KEN JACOBS - STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH

After making his first films during the late 1950s, Ken Jacobs (1933, US) became one of the protagonists of American ‘avant-garde’ cinema, along with people like Hollis Frampton and Michael Snow. During that period he started working on his magnum opus Star Spangled to Death, which he recently completed. For this final version, more than six hours long, he patterns fragments from documentaries, cartoons, musicals and information films with images of his own, for the most part derived from his ‘urban guerrilla cinema’ period, frolicking through prosaic Manhattan of the 1960s along with performer Jack Smith. The work does not contain any narrative structure, it is more of an elucidation of an existential situation, and self-mockery is turned into a conductor for symbolism. Browsing through topics like politics, war religion and science, the whole of this video constitutes a social criticism on the U.S.A., today, “stolen and dangerously sold-out” according to Jacobs.

Ken Jacobs, Star Spangled To Death
1957-2003, col./BW, English (no subt.), 393’