Magic Box: The Films of Shirley Clarke

THE MAGIC BOX: THE FILMS OF SHIRLEY CLARKE, 1929-1987

Milestone Film, Blu-ray, Release Date Nov 15, 2016

Review by Christopher S. Long

Milestone Film's sprawling, four-volume Project Shirley now runs at 1,165 minutes, give or take a few minutes for rounding errors. That's a daunting 19 hours and spare change, but I feel like the spirit of this grand enterprise is captured in just a few seconds on one of the smaller features included in Volume Four, “The Magic Box: The Films of Shirley Clarke, 1929-1987.”

Disc Two of this three-disc package kicks off with a one-minute montage of still photos of Shirley Clarke, the filmmaker/star of this whole project, in the midst of various ballet moves, back when she was known to the world as young dancer Shirley Brimberg. On the final photo of Clarke (then Brimberg), the camera zooms in to a tight close-up on her face, as she looks intent on striking the perfect pose, and holds as the Shostakovich on the soundtrack reaches its final climax.

Shirley Brimberg

The inclusion of such a “minor” feature at all provides yet another example of the meticulousness that defines every Milestone release. The placement this little feature at the beginning of a disc with over two-and-a-half hours of footage indicates that Project Shirley does not consider anything about its title star to be “minor.” The final zoom in on Clarke's face suggests that the Milestone team possesses a strong affinity for the woman herself, not just her work, an affinity that might qualify as unabashed personal affection, though I hesitate to act as a mind reader.

Project Shirley has taken Milestone nearly a decade to complete, and what began as an effort to fully restore the reputation of a great American filmmaker who had been unfairly overlooked has finished as an unqualified success of impressive proportions. The first three volumes of Project Shirley centered around feature films, including “The Connection” (1962),Clarke's renowned adaptation of a play about strung-out jazz musicians waiting for their next fix; “Portrait of Jason” (1967), a landmark LGBT film about a self-described “stone whore” and hustler; and the free-wheeling, psychedelic jazz documentary “Ornette: Made in America” (1984).

The copious extras included in each volume chronicled the professional and personal journey of Shirley Clarke, the dancer turned filmmaker who spent as much of her career struggling to secure resources to complete projects as she did shooting the groundbreaking films at the heart of Project Shirley. Volume Four relates even more of this story, with a dizzying array of films of various lengths, though mostly of the short variety; some completed, some abandoned unfinished, some taken over by other filmmakers, some only recently discovered during the research for Project Shirley.

The nearly forty titles nestled gently inside of this “Magic Box” run over eight hours in total and range from Clarke's boldest experimental films to a PBS-style (and Oscar-winning) documentary about poet Robert Frost and even include numerous home movies from Clarke's childhood, her wedding, and family vacations. Any documented aspect of Clarke's story is fair game for Project Shirley. I can only touch on a representative sampling of the work on this volume.

Disc One is devoted to Clarke's more experimental films, kicking off with a lengthy compilation titled “Brussels Film Loops.” This 59-minute feature consists of a series of short films commissioned for the American Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World Fair, some credited solely to Clarke, some to famed documentarian D.A. Pennebaker with Clarke editing. They offer short portraits of American life: Western landscapes, city life, the American melting pot, etc.

“Bridges-Go-Round” is pure Clarke, and a fine example of her interest in manipulating the image, from color tinting to off-kilter angles providing vertiginous rides along a city bridge; you might even call it a dance. Electronic music on the soundtrack also demonstrates Clarke's interest in exploring the creative potentials of audio design, often with an intentionally alienating effect - witness the juxtapositions of gunfire and the sound of a baby crying on the jarring anti-war short “Butterfly” (1967, 4 min.), and one of the disc's true gems, the kaleidoscopic “24 Frames Per Second” (1977, 3 min.) which pairs swirling, rapid-fire images of Persian art with a distorted, aggressive soundtrack that is simultaneously energizing and agitating.

Skyscraper

One of the better films in the collection is Clarke's Oscar-winning short film “Skyscraper” (1960, 21 min.), made in collaboration with Willard Van Dyke, D.A. Pennebaker, Irving Jacoby, and John Sylvester White. Playful narration meets actuality footage to tell the heroic tale of the construction of a skyscraper from the ground up at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York, a building which would become the one-time headquarters of DC Comics (among other less significant American institutions.)

