Little Stabs at Happiness

Jacobs completed “Little Stabs at Happiness” (1959-63) as a by-product of or as “a true breather” from his long film, “Star Spangled to Death.” Except for the addition of titles which identify the four sections of the film, the use of 78 rpm records, and a short monologue on the soundrack, the film is exactly as it came out of the camera. Jonas Mekas hailed “Blonde Cobra,” “Little Stabs at Happiness” and “Scotch Tape” as opening a vital new direction in the American cinema. On May 2, 1963 he wrote in The Village Voice: “Ron Rice’s ‘The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man,’ Jack Smith’s ‘Flaming Creatures,’ Ken Jacobs’ ‘Little Stabs at Happiness’ and ‘Blonde Cobra’ are four works that make up a real revolution in cinema today. These movies are illuminating and open up sensibilities and experiences never before recorded in the American arts: a content which Beaudelaire, the Marquis de Sade and Rimbaud gave to world literature a century ago and which Burroughs gave American literature three years ago. It is a world of flowers of evil, of illuminations, of torn and tortured flesh; a poetry at once beautiful and terrible, good and evil, delicate and dirty.”