Film geeks, rejoice. Leading indie label Kino Lorber is entering the world of streaming. The company has launched Kino Film Collection, a new subscription video service available in the U.S. via’s Amazon’s Prime Video Channels. The Collection will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, many now streaming for the first time. It will cost users $5.99 per month.
Films available at launch include award-winning theatrical releases and critically acclaimed festival favorites and classics from around the globe, such as The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Taxi (Jafar Panahi), Poison (Todd Haynes), Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski), Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke), and A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke).
Joining them are entries...
Films available at launch include award-winning theatrical releases and critically acclaimed festival favorites and classics from around the globe, such as The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Taxi (Jafar Panahi), Poison (Todd Haynes), Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski), Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke), and A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke).
Joining them are entries...
- 11/2/2023
- by Patrick Brzeski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film at Lincoln Center
The Mother and the Whore begins a run in its 4K restoration; Scratch plays for free Friday night in Damrosch Park.
Museum of the Moving Image
E.T., The Green Ray, Risky Business, and Blow Out play on 35mm in a summer movie series; The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Great Muppet Caper, and Querelle also screen.
Bam
Juliet Berto’s superb directorial debut Neige begins playing in a long-overdue restoration.
Film Forum
A celebration of Ozu’s 120th birthday continues with a massive series; It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World plays this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
35mm prints of Portrait of Jason and The Rocky Horror Picture Show screen, while Happy Together plays; “City Dudes” plays on Saturday.
Anthology Film Archives
Buster Keaton and Ken Jacobs screen in Essential Cinema.
IFC Center
The David Lynch...
Film at Lincoln Center
The Mother and the Whore begins a run in its 4K restoration; Scratch plays for free Friday night in Damrosch Park.
Museum of the Moving Image
E.T., The Green Ray, Risky Business, and Blow Out play on 35mm in a summer movie series; The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Great Muppet Caper, and Querelle also screen.
Bam
Juliet Berto’s superb directorial debut Neige begins playing in a long-overdue restoration.
Film Forum
A celebration of Ozu’s 120th birthday continues with a massive series; It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World plays this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
35mm prints of Portrait of Jason and The Rocky Horror Picture Show screen, while Happy Together plays; “City Dudes” plays on Saturday.
Anthology Film Archives
Buster Keaton and Ken Jacobs screen in Essential Cinema.
IFC Center
The David Lynch...
- 6/22/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a precedent! Barbet Schroeder’s documentary gets up close and personal with a narcissistic dictator consumed by his own ego. Idi Amin rants and raves incoherently and demands to be the center of all attention while taking his country down a road to ruin. This is Africa in 1973, where Uganda has been converted into ‘The Idi Amin Reality Show’ — and where a minion in disfavor might be fed to the crocodiles.
General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 153
1974 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 90 min. / Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 12, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Idi Amin
Cinematography: Néstor Almendros
Film Editor: Denise de Casabianca
Original Music: Idi Amin
Produced by Jean-Francois Chauvel, Charles-Henri Favrod and Jean-Pierre Rassam
Written and Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Criterion’s decision to bump Barbet Schroeder’s daring 1970s documentary to Blu-ray at this...
General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 153
1974 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 90 min. / Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 12, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Idi Amin
Cinematography: Néstor Almendros
Film Editor: Denise de Casabianca
Original Music: Idi Amin
Produced by Jean-Francois Chauvel, Charles-Henri Favrod and Jean-Pierre Rassam
Written and Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Criterion’s decision to bump Barbet Schroeder’s daring 1970s documentary to Blu-ray at this...
- 12/5/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
In 1983, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, along with Media Study/Buffalo, created a touring retrospective of avant-garde films, primarily feature-length ones and a few shorts, which they called “The American New Wave 1958-1967.” To accompany the tour, a hefty catalog was produced that included notes on the films, essays by film historians and critics, writings by major underground film figures and more.
The retrospective was created at a time when financially viable independent filmmaking was on the rise, such as films made by John Sayles, Wayne Wang and Susan Seidelman. According to the co-curators of the retrospective, Melinda Ward and Bruce Jenkins, the objective of the tour was to:
provide a more adequate picture than conventional history affords us of a rare period of American cinematic invention and thereby prepare a coherent critical and historical context for the reception of the new work by the current generation of independent filmmakers.
The retrospective was created at a time when financially viable independent filmmaking was on the rise, such as films made by John Sayles, Wayne Wang and Susan Seidelman. According to the co-curators of the retrospective, Melinda Ward and Bruce Jenkins, the objective of the tour was to:
provide a more adequate picture than conventional history affords us of a rare period of American cinematic invention and thereby prepare a coherent critical and historical context for the reception of the new work by the current generation of independent filmmakers.
- 11/25/2017
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Above: Polish poster for The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria, 1965). Designer: Jerzy Flisak.As the 55th New York Film Festival winds down this weekend, I thought I’d look back half a century at the films of the 5th edition. That 1967 festival, programmed by Amos Vogel, Richard Roud, Arthur Knight, Andrew Sarris and Susan Sontag, featured 21 new films, all but three of which were from Europe (six of them from France, 2 and 1/7 of them directed by Godard), all of which showed at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall. (They also programmed Gance’s Napoleon, Mamoulian’s Applause and King Vidor’s Show People in the retrospective slots). The only director to have a film in both the 1967 festival and the 2017 edition is Agnès Varda, who was one of the directors of the omnibus Far From Vietnam and was then already 12 years into her filmmaking career.It will come as...
- 10/13/2017
- MUBI
It’s just a few weeks until this year’s Oscars, which means the Hollywood machine is running out of steam to provide “new angles” on various awards season campaigns and Oscar bloggers are trying to squeeze traffic out of last-minute prediction shifts. It’s fitting, then, that around this time every year we get a rather substantial update of one of the most comprehensive polls on the greatest films of all-time, not simply the November/December releases with the biggest marketing budget come Academy Awards time.
That’s right, They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? has now published their 2017 edition of 1,000 Greatest Films, culled together from an exhaustive list of major publications and critics. Still topped by Citizen Kane, I often find the most interesting portion to be those films that have most moved around, for better or worse, especially those with newfound critical admiration. This year, Terrence Malick...
That’s right, They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? has now published their 2017 edition of 1,000 Greatest Films, culled together from an exhaustive list of major publications and critics. Still topped by Citizen Kane, I often find the most interesting portion to be those films that have most moved around, for better or worse, especially those with newfound critical admiration. This year, Terrence Malick...
- 2/13/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
25 movies have been added to the National Film Registry, bringing the total number of cinematic works officially recognized by the Library of Congress to 700. Among the new additions are “The Birds,” “The Lion King,” “Point Blank” and “Rushmore” — the first of Wes Anderson’s films to be included.
In order to be so honored, a film must be at least 10 years old and deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the National Film Preservation Board. Full list below.
