SHIRLEY CLARKE - “PORTRAIT OF JASON”
“Portrait of Jason”, for those like me who weren’t around back in ’67 for the halcyon days of the New American Cinema, is a black-and-white, 16mm, 105-minute film wherein a bespectacled, aging African-American hustler, looking dapper in a white shirt and blue blazer, rehearses his life, times, ambitions, and philosophies of livin’ before a single camera that does its best to keep up with him and often succeeds quite beautifully (Jason’s rap does occasionally exceed the amount of film in the camera, causing a blank screen from time to time). It’s been described as so many things through the years that one possible explanation for the persistent unavailability — except for a rare, out-of-print VHS tape from Mystic Fire Video — of a film so exceptional has been its unusual way of eluding all categorization. It isn’t a documentary, really; it isn’t even a “cinema verite” exercise (it’s been referred to as both repeatedly, in some instances by critics who are halfway perceptive).
Shirley Clarke - “Portrait of Jason” (1967, audio track)