Disc Two houses the Dance Films of Shirley Clarke. Dance was Clarke's first passion and when the talented dancer realized she wasn't likely to work as a full-time professional ballet performer, she devoted her attention to capturing dance performances on film. I admit up front that I know as much about dance as I do about saying no to a second helping of my grandmother's pasta at New Year's Dinner, but for dance aficionados, these films offer some special treats. “Dance In the Sun” (1953, 7 min.) is described by Milestone as Clarke's first “official” film and features renowned dancer/choreographer Daniel Nagrin in a short piece that match cuts between his dance performance in studio and on a sandy beach... then ends with him leaning on a piano and smoking a post-recital cigarette, one of the playful touches that colors so much of Clarke's work.

The famous dancer and choreographer Anna Sokolow, also a co-founder of the Actors' Studio, collaborated with Clarke on multiple films on this disc, as choreographer on a brief excerpt titled “A Short Lecture and Demonstration on the Evolution of Ragtime by Jelly Roll Morton” (1952, 2 min.) and then starring in Clarke's short film “Bullfight” (9 min.), playing the roles of matador, bull, and audience in what Milestone lists as “the only record of the great dancer in performance.” Sokolow also collaborated with Clarke on the film “A Moment In Love” (9 min.), pairing Sokolow's choreography with Clarke's reliance on tinting and double exposures.

Disc Three offers more of a hodgepodge. “Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel With The World” (52 min.) won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 1964. The film was taken over during post-production by producer Robert Hughes, but Clarke remains credited as director. This “long-unseen complete version” was released shortly after Frost passed away and features the octogenarian poet holding court for audiences large and small, young and old, and also puttering around alone in his home. It's standard fare formally, but gripping due to Frost's considerable presence. The disc also includes the short film “Christopher and Me” (16 min.), directed by Richard Leacock with “continuity and dialogue by Shirley Clarke.” It's a cute children's film about a boating race which ends with a song written by D.A. Pennebaker.

The rest of the disc consists primarily of home movies and photos, from Clarke as a child to footage of her home life with husband Bert and family vacatons. One of these “home movies” is actually a series of on-set Outtakes (13 min.) from Agnes Varda's film “Lion's Love” (1969) in which Clarke acted (as herself). Evidence here suggests Varda really liked to smoke. I had been told about this footage in the past by the good folks at Milestone, but didn't expect it to actually show up on disc. It's a pleasant surprise for any Varda-phile, and that's surely everyone, right? You get some footage of Warhol superstar Viva too.

This collection (and the entirety of Project Shirley) is too expansive to sum up easily, and the same is true of Shirley Clarke's no-longer-eclipsed career. What we can say is that Project Shirley has spared no effort in providing audiences with the ability to explore her work, from feature films to childhood photos, from experimental short films to documentaries. It's almost impossible to ask for anything more.

A detailed listing of the offerings on each disc follows:

DISC ONE: EXPERIMENTAL

“Brussels Loops” (59 min.) - described above

“Bridges-Go-Round 1” (4 min.) and “Bridges-Go-Round 2” - described above

“Scary Time” (1960, 16 min) – A film commissioned by and then banned by UNICEF as Clarke and Robert Hughes's juxtaposition of American kids playing dress-up at Halloween with images of starving and sick children in other countries proved a bit too disturbing.

“Skyscraper” (21 min.) - described above

“Butterfly” (4 min.) - A Vietnam protest film by Shirley and her daughter Wendy, which was only screened once, then rediscovered during Project Shirley. It was previously included on the “Portrait of Jason” disc.

“Savage/Love” (1981, 26 min.) and “Tongues” (20 min.) - Video recordings of one-man stage monologues written by Sam Shepard and performed by Joseph Chaikin. Just the sort of theater pieces I'm fundamentally allergic to, but considering the talent involved, surely of interest to many. Clarke really loves to manipulate the video image even with such a straightforward setup as a monologue.

“24 Frames Per Second” (3 min.) - Described above and flat-out great.

“Three Video Variations on 24 Frames Per Second” (11 min.) - Dancers imposed in front of the Persian art images from the short film, in (you guessed it) three different variations.

DISC TWO: DANCE

“Shirley Dancing – A Photo Gallery” (1 min.) - A montage of stills.