Read More: ‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘L.A. Confidential,’ ‘Shawshank Redemption,’ ‘Top Gun’ & More Enter The National Film Registry
“The Atomic Cafe” (1982)
“Ball of Fire” (1941)
“The Beau Brummels” (1928)
“The Birds” (1963)
“Blackboard Jungle” (1955)
“The Breakfast Club” (1985)
“The Decline of Western Civilization” (1981)
“East of Eden” (1955)
“Funny Girl” (1968)
“Life of an American Fireman” (1903)
“The Lion King” (1994)
“Lost Horizon” (1937)
“Musketeers of Pig Alley” (1912)
Read More: ‘Symbiopsychotaxiplasm,’ ‘Portrait of Jason,’ ‘Imitation of Life’ Among New Additions to National Film Registry...
In order to be so honored, a film must be at least 10 years old and deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the National Film Preservation Board. Full list below.
Read More: ‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘L.A. Confidential,’ ‘Shawshank Redemption,’ ‘Top Gun’ & More Enter The National Film Registry
“The Atomic Cafe” (1982)
“Ball of Fire” (1941)
“The Beau Brummels” (1928)
“The Birds” (1963)
“Blackboard Jungle” (1955)
“The Breakfast Club” (1985)
“The Decline of Western Civilization” (1981)
“East of Eden” (1955)
“Funny Girl” (1968)
“Life of an American Fireman” (1903)
“The Lion King” (1994)
“Lost Horizon” (1937)
“Musketeers of Pig Alley” (1912)
Read More: ‘Symbiopsychotaxiplasm,’ ‘Portrait of Jason,’ ‘Imitation of Life’ Among New Additions to National Film Registry...
- 12/14/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Milestone wraps up its ‘Project Shirley,’ an in-depth study of the independent director of The Connection and Portrait of Jason. Practically all of Shirley Clarke’s small and experimental films are here from the early 1950s forward, plus a wealth of biographical film.
The Magic Box: The films of Shirley Clarke, 1929-1987
Blu-ray
The Milestone Cinematheque
1929-1987 / B&W + Color
1:37 flat full frame / 502 min.
Street Date November 15, 2016 / 99.99
featuring Shirley Clarke
Produced by Dennis Doros & Amy Heller
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Some disc boutique companies license ready-made movie classics for home video, and some slap whatever odd-sourced items can be had into the Blu-ray format and call it a restoration. Although the general tide for quality releases is rising, only a few companies will invest time and effort in historically- and artistically- important films lacking an obvious commercial hook. Milestone Films has been consistent in its championing of abandoned ‘marginal’ films,...
The Magic Box: The films of Shirley Clarke, 1929-1987
Blu-ray
The Milestone Cinematheque
1929-1987 / B&W + Color
1:37 flat full frame / 502 min.
Street Date November 15, 2016 / 99.99
featuring Shirley Clarke
Produced by Dennis Doros & Amy Heller
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Some disc boutique companies license ready-made movie classics for home video, and some slap whatever odd-sourced items can be had into the Blu-ray format and call it a restoration. Although the general tide for quality releases is rising, only a few companies will invest time and effort in historically- and artistically- important films lacking an obvious commercial hook. Milestone Films has been consistent in its championing of abandoned ‘marginal’ films,...
- 11/19/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Those who find themselves enamored with Kate Plays Christine — that includes us: along with giving it an A at Sundance, we think it’s your best viewing option for this month — often struggle to find a starting point for even describing the film, let alone praising it, which speaks as much to ambitions as it does the many pleasures they eventually afford. Robert Greene‘s documentary often plays as a rather straightforward example of the form: Kate Lyn Sheil (Listen Up Philip, The Girlfriend Experience) conducts research for a film in which she’ll portray Christine Chubbuck — a newscaster who committed suicide on-air in 1974 and has become something of an underground legend, in part because the sole tape of her act has been suppressed — and struggles with getting in the head of a woman few really knew, as readily evidenced by footage from said film.
But that project doesn’t actually exist,...
But that project doesn’t actually exist,...
- 8/23/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Films of Albert Brooks
We can think of no better way to celebrate the holiday weekend then curling up with the hilarious, often touching films of Albert Brooks. All of his directorial features — Real Life, Modern Romance, Lost in America, Defending Your Life, Mother, The Muse, and Looking For Comedy in a Muslim World — have now been added to Netflix. What are you waiting for?...
The Films of Albert Brooks
We can think of no better way to celebrate the holiday weekend then curling up with the hilarious, often touching films of Albert Brooks. All of his directorial features — Real Life, Modern Romance, Lost in America, Defending Your Life, Mother, The Muse, and Looking For Comedy in a Muslim World — have now been added to Netflix. What are you waiting for?...
- 7/1/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
“Todd Haynes‘ filmography is often overwhelming in its intellectual acumen and emotional devastation,” we noted upon the release of his latest film this past fall. “This is true of Carol, which is at once a return to the deconstruction of femininity, social mores, and mild anarchy of privilege, as well as an honest and heartbreaking story about falling in love and the trepidation therein.” Over 100 film experts, ranging from critics to writers to programmers, agree on the emotional power of the drama, as they’ve voted it the best Lgbt film of all-time.
Conducted by BFI ahead of the 30th BFI Flare: London Lgbt Film Festival, they note this is the “first major critical survey of Lgbt films.” Speaking about leading the poll, Haynes said, “I’m so proud to have Carol voted as the top Lgbt film of all time in this poll launched for the Fest’s 30th edition.
Conducted by BFI ahead of the 30th BFI Flare: London Lgbt Film Festival, they note this is the “first major critical survey of Lgbt films.” Speaking about leading the poll, Haynes said, “I’m so proud to have Carol voted as the top Lgbt film of all time in this poll launched for the Fest’s 30th edition.
- 3/15/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Anthology Film Archives
Friday sees the start of a weekend-long Nervous Magic Lantern Festival, a tribute to Ken Jacobs‘ device which, according to the site, “uses lightweight fans and an exterior spinning shutter – along with the hands and creative mind of an active projectionist – to fill the screen with moving 3D forms that can be seen from every possible angle,...
Anthology Film Archives
Friday sees the start of a weekend-long Nervous Magic Lantern Festival, a tribute to Ken Jacobs‘ device which, according to the site, “uses lightweight fans and an exterior spinning shutter – along with the hands and creative mind of an active projectionist – to fill the screen with moving 3D forms that can be seen from every possible angle,...
- 1/22/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The National Film Registry announced this week its annual selection of 25 films and recordings to add to the permanent collection of the Library of Congress, and among them are old Hollywood classics, recent Oscar winners, and beloved '80s favorites.
Highlights of this year's inductees include comedy classic "Ghostbusters" and Tom Cruise's iconic flick "Top Gun." Awards bait fare "Shawshank Redemption" (which nabbed seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture) and "L.A. Confidential" (which took home the Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay trophies) also made the 2015 cut.
There are always a few quirky additions, too, and this year's crop is no different. A recording that Thomas Edison made of a sneeze in 1894 is a new inductee, as is a short animated film from Disney called "The Story of Menstruation," which was shown in American schools as part of health education classes in the 1940s (and was...
Highlights of this year's inductees include comedy classic "Ghostbusters" and Tom Cruise's iconic flick "Top Gun." Awards bait fare "Shawshank Redemption" (which nabbed seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture) and "L.A. Confidential" (which took home the Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay trophies) also made the 2015 cut.
