Shirley Clarke was a Jewish female filmmaker who came to prominence in the 1960s, which meant she was almost unique. She started out as a dancer and choreographer, who moved in independent and experimental film circles when she crossed over into filmmaking. Her later work in the '70s and '80s consists almost totally of live video projects and dance-related endeavors. When she was active as a feature filmmaker, her work was almost totally unknown in the mainstream, and it was only after significant restoration efforts by Milestone Films that much of Clarke's work became available to the wider public in 2012.
Though some of her short films won awards and were well received, her features were not. Perhaps this is because so many of them were about African-American men. As Clarke put it, she didn't know how to deal with the "woman question," and found that she could relate better to the struggles of black men - a Harlem gang member, a beloved jazz musician, and a fascinating gay hustler and performer, who goes by the name Jason Holliday. Holliday is the subject of Clarke's 1967 film "Portrait of Jason," and I don't know whether to call it a documentary or not, because I have no idea how much of what we see is real and how much is a performance by the title character.
Jason Holliday is the only person we ever see in "Portrait of Jason," as he's being interviewed by Clarke and her partner Carl Lee, who can be heard offscreen. The interview took place entirely in Clarke's living room, during a shoot that reportedly lasted for twelve hours. The film cuts the footage down to 105 minutes. During this time, Holliday reels off stories about his life and adventures, several of them salacious and shocking. He frequently appears to be inebriated. He giggles, rambles, and seems to be on the verge of tears at one point. He spars with the interviewers, who call him out for his bad behavior, becoming more and more emotional as time goes on. There's been a lot of conjecture about what really happened during the course of that marathon all-day shoot. Was Clarke's goal to get Holliday to break down on camera? Is the film exploitative? Is it in bad taste? Holliday himself seemed to be delighted with the results in interviews, or at least with the attention and the notoriety the film brought him.
How much of what Holliday is telling us, is the truth? His stories certainly have the ring of authenticity to them, giving us a glimpse of the usually invisible lives of sex workers, LGBT individuals, and others on the lowest rung of the social ladder. What's so striking here is Holliday's attitude. He speaks about controversial, and at the time what would be considered indelicate subject matter, with great pride and wit. He's not ashamed of who he is and what he's done, even when challenged by the interviewers. He styles himself as an aspiring cabaret performer, sharing his observations on life and love with his audience. Jason Holliday is a persona, but it's a persona that has been chosen wholeheartedly.
Shirley Clarke had a fascinating career, and by her own admission it was only possible because she was rich and privileged, with the connections to get things made that other filmmakers couldn't. However, she used that privilege to put the lives of black men, heroin addicts, the unseen, and the ignored on screen. Her first feature film (which also happens to be the first found-footage film), "The Connection," was the subject of a pivotal censorship lawsuit due to its realistic use of vulgarity. Most of her narrative films blur the lines between truth and fiction, telling their stories through the improvisations of non-actors, usually to a jazz soundtrack. "Portrait of Jason" has more in common with these films than her straight documentaries, which is why I'm still hesitant to put it into either category.
Finally, I want to make a quick note that Andy Warhol tried to make a movie with Jason Holliday before Shirley Clarke did, which never came together. And this is probably the closest I'll ever come to covering Andy Warhol's work on this blog.
What I've Seen - Shirley Clarke
The Connection (1961)
Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World (1963)
The Cool World (1963)
Portrait of Jason (1967)
Ornette: Made in America (1985)
---
No comments:
Post a Comment