“Fear Flight” (1953, 11 min.) - Another recent discovery from the Clarke archives, an unfinished film (a silent work print) of a dancer in front of a blank wall, choreographed by Beatrice Seckler.

“Jelly Roll Morton” (2 min.) - described above.

“Home Movies #20: Dance Tests” (6 min.) - More footage of dancer Daniel Nagrin.

“Dance In the Sun” (1953, 7 min.) - described above

“In Paris Parks” (1954, 14 min.) - When Clarke traveled to Paris and got stood up by her planned film subject, she used her time to film this shot film in Paris featuring her daughter Wendy playing, maintenance workers setting up kids' rides, and a very unsafe-looking zoo.

“This Is Not In Paris Parks” (13 min.) - A a “surprise” second film Clarke was shooting in Paris (another recent discovery), this unfinished piece is somewhere between outtakes and final film. As if including this wasn't fastidious enough, Milestone went ahead and commissioned a new score by the great Donald Sosin as accompaniment because that's just the way they roll.

“Decroux” (15 min.) - Starring French mime Etienne Decroux in performance.

“Bullfight” (9 min.) and “Bullfight Outtakes” (2 min.) - described above

“Rose And the Players – Part 1 (13 min.) and Part 2(7 min.)” - Excerpts from another unfinished film, this collaboration between Clarke and Anna Sokolow shows Sokolow directing a rehearsal of some of her choreographed pieces. This project was unfinished, but let to...

“A Moment In Love” (9 min.) - described above

“Four Journeys Into Mystic Time” - Four short films from the same cycle, a Clarke collaboration with choreographer Marion Scott. Occult imagery abounds in sometimes poorly-lit images (the original negatives are missing) of some very strange dance performers beyond my ken.

DISC THREE: ROBERT FROST AND THE HOME MOVIES

“Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel” (52 min.) - described above

“Christopher and Me” (16 min.) - described above

“Lion's Love Outtakes” (13 min.) - described above

“The Brimberg and Clarke Photo Albums” (6 min.) - an extensive collection of family photos

“Television Interview w/ Shirley Clarke in Minneapolis” (1956, 3 min.) - Clarke patiently answers questions about what it's like to be a female filmmaker, and shares her love for dance.

“Home Movies” - Six different features running a total of 41 minutes, including home movies from Clarke as a child, to her wedding, to vacations with family and friends. The highlight of these feature are the only two known film recordings of Clarke dancing, ever so briefly.

Video:

With nearly forty different titles over a fifty year period, some in B&W and some in color, some only recently found in archives, the video quality obviously varies throughout the set. However, the image quality is consistently strong throughout as many titles have been restored. Any brief weak spots (some dark shots in “Bullfight” for example) are very much the exception in a consistently well-produced set.

Audio:

A similar deal here. Many films, many sources, some are silent, sometimes the sound is intentionally distorted by Clarke. My copious viewing/listening notes do not include any references to troublesome sound spots, so another fine job here.

Extras:

What, you wanted even more? Sorry, you'll have to settle for just 500 or so minutes of material. OK, fine, Milestone also includes a slim insert booklet with more detailed information about the Magic Box's contents.

Final Thoughts:

Other studios have released massive DVD/Blu-ray sets dedicated to a filmmaker's work. I have not yet seen one with quite the scope of Project Shirley. Milestone isn't just showing off by including so many titles, both short and long. While Clarke is remembered for features like “The Connection” and “Portrait of Jason” she spent much of her time struggling to complete projects, and her unfinished films are just as crucial to an appreciation of her career. The inclusion of several variations on her films (many previously buried in the archives) also provides evidence of an artist constantly experimenting and refining her technique. Clarke may have “only” completed a handful of features, but she was constantly working at her craft.

Milestone's Project Shirley leaves us with an indelible portrait of a great American filmmaker who was both politically engaged and formally engaged in an exploration of the mediums in which she worked, including video as well as film. Project Shirley is more than a DVD series, it's a scholarly biography and, just as important, a pleasure to watch. “The Magic Box” is no exception.

I've had the pleasure of reviewing all four volumes of Project Shirley, and I invite you to check out my reviews by clicking below on either the Project Shirley or Clarke.Shirley tabs. The entire project is, to say the very least, essential viewing for any cinephile.