There are always a few quirky additions, too, and this year's crop is no different. A recording that Thomas Edison made of a sneeze in 1894 is a new inductee, as is a short animated film from Disney called "The Story of Menstruation," which was shown in American schools as part of health education classes in the 1940s (and was...
- 12/29/2015
- by Katie Roberts
- Moviefone
Nooooo. I almost forgot to share the National Film Registries new titles. Each year they add 25 pictures that are deemed historically, culturally or aesthetically important. Each year I suggest that we should watch all the titles together. Well, the ones we can find at least. Perhaps we'll actually do that for 2016 -- you never know! Getting a spot on the National Film Registry is more symbolic than active. It does not guarantee preservation or restorations but it does suggest that these films should all be preserved and/or restored.
The 2015 additions are:
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894) - watch it now. it's six seconds long... the earliest surviving copyrighted film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) -watch it now. (7 minutes) from a short Winsor McCay comic strip A Fool There Was (1915) -watch it now. (66 minutes) Theda Bara tempts a married man! It's always the woman's fault, don't you know Humoresque...
The 2015 additions are:
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894) - watch it now. it's six seconds long... the earliest surviving copyrighted film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) -watch it now. (7 minutes) from a short Winsor McCay comic strip A Fool There Was (1915) -watch it now. (66 minutes) Theda Bara tempts a married man! It's always the woman's fault, don't you know Humoresque...
- 12/21/2015
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Since 1989, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress has been accomplishing the important task of preserving films that “represent important cultural, artistic and historic achievements in filmmaking.” From films way back in 1897 all the way up to 2004, they’ve now reached 675 films that celebrate our heritage and encapsulate our film history.
Today they’ve unveiled their 2015 list, which includes classics such as Douglas Sirk‘s melodrama Imitation of Life, Hal Ashby‘s Being There, and John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds. Perhaps the most popular picks, The Shawshank Redemption, Ghostbusters, Top Gun, and L.A. Confidential were also added. Check out the full list below.
Being There (1979)
Chance, a simple-minded gardener (Peter Sellers) whose only contact with the outside world is through television, becomes the toast of the town following a series of misunderstandings. Forced outside his protected environment by the death of his wealthy boss, Chance subsumes his late employer’s persona,...
Today they’ve unveiled their 2015 list, which includes classics such as Douglas Sirk‘s melodrama Imitation of Life, Hal Ashby‘s Being There, and John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds. Perhaps the most popular picks, The Shawshank Redemption, Ghostbusters, Top Gun, and L.A. Confidential were also added. Check out the full list below.
Being There (1979)
Chance, a simple-minded gardener (Peter Sellers) whose only contact with the outside world is through television, becomes the toast of the town following a series of misunderstandings. Forced outside his protected environment by the death of his wealthy boss, Chance subsumes his late employer’s persona,...
- 12/16/2015
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Holliday Heart: Winter Reimagines the Peripheral Flotsam and Jetsam of Famed Interview
The nagging obscurity of Shirley Clarke’s famed 1967 documentary Portrait of Jason remains a notable absence on many lists noting the best examples of the format, a title only recently made available within the Us in late 2014. An unforgettable portrait of a gay black hustler named Jason Holliday interviewed by the famed documentarian (who had previously won on Oscar for Robert Frost: a Lover’s Quarrel with the World in 1963) over one twelve hour period in 1966, it’s a case study representative of the limitations humans have in being able to completely understand another’s experiences based on social demarcations of race, gender, class, etc. Director Stephen Winter reimagines what went on between takes during the famed interview that transpired in the Chelsea hotel, dramatizing some of the salacious hypotheses surrounding the source film, such as Clarke...
The nagging obscurity of Shirley Clarke’s famed 1967 documentary Portrait of Jason remains a notable absence on many lists noting the best examples of the format, a title only recently made available within the Us in late 2014. An unforgettable portrait of a gay black hustler named Jason Holliday interviewed by the famed documentarian (who had previously won on Oscar for Robert Frost: a Lover’s Quarrel with the World in 1963) over one twelve hour period in 1966, it’s a case study representative of the limitations humans have in being able to completely understand another’s experiences based on social demarcations of race, gender, class, etc. Director Stephen Winter reimagines what went on between takes during the famed interview that transpired in the Chelsea hotel, dramatizing some of the salacious hypotheses surrounding the source film, such as Clarke...
- 10/23/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
A landmark of non-fiction film, Shirley Clarke's "Portrait Of Jason" (a film I first saw in a rare screening at in NYC 4+ years ago, from a not-so good print), was shot in Clarke’s apartment in the Chelsea Hotel during a 12-hour period, beginning on the evening of December 3, 1966. The feature film was brought back to life by Milestone Films and the Academy Film Archive, in a multi-year endeavor that included a late 2012 Kickstarter campaign that raised over $26,000, that resulted in a beautifully-restored print of a film that the late Ingmar Bergman called “the most fascinating I’ve ever seen,” which would then be...
- 10/19/2015
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Set in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, the film Portrait of Jason is notorious for its white director’s humiliation of its black star. A new movie revisits the story
On the afternoon of Friday 9 June 1967, a select group was ushered into a fourth-floor screening room at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to view the latest film by Shirley Clarke, the Oscar-winning director and longtime participant in the downtown scene. The guestlist included Andy Warhol, filmmakers Elia Kazan and Da Pennebaker, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg and jazz critic Nat Hentoff.
Clarke must have particularly relished inviting Warhol, since the star of her project, Jason Holliday, was someone he had been trying to film. Disdainful of Warhol’s presence on the scene (he tried to move into the Chelsea Hotel, but couldn’t hack it, Clarke would scornfully tell people), she screened a film that afternoon which in...
On the afternoon of Friday 9 June 1967, a select group was ushered into a fourth-floor screening room at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to view the latest film by Shirley Clarke, the Oscar-winning director and longtime participant in the downtown scene. The guestlist included Andy Warhol, filmmakers Elia Kazan and Da Pennebaker, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg and jazz critic Nat Hentoff.
Clarke must have particularly relished inviting Warhol, since the star of her project, Jason Holliday, was someone he had been trying to film. Disdainful of Warhol’s presence on the scene (he tried to move into the Chelsea Hotel, but couldn’t hack it, Clarke would scornfully tell people), she screened a film that afternoon which in...
- 9/19/2015
- by Tavia Nyong'o
- The Guardian - Film News
A landmark of non-fiction film, Shirley Clarke's "Portrait Of Jason" (a film I first saw in a rare screening at in NYC 4+ years ago, from a not-so good print), was shot in Clarke’s apartment in the Chelsea Hotel during a 12-hour period, beginning on the evening of December 3, 1966. The feature film was recently brought back to life by Milestone Films and the Academy Film Archive, in a multi-year endeavor that included a late 2012 Kickstarter campaign that raised over $26,000, that resulted in a beautifully-restored print of a film that the late Ingmar Bergman called “the most fascinating I’ve ever seen,” which...
