Collections/February 2024
Directed by Shirley Clarke
Experimental icon Shirley Clarke synthesized jazz, modern dance, and abstract expressionism into a dynamic vérité style that put her at the forefront of the emergent American independent film scene of the fifties and sixties. Beginning her artistic career as a dancer, she brought a choreographer’s feeling for rhythm and movement to early dance films like Dance in the Sun and Bullfight and to kinetic city symphonies like Bridges-Go-Round and the Academy Award–nominated documentary Skyscraper . Though she directed only a handful of features—including the controversial beatnik bombshell The Connection and the nonfiction queer-cinema classic Portrait of Jason —they stand as taboo-busting landmarks of the American underground that pointed the way toward a radical counter-cinema.
22 films — 21 on the Channel, 1 unavailable
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