The Connection

THE CONNECTION (Clarke, 1962)

Milestone Films, Blu-ray, Release Date February 24, 2015

Review by Christopher S. Long

At the very least, director Shirley Clarke's debut feature “The Connection” (1962) creates an indelible sense of time and place. A handheld camera explores every nook and cranny of the vast but rundown New York City loft inhabited by a dozen or so drug-addicted jazz musicians eagerly awaiting their next heroin fix: “Is Cowboy back yet?” A chintzy checkerboard table, a ratty cot and a rusted potbelly stove are nearly all that break up the floor space otherwise devoted to the piano and drum kit around which the musicians spontaneously break out in performance every now and then. Branching off from the main room are a kitchen partly cordoned off by a curtain and a never-glimpsed bathroom which serves as the mini-Mecca to which each junkie makes his own pilgrimage for his desperately needed hit.

In a film shot more or less in real time over nearly two hours, this constructed set feels like a very lived-in space on a very specific afternoon, an impressive enough accomplishment on its own, but Shirley Clarke had far greater ambitions for her project. Clarke was a founding member of a recent film cooperative (along with luminaries such as Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles) that helped to refine some of the principles of early cinema verité in America, but she was never comfortable buying into the overblown truth claims that would emerge about the desirability or even the possibility of objectivity in documentary filmmaking.

Jack Gelber's play “The Connection” provided the perfect source for Clarke to adapt into a critique of said truth claims. Gelber's play was about drug-addicted Greenwich Village jazz musicians but also featured a (fictional) director and playwright on stage as well as pre-planned audience interaction to add multiple levels of reflexivity to the proceedings. It wasn't a huge leap for Gelber's film script to rejigger the story to frame the movie as a documentary being shot by a director and a cinematographer trying to capture the “truth” about junkies.

The film actually kicks off with a printed statement read by “camera man” J.J. Burden who claims that documentarian Jim Dunn put the footage in his care and that Burden edited it “as honestly as I could.” It's soon apparent that the word “honest” is intended ironically. The film quickly doubles down on this theme when, after spending a little time listening to his somewhat histrionic subjects, director Dunn (William Redfield) jumps in front of the camera to order the addicts to calm down and act natural because he's “just trying to make an honest human document” and, gosh darn it, he knows “something about Eisenstein and Flaherty.” To my taste, the film's weakest point is the over-stacking of the deck against a director shown to be a clueless blowhard from the get go. But direct cinema was in its first blush as the ascendant documentary paradigm in America, and it appears that Clarke was eager to prick its bubble before it had a chance to fully inflate.

Cinematographer J.J. seems much more sensible from his perch behind the camera but even he is pulled in front of the camera at one point (and lo and behold, it's the great Roscoe Lee Brown in his first film role!) to emphasize that he's no objective observer either. One of the African-American musicians also taunts J.J. about working for a white director, “Is your name gonna be on this film?” Clarke was juggling quite a few balls with her deceptively modest debut.

As the day wears on, each of the cast members holds court for the camera at some point, mostly reminding Dunn that he has no idea about the reality about their everyday life is and that pointing a camera at them for a few weeks won't get him or the audience any closer to it. The stage-intense performances sometimes play a bit too big in front of a camera, but they establish the ebb and flow that determines the film's cyclical rhythm. Frantic harangues yield to drowsy slumping as the players crash while waiting for Cowboy (Carl Lee) to return to the apartment with their new supply; fresh-sliced pineapples can only provide enough energy to bridge the briefest of gaps while they wait. Fortunately they have enough oomph to break into some fabulous jazz numbers from time to time with a score composed by the great Freddie Redd; Redd and several other major jazz performers of the time work in the cast and jam.

Most of the graphic details of drug use are staged off-screen behind that omnipresent closed bathroom door, but after playing coy for a while, Clarke shows one of the men (Warren Finnerty as Leach) shooting up in exquisite detail. You would think this would be the central sticking point (no pun intended) for critics of the film and perhaps it really was, but when “The Connection” ran into trouble with New York state censors it was ostensibly over the repeated use of the word “shit” as slang for heroin. The film's scheduled May 1962 opening was delayed for months as Clarke and her backers battled the New York Board of Regents. It eventually played in the D.W. Griffith Theatre without being cleared for exhibition and the theater was subsequently shut down and the projectionist arrested. 