- 7/27/2015
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Read More: The Wisdom of Jason Holliday: 10 Quotes From Shirley Clarke's 'Portrait of Jason,' the Original Viral Star In 1966, legendary underground filmmaker Shirley Clarke invited the exuberant New York street hustler Jason Holliday to her Manhattan apartment and filmed him telling colorful stories from his life over the course of a 12-hour shoot. The resulting one-man odyssey, "Portrait of Jason," finds the alternately hilarious and tragic figure proudly explaining his lifestyle while growing increasingly intoxicated. A radical, progressive look at an openly gay metropolitan figure both ahead of his time and trapped by it, "Portrait of Jason" was warmly received but only found broader acclaim decades later, when a restored version was released in 2013. Now, filmmaker Stephen Winter has revisited the project with "Jason and Shirley," a freewheeling, comedic look at the rambunctious "Portrait of Jason" production that imagines the...
- 7/10/2015
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Milestone Film & Video is one of the finest and most well-established U.S. distributor of docs and arthouse features. They have such great films like the classic "I am Cuba" and have been working on compiling all they can on the filmmaker Shirley Clarke ("The Connection") whose film in the 60s, "The Cool World," made me one of her avid fans forever. Their film, "Portrait of Jason," also by Clarke, premiered at Idfa 2014, the premium doc festival in the world and I was lucky enough to see it at the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. Its clarity and humanity moved me so much that I feel obliged to publish this here. When Amy Heller and Dennis Doros of Milestone speak the way they do in the following blog, I listen. Since the film "Jason and Shirley" just premiered at BAMcinemaFest and Frameline Film Festival, both wonderful events, I think it is important for everyone to know what they have to say. "In 25 years, we have never weighed in on anyone else's film (except to recommend those we love), but Dennis and I felt the need to go on the record about Stephen Winter's new feature Jason and Shirley."
'Jason and Shirley': The Cruelty and Irresponsibility of 'Satire'
by Amy Heller
In the twenty-five years that we have been running Milestone Films, we have never before reviewed or commented publicly on anyone else’s film—except to recommend it. But we have now encountered a new feature film that purports to “satirize” a film and a filmmaker we represent and have spent years researching. While we are absolute believers in freedom of speech and artistic expression and do not dispute that the producers, writers and stars of Jason and Shirley have every right to make their “re-vision” of the making of Shirley Clarke’s great documentary "Portrait of Jason," we feel we must go on the record about the film’s inaccurate and simplistic portrayals of a brilliant filmmaker and her charismatic subject.
Director Stephen Winter (and co-writers Sarah Schulman and Jack Waters) have created a fictitious drama that imagines what might have happened on December 3, 1966 when Shirley Clarke spent twelve hours with Jason Holliday, Carl Lee, Jeri Sopanen, Jim Hubbard and Bob Fiore shooting "Portrait of Jason." The filmmakers claim the right to re-imagine the events that took place in that Hotel Chelsea apartment, but they fail to understand something that Shirley Clarke knew and conveyed in all her films: the need for integrity.
Clarke’s first feature, "The Connection," a fiction film based partly on real people, has enormous respect for all its characters, an understanding of humanity, and a love for cinema. Shirley knew that a genuine artist values inner truth, whether the film is a documentary or a dramatic feature. And of course, Shirley did not use real names. She knew that when you use real people’s names and identities, you need to seek and explore the truth in all its complexities. Ornette: Made in America, a film that she and Ornette Coleman were very proud to create, is an example of Clarke’s quest for meaning and authenticity.
We at Milestone are now in the seventh year of “Project Shirley,” our ongoing commitment to learn everything about Clarke as a director, an artist and a person. With the cooperation of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater and the Clarke estate, we have digitized nearly one hundred of her features, short films, outtakes, unfinished projects, home movies, and experimental films and videos. We have gone through thousands of pages of letters, contracts, and Shirley’s diaries. We have interviewed and talked to dozens of people who knew and worked with her.
We have heard wonderful stories, tragic stories, and stories of such real pain that they are almost unbearable. Shirley Clarke was a sister, wife, mother, dancer, lover, filmmaker, editor, teacher, and yes, for a sad period, a junkie. It wasn’t intended, but along the way we fell in love with Shirley and came to feel that we owed it to her to create a portrait of a real woman and an artist. Shirley’s daughter Wendy Clarke and her extended family have supported our efforts every step of the way, encouraging us to reveal what is true, for better or worse. We have shared our discoveries with the world in theaters, on television, on DVD and Blu-Ray, in lectures — and in our exhaustive press kits (available on our website, free for everyone).
We have strived for the highest levels of accuracy, knowing that critics, academics, bloggers, and the general public deserve and depend on our research. We corroborated all the oral histories we conducted using primary sources, including original letters, interviews, and contracts. Finally, we asked people who knew Shirley to check and proof all our work. We have shared this research with every filmmaker, scholar and critic who has asked us for information.
So it was truly agonizing for us to watch Stephen Winter’s "Jason and Shirley," a film that is bad cinema and worse ethics—that cynically appropriates and parodies the identities of real people, stereotyping and humiliating them and doing disservice to their memory. The filmmakers may call it an homage, but their complete lack of research and their numerous factual errors and falsehoods have betrayed everyone who was involved in making "Portrait of Jason."
Winter and his team call their film an “imagination” of the night (although they stage the filming during the day) of December 3, when Shirley Clarke shot "Portrait of Jason." But interestingly, they only use the real names of those participants who have died: Clarke, Jason Holliday and Carl Lee (perhaps because you cannot libel the dead). They did not interview the people who were on the set that long night and who are still around—filmmakers Bob Fiore and Jim Hubbard.
They also chose not to work with Shirley’s daughter, artist and filmmaker Wendy Clarke, whom they never bothered to contact (and go out of their way to mock in the film). Jason and Shirley even features a title card in the closing credits thanking Wendy, implying that she has given her approval for the film. In truth, Wendy’s response, when she finally saw Jason and Shirley, was: “I don’t want people seeing this film to think there is any truth to it. This film tells nasty lies and is a parasitic attempt to gain prominence from true genius.”
Similarly, the filmmakers never asked us at Milestone for access to the reams of documents we have discovered from the making of "Portrait of Jason." Instead, they preferred to pretend to know what happened, to create their own “Shirley Clarke,” “Carl Lee,” and “Jason Holliday,” rather than try to create honest and respectful portraits of these very real people.
Lazy filmmakers make bad movies and "Jason and Shirley" is false, flaccid, and boring—unforgivable cinematic sins. Perhaps its most egregious and painful crime is taking the strong, brilliant woman that Shirley Clarke truly was and portraying her as a lumpy, platitude-spouting Jewish hausfrau—an inept cineaste who doesn’t know what she is doing and eventually needs her boyfriend to “save” the film for her. In service of their alleged investigation into race relations (a topic Shirley explored far better with her powerful and intelligent films "The Connection," "The Cool World," "Portrait of Jason" and "Ornette: Made in America"), they reduced her to a sexist cliché—the little woman—and a tedious cliché at that.
