Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit is a video diary made last year immediately after and provoked by the death of the great poet and cult figure Allen Ginsberg.The body of Allen Ginsberg was on show in his house in New York. For three days and nights, his friends had an opportunity to say goodbye. Mekas was there all the time and videoed events: people paying their last respects to Ginsberg, interviews with well-known and unknown people about Ginsberg and visiting Buddhist monks who had their own way of remembering this great proponent of Oriental thought in the West. The mood in the apartment was very special; it looked as if Ginsberg’s soul stayed on earth for three more days to inspire the visitors. Cut. The funeral of Ginsberg was a very different story. The whole of New York turned up to mourn, but also to show their faces. This latter aspect was not what mainly interested Mekas.The film is a living display of friendship and remembrance. It is part of the ‘Diaries’, a series of autobiographical impressions that Mekas has made since 1949 with impressions, feelings, digressions and scenes from everyday life.