Eventually the good guys won, but the protracted legal battle had all but sunk the film's theatrical chances, though at least the fight guaranteed that “The Connection” would be a cause célebrè among the cognoscenti. It helped that the very hip Clarke (born into a wealthy family and already a respected New York artist) had powerful “connections” of her own ranging from Allen Ginsberg to Jonas Mekas. “The Connection” was considered one of the major American independent films of the '60s, the first of several for Clarke, but has been largely out of distribution for the past three decades. Because of that, the significance of Clarke's pioneering work has since been overshadowed by some of her peers such as John Cassavetes (who borrowed her film equipment to help make his own debut feature “Shadows”), which explains why Milestone Films has stepped up to the plate to remedy that oversight with their epic Project Shirley.

Project Shirley already yielded the Blu-ray and DVD releases of the extraordinary “Portrait of Jason” (1967) and the jazz documentary “Ornette: Made In America” (1985) late last year. Now this February 2015 release of “The Connection” continues this grand enterprise which will have at least one more volume later this year. (Click the Project Shirley label tab at the bottom of this review to read about the other titles.)

That decaying loft with its little kitchen and mysterious bathroom and its cheap checkerboard table almost seems like it's still there today with the same aging junkies still waiting for Cowboy to help them get through another night. You can certainly understand why Milestone was motivated to make this indie landmark widely available to a new audience.

Video:

From Milestone's press release, this film was “preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding by The Film Foundation. It was restored from the original 35mm acetate picture and soundtrack negatives and a 35mm composite master positive... In 2012, Milestone contributed the money to create a new preservation 35mm negative.” The collaboration between Milestone and UCLA Film & Television Archive has produced a high-def transfer that is nothing short of astounding in richness and detail. I freeze-framed the movie several times just to walk up close to my TV and scan the image. The grain is thick and beautiful and the image resolution is remarkably sharp; if you want to you can stop and study the detail along the loft's wall, including the writing/graffiti in a few spots. This is an absolutely superb high-def transfer and I cannot imagine anyone has seen the film looking any better since its initial screening... if even then!

Audio:

The linear PCM 2.0 soundtrack is crisp and efficient, occasionally sparkling when needed with some of those marvelous jazz numbers. The dialogue sounds appropriately hollow as if being delivered in the large space we see on-screen. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

Milestone leaves few cinematic stones unturned when curating their releases. “The Connection” is not nearly as packed as Milestone's other release this week, the wonderful “In The Land Of The Head Hunters”, but the supplementary features are both ample and interesting.

The extras start with “The Connection Home Movie” (6 min.), a 16mm collection of on-set footage mostly featuring playwright/screenwriter Jack Gelber and his young son as well as a few shots from the inside of the bathroom that is never glimpsed in the film.

An interview with jazz composer Freddie Redd (27 min.) is absolutely riveting even when he's just bragging about being friends with Charlie Parker because, really, who wouldn't brag about that? He talks about how he got involved first with Gelber's play and then with Clarke's film. What a great interview subject. He deserves his own feature-length documentary.

We also get a shorter conversation with art director Albert Brenner (2014, 5 min.) which has a minor problem with low volume, but it's audible if you just turn up your settings a bit.

The disc also includes a collection of still photos from on-set and behind-the-scenes (6 min.), including several pictures of Shirley Clarke at work as well as a short Trailer (1 min.) and some home footage of actor Carl Lee at the Chelsea Hotel (4 min.) where Shirley Clarke lived. The final extras are audio recordings (2 min. each) of two songs produce for the publicity campaign: “Who Killed Cock Robin?” and “I'm In Love.”

Milestone had originally planned to include a 1959 radio interview with Shirley Clarke (29 min.) - it's even listed on the back of the disc – but left it off at the last minute due to poor sound quality and because it wasn't directly related to the film. They have, however, made the feature available on Vimeo. You can find the link to it at the bottom of Milestone's page for the film if you are interested.

Final Thoughts:

As much as I liked the previous Shirley Clarke films released by Milestone, I was mildly apprehensive about “The Connection” due to my general aversion to filmed theater. I had nothing to worry about. The pseudo-documentary framing device may be a bit old hat by now but is so deftly used here it still somehow seems fresh. The high-def transfer is immaculate too. Highly recommended, of course.

