LOS ANGELES—Eighty-five-year-old Lithuanian avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, director of more than 50 movies including Zefiro Torna and the five-hour diary film As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses Of Beauty, was again overlooked by the MTV Movie Awards Sunday.
This marks the 17th straight year in which Mekas, known for his signature single-frame style and a penchant for interrupting scenes with several seconds of black space, has failed to join the pantheon of such past winners as Lindsay Lohan, Jon Heder, and Chewbacca. “It is a travesty that Mekas’ stark vision of elegiac melancholia has not been rewarded with the coveted Golden Popcorn statue,” Boston University film studies professor Ray Carney said. “His [1997] film Letter From Nowhere—Laiskas Is Niekur No. 1 should have easily walked away with Best On-Screen Duo, or Best Kiss, or at least Best Ass.” While Mekas expressed regret at the selection committee’s refusal to recognize his work, he said he was moved after winning the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in March.
