The films of Ira Cohen

Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda with a sountrack by Japanese psych noise band Acid Mothers Temple.

The original Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda with the soundtrack by The Joyous Lake:
Bongos, Congas [Barrel] – Angus MacLise
Featuring [Tonette], Voice – Henry Flynt
Guitar, Effects [Tape Echo] – Raja Samyana
Mastered By [Remastered] – Tim Barnes
Music By – The Joyous Lake
Organ, Tambura [Tampura], Tambourine – Hetty MacLise
Recorder, Voice – Jackson Mac Low
Strings [Limp String] – Tony Conrad
Voice, Dulcimer – Ziska Baum
Voice, Flute, Effects [Tape Echo] – Loren Standlee
(Video 4K HD Remaster)
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Kings with Straw Mats (1986) is a documentary film about the Kumbha Mela, held in 1985 at Haridwar in northern India. The film was made by Ira Cohen, one of the great beat poets and film-makers working from the 1960s onwards, who only recently passed away (in 2011). Cohen was living in Kathmandu when he heard that the 3-yearly Kumbha Mela would take place that year in Haridwar, so he grabbed a camera, some friends and headed down to record it. Along with video of some of the yogis and sadhus at the festival, Cohen reads his poetic reflections of the event, and the outcome is a timeless documentary, going deeper than most.

Ira Cohen (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Cohen lived in Morocco and in New York City in the 1960s, he was in Kathmandu in the 1970s and traveled the world in the 1980s, before returning to New York, where he spent the rest of his life. Cohen died of renal failure on April 25, 2011.

As a film maker, Cohen developed a style distinctly his own by photographing images reflected in Mylar plastic. The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda and Brain Damage were directed by Cohen in the late 1960s using this mirror effect.

In certain artistic and literary circles, Mr. Cohen was a touchstone. “Ira was a major figure in the international underground and avant-garde,” Michael Rothenberg, the editor of Big Bridge magazine, an Internet publication, said in an interview. “In order to understand American art and poetry post-World War II, you have to understand Ira Cohen.”