Ornette: Made in America

ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA (Clarke, 1984)

Milestone Films, Blu-ray, Release Date November 11, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

You probably don't expect a documentary about a jazz musician to begin with a re-enacted Western gunfight or to take a trip into space, but Ornette Coleman wasn't like most jazz musicians. For that matter, Shirley Clarke, director of “Ornette: Made in America” (1984), wasn't like many other filmmakers.

Perhaps a director who blazed her own trail with landmark films such as “The Connection” (1962) and “Portrait of Jason” (1967) saw a kindred spirit in the free jazz pioneer whose style was so unique that existing terminology couldn't describe him. He didn't play harmony, he played harmolodics and he saw little difference between his idiosyncratic compositions and his idealistic philosophy/cosmology.

For such a complex man it's appropriate that this film had a complex genesis. Producer Kathelin Hoffman Gray had contacted Coleman to open a new venue in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman's home town (a 1983 ceremony honoring the artist is the occasion of the opening gun fight). Gray soon learned about footage that Shirley Clarke had shot in the '60s of Coleman and his young son Denardo, then an aspiring jazz drummer, and felt Clarke was the best person to complete the project two decades later.

According to Gray, Clarke was interested in continuing her chronicle of an artist and his son (now an adult and an accomplished professional drummer) while Gray and Coleman saw the film as a contemplation of the creative process. Both perspectives play off each other productively in a film that combines documentary footage from multiple eras (present day being lensed by the great cinematographer and volcanic-non-eruption-survivor Ed Lachman) with dramatic recreations of Coleman's childhood in Ft. Worth, a hardscrabble experience for a young Ornette who could not have imagined he would one day be receiving the key to the city. Or maybe he could; he's got quite an imagination. 

The documentary utilizes multiple formats as well (8mm, 16mm, super 16, and video) while frequently overlapping concert performances from different decades. Shirley Clarke was a dancer before she turned to the cinema so it's not surprising that she would want her film to sway to the music. Several sequences are cut like experimental music videos, strobing and blurring along with the atonal songs. I'm not sure how successful Clarke is at finding a video analogue to Coleman's unique orchestration (her choices seem too redundantly literal at times) but the synesthetic attempt to answer the question “What does free jazz look like?” is occasionally quite intoxicating.

Clark is too savvy to try to answer too many questions about the man at the center of the movie. She's more interested in listening to his soft, slightly lisping voice as he holds court on a variety of subjects, alternating between insightful and utterly impenetrable. One of the great fascinations of Ornette Coleman is the impossibility of categorizing him. He is unique, a true American original and just one strange, brilliant dude. This one story he tells near the end... I just can't tell you about it. Any effort to stuff him or his work into a familiar box would have missed the point altogether. Instead, Clarke's cubistic decade-hopping approach leaves the impression that Coleman has always existed or perhaps that he exists simultaneously at all the points along his timeline, always in communication with all the Ornettes who have ever been or ever will be.

The documentary also features appearances by some of the artists and thinkers who occasionally wandered into Coleman's eccentric orbit, including William S. Burroughs and Buckminster Fuller. 

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. The documentary combines footage from different decades and different formats (much in color, some in black-and-white) so the image quality obviously varies. From Milestone's press notes, “the film has been preserved from the original edited 35mm negative, which incorporates blow-ups form a variety of archival sources as well as Shirley Clarke's and Ed Lachman's Super-16mm original camera footage.” Obviously 8mm or 16mm footage will look grainier when blown-up but this high-def transfer from Milestone looks consistently sharp throughout with some of the concert footage almost startlingly crisp.

Audio:

The Mono audio mix was restored by John Polito of Audio Mechanics and sounds quite sharp and clean. I'm not enough of a musicologist or audiophile to tell you how true the sound is to Coleman's complex compositions and massive orchestras, but there were certainly no problems that I noticed. Optional SDH English subtitles have been provided.

Extras:

Nobody will ever accuse Milestone of going cheap on the extras.

“Shirley Loves Felix” is a fun little featurette (5 min.). Shirley, displaying her excellent taste, was a big fan of Felix the Cat. This short spot cuts Clarke into a typically minimalist excerpt from the Felix cartoon “Out of Luck” then plays the short feature in its entirety (or at least whatever survives of it).

“The Link Revisited” is a 32 minute interview with Denardo Coleman that revisits (surprise) one of the crucial scenes from the film.

