Shirley Clarke

Eight drug addicts are waiting for their connection in a New York apartment belonging to Leach. Jim Dunn, a budding filmmaker, has agreed to pay for the fix if the addicts will allow him to film the connection scene... (imdb)

A stark semi-documentary look at the horrors of Harlem ghetto slum life filled with drugs, violence, human misery, and a sense of despair due to the racial prejudices of American society. (imdb)

Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne, house boy, would be cabaret performer, and self proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked pill-popped, view of what it was like to be coloured and gay in 1960's America. (imdb)

Essential, integral experimental work from the late 1950s is an incredible dance of montage and super-imposition starring none other than New York City's various bridges... (imdb)

In dance in the sun, produced with dancer/choreographer Daniel Nagrin, Clarke cuts between scenes of the same dance, shot in the studio and on the beach, creating a rhythmic pattern that accelerates at film's climax. Through Clarke's careful attention to choreographic detail and continuity editing, the dancer Daniel Nagrin, moves between an exterior setting, the beach, and an interior studio. The space interchange with increasing intensity, connected by Nagrin's body alone. (SurrealMoviez)

Clarke moves away from the strictly depictive perspective maintained in Dance in The sun and towards an expressive and interpretive use of the camera in A Moment in Love. As the dancers move, the camera not only follows them but exceeds and breaks their trajectories. It manipulates their perceptible movements to such an extent that the dancers appear to be gliding among the clouds, suspended in endless and even supernatural bliss. (SurrealMoviez)

Performance by Johanna Went.

Music video for Johanna Went.

Biopic of jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman.

In the final year of his life, several of Robert Frost's speaking engagements are intercut with scenes of his everyday life in rural Vermont. Won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

A Scary Time was funded by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund so as to promote Unicef as an organisation. (Senses of Cinema)

Documentary that details through music and narrative the construction of 666 5th Avenue in New York City..

An unscripted cinema verité allowing us a few minutes on what it is like at a Paris park--children playing, going on rides, feeding the animals at a petting zoo, watching a puppet show, etc. We also see men playing cards and croquet. (imdb)

Clarke parallels the sense of spectacle and the real violence of an actual bullfight with a dance interpretation of the emotional experience, using a distillation of the ritual gestures in the Spanish bull ring. In her intense interpretation, Sokolow embodies both matador and bull, both executioner and the sacrifice. (imdb)

Shown at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, these loops by directors Shirley Clarke and D.A. Pennebaker were intended to show and promote American life. Utilizing a jazz-like structure and incorporating optical effects, these short films put Clarke and Pennebaker's work on display for the world to see. (filmstruck.com)

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Museum of Art, this highly edited work complemented an exhibit on Persian art. Focused on the beauty within textiles, notably rugs, this short film illustrates director Shirley Clarke's eye for detail. (filmstruck.com)

Left to viewer interpretation, this beautiful dance piece displays a spiritual or religious initiation. A short work, this film was released as part of Shirley Clarke's Four Journeys Into Mystic Time. (filmstruck.com)

A pair of performers wearing bodysuits dance and balance together in this short film by director Shirley Clarke, part of her Four Journeys Into Mystic Time project. (filmstruck.com)

An abstract work featuring three dancers, the performers interact with large screens as well as each other. Included in Shirley Clarke's Four Journeys Into Mystic Time, costuming and color play an integral role in this piece. (filmstruck.com)

Part of the larger filmic journey Four Journeys Into Mystic Time, in this work director Shirley Clarke makes use of a dancer's body not only as the primary performer, but also as a canvas on which to paint projected images. Further enhanced by editing and effective use of shadows, the film is a transformative experience. (filmstruck.com)

A prelude to Tongues (1982), director Shirley Clarke worked with writer Sam Shepard and actor/director Joseph Chaikin on this video piece that languishes over love and its effect on people. (filmstruck.com)

A performance piece written by Sam Shepard, enacted by Joseph Chaikin and directed by Shirley Clarke, a dying man reflects on his life while delivering his own last rites. A meeting of the minds given the acclaimed artists contributing to this endeavor, the short video work highlights the talents of everyone involved. (filmstruck.com)

A Visual Diary is a look at a private moment in one's life. A narrative form without utilizing a story line. The collaboration incorporates naturalistic non-verbal theater and dance techniques with photographs providing the environment.