Beatniks on Film at the National Gallery of Art

As a tie-in to "Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans" opening tomorrow at the National Gallery of Art, the museum kicks off a film series exploring the counterculture that was emerging just as the photographer began his cross-country project during the 1950s.

"The Rebel Set: Film and the Beat Legacy," opening today, brings together a handful of the most well-known experimental films made by members of the beat generation, many of whom Frank had befriended and worked with. To watch them is to get a better sense of the artists, poets and musicians who came together to create them; the collaborations show them to be tightknit, risk-taking and full of life.

Today, see poet Christopher MacLaine's shorts "Beat" and "The End," the latter a heady and much-dissected narrative that chronicles the end of days in six sections. MacLaine has viewers staring at a dark screen for minutes on end, before the apocalypse descends -- to the music of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The shorts are followed by "The Cry of Jazz," by Edward O. Bland.

Also today, you can see Frank's own short movie "Pull My Daisy," narrated by Jack Kerouac and starring such artists as Larry Rivers and Alice Neel. The movie is a jazz-infused trip about a dinner party for a bishop that is crashed by three beat poets who have questions -- serious, existential questions -- for the man of God.

We can't get enough of the colorful (and surprisingly sentimental) work of later filmmaker Jonas Mekas, whose works in the series (both screened on Jan. 31) include "Happy Birthday to John," a nearly 30-minute series of clips from the life of John Lennon. The ex-Beatle and Yoko Ono also appear in Mekas's moving "He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life," which captures, in no particular order: family, friends and mundane moments in Mekas's life. Scenes from a friend's picnic mingle with a hipster book party that features women wrestling; this is then followed by silent footage from a 1971 Warhol show at the Whitney in New York. Jerky camera work and rapid-fire editing mimic life: It's fun, and then it's just memories.

Screenings are free and continue tomorrow, Jan. 25 and Jan. 31. "Beat" and "The End" are today at 2 p.m.; "Pull My Daisy" is at 4 p.m. "Happy Birthday to John" is screened Jan. 31 at 2 p.m.; "He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life" is at 4 p.m. National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium, Fourth Street and Constitution Avenue NW. 202-737-4215. For the full schedule, visit http://www.nga.gov/programs/film/rebelset.shtm.