The disc also includes a lengthy (59 min.) interview with Shirley Clarke conducted by Joyce Wexler-Ballard in a studio at UCLA on May 24, 1982. Clarke meets the camera's gaze and speak very candidly open her life and career. For any fans of Clarke, this is a very revealing and moving must-see. The only minor complaint is that this hour-long interview is not broken up into chapters.

We also get an audio interview with Clarke and Coleman that was originally recorded in 1986 for KPFK radio station in Los Angeles. It includes an introduction to the piece and runs 29 minutes.

There are also two trailers, one running 1 min, 31 sec and the other at 37 sec.

The Blu-ray also comes with a slim booklet featuring an essay by producer Kathelin Hoffman Gray.

Film Value:

It might not be the ultimate trip, but it's still a real trip. “Ornette: Made in America” was Shirley Clarke's final film, the capper to a career that has been much neglected but is now being revivified by the good folks at Milestone Film and Video. “Ornette” is Volume 3 in their ambitious Project Shirley. It is being released on Nov 11, 2014 along with Volume 2, “Portrait of Jason” (1967). Volume 1, “The Connection,” will follow in a few months.

Portrait of Jason

PORTRAIT OF JASON (Clarke, 1967)

Milestone Films, Blu-ray, Release Date November 11, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

Just point your camera at reality, don't interfere with your subjects, and you will capture the truth. That was a common claim often associated with cinema verité though, to be fair, the filmmakers themselves seldom made such grand pronouncements (mostly just Robert Drew and his closest compatriots in direct cinema, a verité offshoot).

American independent director Shirley Clarke clearly had no patience with such rhetoric. The first hint comes in the title of her 1967 mostly-documentary “Portrait of Jason.” Though Jason Holliday appears alone on camera for the entire running time of the film, we are not seeing the real Jason Holliday, only a framing of him, one that necessarily leaves out more than it includes.

That's what happens when a filmmaker decides to point her camera at one thing and not another. But the framing began long before the film started rolling because, you see, Jason Holliday was born Aaron Payne and created the character of Jason because it better suited him once he moved to San Francisco. He'll become someone else as soon it suits him too. Jason is African-American, gay, and a self-described hustler and “stone whore” who dreams of one day staging his own cabaret show.

Jason may or may not possess the focus to follow through on his ambition but he certainly is a natural performer and gifted raconteur. That's what gave Clarke the idea that Jason would make a great film subject in the first place, and she wanted to concentrate his magnetic pull as much as possible. “Portrait of Jason” takes place entirely over a twelve-hour late night and early morning shoot, recorded in Clarke's apartment at the Chelsea Hotel, in late 1966. 

Hiding comfortably behind tinted sunglasses and often clutching a drink and/or a cigarette, Jason sings and laughs and cries while recounting a series of anecdotes from a hustling life that's seen him “balling from Maine to Mexico” in his lifelong effort to avoid punching the clock. Whether any of the stories about old loves and crappy bosses are actually true is irrelevant; what matters is how Jason chooses to present himself to the world (by which I mean the camera) and the considerable verve with which he does it.

Jason rambles and cracks himself up constantly (credit vodka as co-auteur here) but he can turn a magical phrase every now and then: “If I'd have been a ranch, they'd call me the Bar None.” His picaresque tale about his abusive father known in the neighborhood as Brother Tough is a genuinely great spoken word performance. Jason's mind seems to wander all over the place, but it's obvious he has a plan; the character of Jason Holliday is going to be exactly who he wants him to be.

However, Shirley Clarke has a plan too and the film gets really interesting as it turns into a battle of wills over who gets to draw this portrait of Jason. If viewers find themselves veering from admiration to exasperation with Jason, the feeling is echoed loudly by Clarke and her partner Carl Lee, both of whom are heard calling out to Jason from off-camera (like many indie/underground films of the period, “Jason” constantly calls attention to its own methods of production). Jason frequently ignores a request to tell a certain story in favor of what he wants to talk about instead, but it's harder for him to brush off moments when the off-screen prompts turn into bold accusations. Jason puts on a great show, but his interlocutors remind him that he has also hurt many people (including, it seems, the filmmakers) and has never shown regret for it. Jason's inability to muster the slightest bit of sympathy when talking about his mother appears to support their claim. His Jason Holliday is definitely not Shirley Clarke's Jason Holliday.

Whatever the “truth” about Jason is, perhaps the final lesson is that the person with final cut always wins. That also makes winners out of the audience as Clarke's boozy, perilous portrait of Jason Holliday remains an indelible one five decades later. You may not love Jason, but you will never forget him.

