeatedly draws attention to the overabundantbundle of experience that Mekas takes in every day. If the remarks in PI

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are pieces of an album, as Wittgenstein suggested in the preface (PI, vii),then Mekas’s diary film has its corresponding entries. While we may betempted to try to discern which objects belong to which layer whenviewing such superimposed images, the films encourage a unified visionacross layers that recalls the sort of gathering of thought that Wittgensteindiscusses in his preface: “if you looked at them you could get a picture ofthe landscape” (PI, vii).Furthermore, through repetition and the absence of coherent narra-

tion, Mekas’s films are also able to hold us in these moments (or glimpses,as the title As I was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses ofBeauty, suggests), just as PI holds us and makes us puzzle over sentences

Figure 4. Super-imposed images in Mekas’s films.

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that deal with ordinary language. At the end of the “Rabbit Shit Haikus”section, Mekas explains the name of the sequence by telling the story of aman whowas trying to find “what was at the end of the road”, only to findnothing but “rabbit shit”. What this man is left with is pure nothingness,no meaning, just the road and no hope of reaching a final destination.Mekas encourages the man to instead enjoy the path. This nomadic view,in which the audience no longer expects a complete story, suspense, orcharacter development, is precisely the perspective that allows us tounderstand Mekas’s films more deeply and be free of any aestheticpuzzlements.The notion of nomadism also best explains why Mekas is so reliant on

repetition – he returns to film the same places and the same peoplerepeatedly, as well as using the same footage in more than one film.In this way, he is finding and re-finding meaning through a processof re-engagement with the ordinary. Instead of presenting his lifechronologically, he creates complex temporal structures that act asmeditations on memory and time. This nomadic approach to filmmakingprovides a new way of presenting life on film, which leads to the view ofdiary film as therapy. In short, the reader’s aim should be to become anomad in Wittgenstein’s texts, and the viewer’s goal should be to becomea nomad in Mekas’s films.

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Cavell, S. (1986). The Uncanniness of the Ordinary. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values,Stanford University, pp. 83–117.

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