Shirley Clarke was wild, creative, brilliant, graceful, challenging, incredibly stylish, vibrant, and alive with the possibilities of life. At home at the center of many creative circles in New York City and around the world, she was adored by countless admirers—despite (or sometimes because of) her faults and failings. And Shirley is still loved by those who remember her—the people who worked on her films, her friends, her family, and the audiences who are rediscovering her great films. She was incredibly special. The misshapen caricature of Clarke in Jason and Shirley insults and trivializes a great artist and pioneer.
We also find “Jason” in Winter’s film to be a one-dimensional and disrespectful distortion of the very complicated man who was born Aaron Payne in 1924. Jason Holliday’s life was difficult in many ways—as a gay black man he experienced police harassment, poverty, family rejection, imprisonment, painful self-doubt, and innumerable varieties of personal and institutional racism. But he was also vibrantly an original, a self-invented diva, a survivor, and a raconteur of the first order who was the inspiration for his own cinematic Portrait. Shirley decided to make her film in order to explore this extraordinary Scheherazade’s 1001 stories—and the fragile line between his reminiscences and his inventions.
And truly, it is not easy to tell what was real and what was not in Jason’s life. In his “Autobiography” (reprinted in Milestone’s press kit), Holliday talked about appearing on Broadway in “Carmen Jones,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” and “Green Pastures” and about performing his nightclub act in Greenwich Village. And while much of his narrative may seem improbable, the Trenton Historical Society found newspaper articles from the 1950s corroborating Jason’s claim that he was a performer at New York’s Salle de Champagne. So did he study acting with Charles Laughton and dance with Martha Graham and Katherine Dunham? We may never know. But the man who spun those marvelous yarns was not the alternately maniacal and weepy loser in "Jason and Shirley."
Here are just a few of the other things that are obviously, carelessly and offensively wrong in "Jason and Shirley":
In the very beginning, there is a title card stating that the filmmakers were denied access to the outtakes of "Portrait of Jason." These recordings were available for all to hear at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, where all of Shirley’s archives can be found—or by contacting Milestone. In fact, all the outtakes (30 minutes of audio) were released on November 11, 2014 as a bonus features on Milestone’s DVD and Blu-Ray of the film. That was six months before "Jason and Shirley" was completed.
In "Jason and Shirley," “Jason” has never previously visited “Shirley’s” apartment and knows nothing about her. In reality, they had been friends for many years and Jason would often visit her apartment. The film states that the cinematographer on Portrait of Jason had worked on Clarke’s other two features. Actually, the film was Jeri Sopanen’s first job with her. Further, absolutely no crew member had an issue about working on "Portrait of Jason," as the new film portrays.
In the film “Shirley” says, “See that horrible painting on the wall? My daughter painted that… I have a daughter who is a terrible artist.” Fact: in several video interviews with Shirley (including one released as a bonus feature on Ornette: Made In America, which also came out last November) and in many of her letters and diaries, Clarke talked about how extremely proud she was of her daughter Wendy and her art. Mother and daughter worked happily together for years on many projects including the legendary Tee Pee Video Space Troupe. Wendy’s fine art, textiles, and video work have received critical praise for nearly 50 years. It was needlessly and maliciously hurtful for the filmmakers to include a line that is so obviously false and unkind.
In the film, “Shirley” says her maiden name was Bermberg. She was born Shirley Brimberg.
There is an Academy Award® statue for "Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel With the World" in “Shirley’s” apartment and the other characters repeatedly mock her for it. The film did win an Oscar®, but although she received directing credit, Shirley had been fired from the final edit and producer Robert Hughes picked up the award. (You can see this on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOS70Tqsz7U)
“Shirley” asks “Jason” to go up on the roof of the Hotel Chelsea with her to talk. In reality, her apartment was famously on the roof.
In the film, “Shirley” is unable to finish Portrait of Jason and tells everybody to go home and “Carl Lee” comes in to take over the film and save it. This is ludicrous, wrong and misogynistic. Clarke was a consummate film professional and all her collaborators attest to her skill and drive.
The film ends with a title card stating that Shirley died in New York (which is simply incorrect) and that Carl Lee died of a heroin overdose. Tragically, Lee died of AIDS and this information is in the Milestone press kit.
Another title card indicates that when Jason Holliday died that there were no friends or family listed in his one obituary. In truth, the Trentonian on July 31, 1998 wrote that two sisters, six nieces and two nephews survived him. We found the relatives when doing our research.
The filmmakers have labeled "Jason and Shirley" a satirical work of fiction. We are just not sure who or what they claim to be satirizing. The film is not ironic, humorous, sardonic or tongue-in-cheek. We can only surmise that they are deliberately parodying the idea of cinematic integrity.
On behalf of Milestone, Wendy Clarke, and Shirley Clarke’s extended family and friends, we respectfully ask film fans not to base their appraisal of Clarke and her filmmaking on the unkind depictions in "Jason and Shirley."
Yours in cinema,
Amy Heller and Dennis Doros
Milestone Films...
'Jason and Shirley': The Cruelty and Irresponsibility of 'Satire'
by Amy Heller
In the twenty-five years that we have been running Milestone Films, we have never before reviewed or commented publicly on anyone else’s film—except to recommend it. But we have now encountered a new feature film that purports to “satirize” a film and a filmmaker we represent and have spent years researching. While we are absolute believers in freedom of speech and artistic expression and do not dispute that the producers, writers and stars of Jason and Shirley have every right to make their “re-vision” of the making of Shirley Clarke’s great documentary "Portrait of Jason," we feel we must go on the record about the film’s inaccurate and simplistic portrayals of a brilliant filmmaker and her charismatic subject.
Director Stephen Winter (and co-writers Sarah Schulman and Jack Waters) have created a fictitious drama that imagines what might have happened on December 3, 1966 when Shirley Clarke spent twelve hours with Jason Holliday, Carl Lee, Jeri Sopanen, Jim Hubbard and Bob Fiore shooting "Portrait of Jason." The filmmakers claim the right to re-imagine the events that took place in that Hotel Chelsea apartment, but they fail to understand something that Shirley Clarke knew and conveyed in all her films: the need for integrity.
Clarke’s first feature, "The Connection," a fiction film based partly on real people, has enormous respect for all its characters, an understanding of humanity, and a love for cinema. Shirley knew that a genuine artist values inner truth, whether the film is a documentary or a dramatic feature. And of course, Shirley did not use real names. She knew that when you use real people’s names and identities, you need to seek and explore the truth in all its complexities. Ornette: Made in America, a film that she and Ornette Coleman were very proud to create, is an example of Clarke’s quest for meaning and authenticity.
We at Milestone are now in the seventh year of “Project Shirley,” our ongoing commitment to learn everything about Clarke as a director, an artist and a person. With the cooperation of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater and the Clarke estate, we have digitized nearly one hundred of her features, short films, outtakes, unfinished projects, home movies, and experimental films and videos. We have gone through thousands of pages of letters, contracts, and Shirley’s diaries. We have interviewed and talked to dozens of people who knew and worked with her.
