For a number of years, Ken Jacobs and Jack Smith worked quite closely together, with the latter appearing in a number of the films that the former was working on, across the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Jacobs’ primary focus during that period was his several-hour epic, Star Spangled To Death, but he also made a number of shorter films during that time – in P. Adams Sitney’s Visionary Film, Jacobs describes them as “true breather(s)” from his major project. Little Stabs At Happiness is a gorgeous, brief reverie, its fifteen minutes playing out a number of humble tableaux. The film is bookended with appearances from Smith, who appears at first smoking in the bath, and reappears, at the end, as the ‘Spirit of Listlessness’, hamming it up on a NYC rooftop. In this performance, you really get a sense of Smith’s innate understanding of the way the artist’s life see-saws between play, pleasure, and pathos. But the most moving section of Little Stabs At Happiness is when the music stops on the soundtrack – Jacobs had sourced songs from old 78 rpm records – and Jacobs gives a sleepy monologue on the film itself, and his failed and dysfunctional relationships with some of the film’s cast. Edited in camera, and possessed of an utterly singular mood, it’s a touching film, even for its brutal sadness.