Shirley Clarke had become a major force in American independent cinema with the releases of “The Connection” (1962) and “The Cool World” (1963) and her star was still burning bright with “Portrait of Jason” which was described as “the most extraordinary film I've seen in my life” by Ingmar Bergman. However, she struggled to secure financing for future projects, and produced mostly video shorts until her final release, the feature-length documentary “Ornette: Made in America” (1985).

Her legacy became increasingly obscured after the '60s, all but disappearing from chronicles of the American independent scene. I admit I knew virtually nothing about her until this film. Milestone Film and Video has undertaken the ambitious Project Shirley as a means to remedy this oversight. “Portrait of Jason” and “Ornette: Made in America” are the first home-release products of their Herculean multi-year labor (they are labeled Volume 2 and Volume 3 of Project Shirley, but Volume 1, “The Connection,” will follow in a few months). When you see them, you shouldn't have any trouble understanding why Milestone thought the project was worth the considerable effort.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.33: aspect ratio. The “Where's Shirley?” feature included on the disc (see below) tells the complicated tale of how Milestone put together this impressive restoration. “Jason” had been released on DVD from a print at the Museum of Modern Art, but the image was very soft and missing several frames as well as a few minutes of original footage. Milestone scoured the world for better source material and found it and had it restored in conjunction with the Academy Film Archive and Modern VideoFilm.

The effort certainly pays off. This high-def transfer is not free of flaws, but it isn't supposed to be. According to Milestone, Clarke wanted a rough look so instead of cleaning up every speck and distortion they preserved a quality very close to what it looked like on its initial release in 1967. The minor imperfections along the way contribute to the film's naturalistic feel and the image quality, while not razor sharp, is a vast improvement over the previously available version. In other words, another great job from Milestone.

Audio:

The LPCM audio mix is similar to the video; it's not flawless but it isn't meant to be. Jason wander sthe frame wherever he wants to and sometimes audio isn't quite as crystal clear as at other times (he trails off sometimes too), but it's never difficult to make out. The off-screen voices are clearly audible too. Optional SDH English subtitles have been provided.

Extras:

As usual, Milestone has turned one of their single volume releases into a comprehensive compendium.

“Where's Shirley?” (25 min.) is the kind of feature that makes any cinephile stand up and cheer. Milestone founders/executives/all-around warriors (they even have the wounds to prove they've been in in the fight!) Amy Heller and Dennis Doros appear on camera to tell the inspiring story of their search for Shirley. More specifically their search for a quality negative of “Portrait of Jason,” a search which took them from New York to Wisconsin to Sweden and back again. If you can't appreciate the passion that goes into film preservation after watching this, you're just never going to understand.

“The Last Confrontation” (6 min.) includes a brief snippet of an interview of Shirley Clarke by filmmaker James Blue and then an audio extract of a fascinating scene which Clarke chose to cut from the final print of “Portrait of Jason.”

“Jason in Color!” (2 min.) shows Jason (filmed in color, duh!) lounging in front of a restaurant in New York City circa 1971. “Jason Unleashed” (35 min.) consists of audio outtakes from the shoot.

“Jason Before and After” (1 min.) compared a previous version of the film sourced from a restoration by the Museum of Modern Art to the2K restoration Milestone has released on this disc. Let's just say the difference is vast.

“Butterfly” (1967, 4 min.) is an experimental short film by Shirley Clarke and daughter Wendy Clarke which played as part of an anti-war program that screened once at NYU. It's a little hard to describe, but definitely interesting.

The disc also includes two 1967 interviews: “Shirley Clarke in Underground New York” (10 min., featuring Clarke on screen) and a “Pacifica Radio Interview” (1967, 53 min.) with Clarke (audio only).

“The Jason Holliday Comedy Album” (54 min.) was recorded in 1967 but not released until 2007. Maybe that cabaret show was never destined to be an award-winner, but this is still a neat inclusion.

Film Value:

“Portrait of Jason” is a landmark LGBT film and a film that showcases the reflexive, reflective qualities of the best American documentaries being made in that golden era for the field. Jason is neither idolized nor vilified. He mesmerizes, he infuriates, but he never bores. This portrait is as incomplete as any other, but it's completely unforgettable.