We have heard wonderful stories, tragic stories, and stories of such real pain that they are almost unbearable. Shirley Clarke was a sister, wife, mother, dancer, lover, filmmaker, editor, teacher, and yes, for a sad period, a junkie. It wasn’t intended, but along the way we fell in love with Shirley and came to feel that we owed it to her to create a portrait of a real woman and an artist. Shirley’s daughter Wendy Clarke and her extended family have supported our efforts every step of the way, encouraging us to reveal what is true, for better or worse. We have shared our discoveries with the world in theaters, on television, on DVD and Blu-Ray, in lectures — and in our exhaustive press kits (available on our website, free for everyone).
We have strived for the highest levels of accuracy, knowing that critics, academics, bloggers, and the general public deserve and depend on our research. We corroborated all the oral histories we conducted using primary sources, including original letters, interviews, and contracts. Finally, we asked people who knew Shirley to check and proof all our work. We have shared this research with every filmmaker, scholar and critic who has asked us for information.
So it was truly agonizing for us to watch Stephen Winter’s "Jason and Shirley," a film that is bad cinema and worse ethics—that cynically appropriates and parodies the identities of real people, stereotyping and humiliating them and doing disservice to their memory. The filmmakers may call it an homage, but their complete lack of research and their numerous factual errors and falsehoods have betrayed everyone who was involved in making "Portrait of Jason."
Winter and his team call their film an “imagination” of the night (although they stage the filming during the day) of December 3, when Shirley Clarke shot "Portrait of Jason." But interestingly, they only use the real names of those participants who have died: Clarke, Jason Holliday and Carl Lee (perhaps because you cannot libel the dead). They did not interview the people who were on the set that long night and who are still around—filmmakers Bob Fiore and Jim Hubbard.
They also chose not to work with Shirley’s daughter, artist and filmmaker Wendy Clarke, whom they never bothered to contact (and go out of their way to mock in the film). Jason and Shirley even features a title card in the closing credits thanking Wendy, implying that she has given her approval for the film. In truth, Wendy’s response, when she finally saw Jason and Shirley, was: “I don’t want people seeing this film to think there is any truth to it. This film tells nasty lies and is a parasitic attempt to gain prominence from true genius.”
Similarly, the filmmakers never asked us at Milestone for access to the reams of documents we have discovered from the making of "Portrait of Jason." Instead, they preferred to pretend to know what happened, to create their own “Shirley Clarke,” “Carl Lee,” and “Jason Holliday,” rather than try to create honest and respectful portraits of these very real people.
Lazy filmmakers make bad movies and "Jason and Shirley" is false, flaccid, and boring—unforgivable cinematic sins. Perhaps its most egregious and painful crime is taking the strong, brilliant woman that Shirley Clarke truly was and portraying her as a lumpy, platitude-spouting Jewish hausfrau—an inept cineaste who doesn’t know what she is doing and eventually needs her boyfriend to “save” the film for her. In service of their alleged investigation into race relations (a topic Shirley explored far better with her powerful and intelligent films "The Connection," "The Cool World," "Portrait of Jason" and "Ornette: Made in America"), they reduced her to a sexist cliché—the little woman—and a tedious cliché at that.
Shirley Clarke was wild, creative, brilliant, graceful, challenging, incredibly stylish, vibrant, and alive with the possibilities of life. At home at the center of many creative circles in New York City and around the world, she was adored by countless admirers—despite (or sometimes because of) her faults and failings. And Shirley is still loved by those who remember her—the people who worked on her films, her friends, her family, and the audiences who are rediscovering her great films. She was incredibly special. The misshapen caricature of Clarke in Jason and Shirley insults and trivializes a great artist and pioneer.
We also find “Jason” in Winter’s film to be a one-dimensional and disrespectful distortion of the very complicated man who was born Aaron Payne in 1924. Jason Holliday’s life was difficult in many ways—as a gay black man he experienced police harassment, poverty, family rejection, imprisonment, painful self-doubt, and innumerable varieties of personal and institutional racism. But he was also vibrantly an original, a self-invented diva, a survivor, and a raconteur of the first order who was the inspiration for his own cinematic Portrait. Shirley decided to make her film in order to explore this extraordinary Scheherazade’s 1001 stories—and the fragile line between his reminiscences and his inventions.
And truly, it is not easy to tell what was real and what was not in Jason’s life. In his “Autobiography” (reprinted in Milestone’s press kit), Holliday talked about appearing on Broadway in “Carmen Jones,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” and “Green Pastures” and about performing his nightclub act in Greenwich Village. And while much of his narrative may seem improbable, the Trenton Historical Society found newspaper articles from the 1950s corroborating Jason’s claim that he was a performer at New York’s Salle de Champagne. So did he study acting with Charles Laughton and dance with Martha Graham and Katherine Dunham? We may never know. But the man who spun those marvelous yarns was not the alternately maniacal and weepy loser in "Jason and Shirley."
Here are just a few of the other things that are obviously, carelessly and offensively wrong in "Jason and Shirley":
In the very beginning, there is a title card stating that the filmmakers were denied access to the outtakes of "Portrait of Jason." These recordings were available for all to hear at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, where all of Shirley’s archives can be found—or by contacting Milestone. In fact, all the outtakes (30 minutes of audio) were released on November 11, 2014 as a bonus features on Milestone’s DVD and Blu-Ray of the film. That was six months before "Jason and Shirley" was completed.
In "Jason and Shirley," “Jason” has never previously visited “Shirley’s” apartment and knows nothing about her. In reality, they had been friends for many years and Jason would often visit her apartment. The film states that the cinematographer on Portrait of Jason had worked on Clarke’s other two features. Actually, the film was Jeri Sopanen’s first job with her. Further, absolutely no crew member had an issue about working on "Portrait of Jason," as the new film portrays.
In the film “Shirley” says, “See that horrible painting on the wall? My daughter painted that… I have a daughter who is a terrible artist.” Fact: in several video interviews with Shirley (including one released as a bonus feature on Ornette: Made In America, which also came out last November) and in many of her letters and diaries, Clarke talked about how extremely proud she was of her daughter Wendy and her art. Mother and daughter worked happily together for years on many projects including the legendary Tee Pee Video Space Troupe. Wendy’s fine art, textiles, and video work have received critical praise for nearly 50 years. It was needlessly and maliciously hurtful for the filmmakers to include a line that is so obviously false and unkind.
In the film, “Shirley” says her maiden name was Bermberg. She was born Shirley Brimberg.
There is an Academy Award® statue for "Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel With the World" in “Shirley’s” apartment and the other characters repeatedly mock her for it. The film did win an Oscar®, but although she received directing credit, Shirley had been fired from the final edit and producer Robert Hughes picked up the award. (You can see this on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOS70Tqsz7U)
“Shirley” asks “Jason” to go up on the roof of the Hotel Chelsea with her to talk. In reality, her apartment was famously on the roof.
In the film, “Shirley” is unable to finish Portrait of Jason and tells everybody to go home and “Carl Lee” comes in to take over the film and save it. This is ludicrous, wrong and misogynistic. Clarke was a consummate film professional and all her collaborators attest to her skill and drive.
