About / P. Adams Sitney + Florence Jacobs
The past week has been gut-wrenching, with the passing of both Florence (“Flo”) Jacobs and P. Adams Sitney, two figures whose importance within the world of American experimental cinema can’t be overstated, and who occupied a place at the very heart of the NYC film community from the 1950s to the present day.
Though Flo never sought credit or publicity, and consistently ceded the limelight to her husband Ken Jacobs, she was his partner in his creative work as well as his life, and played an utterly indispensable role in the creation of many of his films and performances (as Amy Taubin has written, “Flo Jacobs is nothing less than the producer of Ken Jacobs’ cinema”, as well as “the most trusted other pair of eyes for his work, bringing to this task an aesthetic that is highly compatible with his own, but – and this is important – which was formed before she met him”). Ken & Flo’s body of work – one of the very greatest in the history of experimental cinema – wouldn’t have been the same without her. A wonderful painter in her own right, she was also among the kindest and most selfless of individuals. Every important creative community or movement is held together as much by its self-effacing, unifying figures as it is by its more assertive, celebrated personalities, and while Flo’s importance to the experimental film community of the past 75 years may be difficult to document, she was every bit as important as the filmmakers and artists whose work generates retrospectives and academic studies. She was beloved by generations of filmmakers, scholars, students, and cineastes, and the community won’t be the same without her.
P. Adams Sitney was a foundational figure in the most literal sense – with his passing, Anthology has lost one of the last living links to its formation, and the world of American experimental film studies has lost arguably its foundational scholar. Alongside Jonas Mekas (as well as Peter Kubelka, Jerome Hill, and Stan Brakhage), P. Adams co-founded Anthology in 1966 (it would ultimately open in 1970). In 1974, after creating and editing the journal Filmwise as a teenager, writing extensively for Film Culture, editing Brakhage’s Metaphors on Vision, and editing several other volumes for Anthology, he published his seminal book Visionary Film. One of the very first – and certainly the finest and most comprehensive – historical/critical overviews of American avant-garde cinema, Visionary Film has remained the definitive text on the subject for the past 50 years. Without a doubt the preeminent historian of American experimental film, P. Adams also wrote brilliantly about European narrative cinema, as well as literature and poetry. He was a student of the literary giant Harold Bloom, taught generations of students at Princeton, and until the very end gave public talks at Anthology and other venues, which, thanks to his incredible erudition, charisma, and mischievous personality, were legendary. He has been a presiding spirit for the past 55 years here at Anthology, and his influence, example, and body of work are embedded in every part of what we do.
June 10, 2025