The film ends with a title card stating that Shirley died in New York (which is simply incorrect) and that Carl Lee died of a heroin overdose. Tragically, Lee died of AIDS and this information is in the Milestone press kit.
Another title card indicates that when Jason Holliday died that there were no friends or family listed in his one obituary. In truth, the Trentonian on July 31, 1998 wrote that two sisters, six nieces and two nephews survived him. We found the relatives when doing our research.
The filmmakers have labeled "Jason and Shirley" a satirical work of fiction. We are just not sure who or what they claim to be satirizing. The film is not ironic, humorous, sardonic or tongue-in-cheek. We can only surmise that they are deliberately parodying the idea of cinematic integrity.
On behalf of Milestone, Wendy Clarke, and Shirley Clarke’s extended family and friends, we respectfully ask film fans not to base their appraisal of Clarke and her filmmaking on the unkind depictions in "Jason and Shirley."
Yours in cinema,
Amy Heller and Dennis Doros
Milestone Films...
- 6/23/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
“Free love? That’s the only love I can afford!” Stephen Winter’s Jason and Shirley is no mere behind-the-scenes reenactment of the circumstances that would add up to Shirley Clarke’s seminal 1967 Portrait of Jason, but rather a full-bore interrogation of what Clarke’s documentary cost its participants during shooting. To those ends, the film’s rendition of gay hustler Jason Holliday (portrayed here by Jack Waters) is remarkable: it sketches out Jason’s dreams and nightmares in brazenly emotional flights of inward fancy, made all the more jarring by Waters’ unflinching, body-pressurized performance. As Clarke, writer Sarah Schulman gives off an uncanny with-it […]...
- 6/17/2015
- by Steve Macfarlane
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
“Free love? That’s the only love I can afford!” Stephen Winter’s Jason and Shirley is no mere behind-the-scenes reenactment of the circumstances that would add up to Shirley Clarke’s seminal 1967 Portrait of Jason, but rather a full-bore interrogation of what Clarke’s documentary cost its participants during shooting. To those ends, the film’s rendition of gay hustler Jason Holliday (portrayed here by Jack Waters) is remarkable: it sketches out Jason’s dreams and nightmares in brazenly emotional flights of inward fancy, made all the more jarring by Waters’ unflinching, body-pressurized performance. As Clarke, writer Sarah Schulman gives off an uncanny with-it […]...
- 6/17/2015
- by Steve Macfarlane
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
A slew of festival favorites are set to make their New York premieres at the 2015 edition of BAMcinemaFest, which will open with James Ponsoldt’s The End of The Tour and close with Sean Baker’s Tangerine. Alex Ross Perry’s Berlinale premiere Queen of Earth will serve as Centerpiece at the festival, which runs from June 17 – 28 in Fort Greene. Aside from the Sundance and SXSW holdovers, notable selections include Jem Cohen’s Counting; Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven; Here Come the Videofreex, a documentary about a 1960s and 70s video collective; the world premiere of Jason and Shirley, a reimagining of Portrait of Jason; and Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party, Stephen Cone’s latest, […]...
- 5/6/2015
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
A slew of festival favorites are set to make their New York premieres at the 2015 edition of BAMcinemaFest, which will open with James Ponsoldt’s The End of The Tour and close with Sean Baker’s Tangerine. Alex Ross Perry’s Berlinale premiere Queen of Earth will serve as Centerpiece at the festival, which runs from June 17 – 28 in Fort Greene. Aside from the Sundance and SXSW holdovers, notable selections include Jem Cohen’s Counting; Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven; Here Come the Videofreex, a documentary about a 1960s and 70s video collective; the world premiere of Jason and Shirley, a reimagining of Portrait of Jason; and Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party, Stephen Cone’s latest, […]...
- 5/6/2015
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
John Waters and Edgar Wright have listed their top ten films of 2014 and the avalanche of nominations and awards has begun to rumble. Also in today's roundup of news and views: Interviews with Michael Haneke, Barry Gifford (Wild at Heart), Harmony Korine, Marion Cotillard and Chris Rock. Reviews of James Benning's Farocki and Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason and Ornette: Made in America. And Arte programmer Olivier Père reports on a visit he paid this summer to the set of Philippe Garrel's L’Ombre des femmes. » - David Hudson...
- 12/1/2014
- Keyframe
John Waters and Edgar Wright have listed their top ten films of 2014 and the avalanche of nominations and awards has begun to rumble. Also in today's roundup of news and views: Interviews with Michael Haneke, Barry Gifford (Wild at Heart), Harmony Korine, Marion Cotillard and Chris Rock. Reviews of James Benning's Farocki and Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason and Ornette: Made in America. And Arte programmer Olivier Père reports on a visit he paid this summer to the set of Philippe Garrel's L’Ombre des femmes. » - David Hudson...
- 12/1/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Themed programme to include discussions with 15 leading female directors including Kim Longinotto.
The International Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) is to investigates the role of women in documentary as part of its next edition (Nov 19-30).
The Female Gaze will comrise a programme of titles by women directors as well as discussions with filmmakers at the festival.
A total of 15 female directors, including Pirjo Honkasalo, Barbara Kopple and Kim Longinotto, have compiled a programme of old and new documentaries by themselves and others.
Idfa will also investigate the share female directors have had of the festival’s own selections during the past ten years, and attention will be devoted to the question of how women are represented in documentaries and of whether a ‘female gaze’ can be said to exist within the documentary genre.
The festival will organise a debate on the role of women for the documentary industry on Nov 22.
The directors who made a selection for Idfa...
The International Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) is to investigates the role of women in documentary as part of its next edition (Nov 19-30).
The Female Gaze will comrise a programme of titles by women directors as well as discussions with filmmakers at the festival.
A total of 15 female directors, including Pirjo Honkasalo, Barbara Kopple and Kim Longinotto, have compiled a programme of old and new documentaries by themselves and others.
Idfa will also investigate the share female directors have had of the festival’s own selections during the past ten years, and attention will be devoted to the question of how women are represented in documentaries and of whether a ‘female gaze’ can be said to exist within the documentary genre.
The festival will organise a debate on the role of women for the documentary industry on Nov 22.
The directors who made a selection for Idfa...
- 9/9/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Shirley Clarke’s groundbreaking and searing 1967 documentary "Portrait of Jason," after years of neglect, was restored to its full glory, with the new remastered version premiering last year at the Berlin International Film festival. As Katrina Griffith said in her review of the film last year (Here) “more than just a comment on the limits of representing reality, Portrait of Jason is a wonderful example of how minorities, be it Blacks, gays or the poor, act out their difference in order to safely live alongside those with privilege." And as Tambay said about it: "filmed over the course of one night at the Chelsea Hotel, in...
- 8/20/2014
- by Sergio
- ShadowAndAct
Shirley Clarke grew up wealthy, the daughter of a manufacturing magnate and a family fortune. She had an extensive education between four universities, and married to escape her father’s tyrannical control of her adult life. At first Clarke pursued modern dance in New York City but, failing to secure a future for herself in one art form, she began making experimental, avant-garde and documentary films in her mid-thirties. Over the next several decades, Clarke produced fiction films that looked like documentaries, documentaries that flirted with the boundaries of fiction, some of the first video art projects, and movies that possess an incredible energy to them that few filmmakers have mastered, then or now. She studied under Hans Richter, inspired other New York filmmakers like John Cassavetes, helped co-found the Filmmakers’ Co-Op with Jonas Mekas, yet the important role that she played in the New American Cinema scene has risked becoming stuck between the pages of cinema...
- 7/30/2014
- by Landon Palmer
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Fund This ‘Notfilm’: About the 1965 Film ‘Film’ Written by Samuel Beckett and Starring Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton appeared in some very weird movies following the advent of sound pictures. There’s that Mexican sci-fi comedy Boom in the Moon I mentioned on Fsr a while back. There’s the Eastman Kodak industrial film The Triumph of Lester Snapwell, in which he plays a clumsy photographer who travels through time so he can experience an easy-use Instamatic camera. And of course all those crazy ’60s beach movies, where he performed silly slapstick involving bikinis, boobs and a politically incorrect portrayal of a Native American. But his oddest has to be Film, the 1965 short he reluctantly starred in, which was scripted by absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett (his only original written directly for the screen), helmed by theatre director Alan Schneider, produced by controversial publisher Barney Rosset, edited by Oscar-nominated documentarian Sidney Meyers (The Quiet One; The Savage Eye) and shot by legendary cinematographer Boris Kaufman (L’Atalante; On the Waterfront). Almost 50 years since its...
- 11/23/2013
- by Christopher Campbell
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The 57th BFI London Film Festival line-up has officially been revealed, and it is led by a slew of incredibly promising films, many of which have already been buzzing on the festival circuit, and a number of which will be making their debuts here in London.
As previously announced, Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips will open the festival next month, and John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks will close it, book-ending the festival with Tom Hanks leading two highly prominent, Oscar-primed movies.
Stephen Frears’ Philomena was also previously announced as the Lff American Express Gala, with The Epic of Everest announced as the Lff Archive Gala.
And leading the line-up alongside them this year will be some of the most Oscar-buzzed movies of 2013, including Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (in 3D), Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem,...
As previously announced, Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips will open the festival next month, and John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks will close it, book-ending the festival with Tom Hanks leading two highly prominent, Oscar-primed movies.
Stephen Frears’ Philomena was also previously announced as the Lff American Express Gala, with The Epic of Everest announced as the Lff Archive Gala.
And leading the line-up alongside them this year will be some of the most Oscar-buzzed movies of 2013, including Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (in 3D), Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem,...
- 9/4/2013
- by Kenji Lloyd
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The restored film opens in NYC at IFC Center this Friday. Here's our review from when it screened at Berlin in February... The crowd-sourcing platform Kickstarter had a hand in realizing more than one independent film premiering at this year’s Berlinale, and we are talking about films from seasoned, internationally acclaimed auteur filmmakers financiers should be jumping at the chance to support – Andrew Bugalski’s Computer Chess and Matt Porterfield’s I Used To Be Darker are two of the most praise-worthy examples. Now even the works of legendary independent filmmakers require our help to get back to the screen. The recent restoration of Shirley Clarke’s Portrait Of Jason showed just how...
- 4/16/2013
- by Karina Griffith
- ShadowAndAct
A landmark of non-fiction film, Shirley Clarke's Portrait Of Jason (a film I first saw in a rare screening at in NYC 2 +years ago, from a not-so good print), was shot in Clarke’s apartment in the Chelsea Hotel during a 12-hour period, beginning on the evening of December 3, 1966. The feature film was recently brought back to life (restored) by Milestone Films and the Academy Film Archive, in a multi-year campaign that included a late 2012 Kickstarter campaign that raised over $26,000. And now the beautifully-restored print of the film that the late Ingmar Bergman called “the most fascinating I’ve ever seen,” will be...
- 4/16/2013
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
The crowd-sourcing platform Kickstarter had a hand in realizing more than one independent film premiering at this year’s Berlinale, and we are talking about films from seasoned, internationally acclaimed auteur filmmakers financiers should be jumping at the chance to support – Andrew Bugalski’s Computer Chess and Matt Porterfield’s I Used To Be Darker are two of the most praise-worthy examples. Now even the works of legendary independent filmmakers require our help to get back to the screen. The recent restoration of Shirley Clarke’s Portrait Of Jason showed just how important this fundraising tool has become for films made outside of the studio system. The original master material of...
- 2/28/2013
- by Karina Griffith
- ShadowAndAct
An update, since we pushed the Kickstarter campaign here on S&A... Success to the folks at Milestone Films who just made their fundraising goal, raising $26,000 at the end of the campaign (yesterday); they originally asked for $25,000. Recapping... Considered a landmark of non-fiction film, Shirley Clarke's Portrait Of Jason (a film I first saw in a rare screening at in NYC 2 +years ago, from a not-so good print) is, as the title suggests, a portrait of Jason Holliday (real name: Aaron Payne) - a flamboyant, charismatic cabaret performer. Filmed over the course of one night at the Chelsea Hotel, in New York City, Holliday dishes on a myriad of...
- 12/11/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Considered a landmark of non-fiction film, Shirley Clarke's Portrait Of Jason (a film I first saw in a rare screening at in NYC 2 +years ago, from a not-so good print) is, as the title suggests, a portrait of Jason Holliday (real name: Aaron Payne) - a flamboyant, charismatic cabaret performer. Filmed over the course of one night at the Chelsea Hotel, in New York City, Holliday dishes on a myriad of topics: racism, homophobia, parental abuse, show business, drugs, sex, prostitution, the law, and much more. As the night progresses, he pretty much tells the story of his life, gets increasingly intoxicated, and thus raw with his revelations, eventually ending up in...
- 11/5/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Considered a landmark of non-fiction film in its day, Shirley Clarke’s Portrait Of Jason, is, as the title suggests, a portrait of Jason Holliday, a daringly flamboyant, charismatic cabaret performer. Filmed over the course of one night at the Chelsea Hotel, in New York City, Holliday dishes on a myriad of topics — racism, homophobia, parental abuse, show business, drugs, sex, prostitution, the law, and much more.
As the night progresses, he pretty much tells the story of his life, gets increasingly intoxicated, and raw with his revelations, eventually ending up in quite an intensely emotionally vulnerable state.
Unavailable for many years, the late Ingmar Bergman called it “the most fascinating I’ve ever seen.” IFC theatres in New York City will screen it on Monday, March 29th, at 8Pm, with an introduction by Rodney Evans, writer/director of Brother To Brother.
Here’s a clip from the film:...
As the night progresses, he pretty much tells the story of his life, gets increasingly intoxicated, and raw with his revelations, eventually ending up in quite an intensely emotionally vulnerable state.
Unavailable for many years, the late Ingmar Bergman called it “the most fascinating I’ve ever seen.” IFC theatres in New York City will screen it on Monday, March 29th, at 8Pm, with an introduction by Rodney Evans, writer/director of Brother To Brother.
Here’s a clip from the film:...
- 2/26/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
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