Shirley Clarke
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Shirley Clarke (2 October 1919, New York City - 23 September 1997, Boston) was a major American independent filmmaker.
Clarke was born Shirley Brimberg. Her father was a Polish immigrant who made his fortune in manufacturing and her mother was the daughter of a multimillionaire Jewish manufactuer and inventor, and her sister was the writer Elaine Dundy. Her interest in dance began at an early age, but met with the disapproval of her father, a violent bully.[1]
Clarke attended Stephens College, Johns Hopkins University, Bennington College and University of South Carolina. As a result of dance lessons at each of these schools, she trained under the Martha Graham method, the Doris Humphrey-Charles Weidman technique and the Hanya Holm method of modern dance. She married Bert Clarke to escape her father's control so she could study dance under the masters in New York City. She started her artistic career as a dancer in the New York avant garde modern dance movement. She was an avid participant in dance lessons and performances at the Young Women's Hebrew Association.
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[edit] Short films
Her lack of success as a choreographer led her psychiatrist to suggest a career change, so she explored her interest in film. In her first film, Dance in the Sun (1953) she adapted a choreography of Daniel Nagrin. The New York Dance Film Society selected it as the best dance film of the year.
Clarke studied filmmaking with Hans Richter at the City College of New York after making In Paris Parks (1954). In 1955 she became a member of the Independent Filmmakers of America. She became part of a circle of independent filmmakers in Greenwich Village such as Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas.
In A Moment in Love, Clarke used abstract line and color to capture pure dance. Clarke's film Bridges Go-Round (1959) is a major example of abstract expressionism in film, with two alternative soundtracks, one with electronic music by Louis and Bebe Barron and the other consisting of jazz created by Teo Macero. She used the camera to create a sense of motion while filming inanimate structures.
She received an Academy Award nomination for Skyscraper (1960). Mainly shot in 1958, the short film captures the construction of 666 Fifth Avenue which began building in 1957. The 20-minute film also includes shots of the Roxy Theatre which was demolished the year Skyscraper was released. In 1959 it won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival.
A Scary Time (1960), showing poverty and disease among children in Third World nations, was produced by UNICEF in consultation with Thorold Dickinson. It features music by Peggy Glanville-Hicks.[2]
In 1961, Clarke signed the manifesto 'Statement for a New American Cinema', and in 1962, she cofounded The Film Makers Cooperative in New York.
[edit] Features
Several of Clarke's films are considered to be artistic breakthroughs. She lectured frequently, speaking at theaters and museums. The Connection (1961) from the play by Jack Gelber concerning heroin-addicted jazz musicians, was a landmark for the emergence of a New York independent feature film movement. It heralded a new style that employed greater cinematic realism and addressed relevant social issues in black-and-white low-budget films. It was also important because Clarke made the films the first test case in a successful fight to abolish New York State's censorship rules. It also served as a commentary on the failures of cinema verité. It appears to be a documentary on a way of life, but it is really a carefully scripted film.
Her next feature, The Cool World (1964), was the first movie to dramatize a story on black street gangs without relying upon Hollywood-style moralizing. Shot on location in Harlem, it was based on a novel by Warren Miller.
Clarke directed a 90-minute interview with a black homosexual, Portrait of Jason (1967), a selection of the fifth New York Film Festival. Edited from 12 hours of interview footage. the film was described by Lauren Rabinovitz as an exploration of one "person's character while it simultaneously addresses the range and limitations of cinema-verité style." It was distributed by the Film-Makers Distribution Center. Co-founded by Clarke in 1966, this distributor closed in 1970 due to a lack of funds.
Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel With the World (1963), directed by Shirley Clarke and starring Robert Frost, won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 1963.
[edit] Video
In the 1970s and early 1980s Clarke experimented with live video performance, returning to her roots as a dancer. She formed the TV Video Space Troupe at her Chelsea Hotel penthouse. This group included video artists Andy Gurian, Bruce Ferguson, DeeDee Halleck, Vickie Polan, Shrider Bapat, Clarke's daughter Wendy Clarke and many others.
From time to time members of the pioneering video collective, Videofreex, were part of the Troupe: David Cort, Parry Teasdale, Chuck Kennedy, Skip Blumberg, Bart Freidman and Nancy Cain. The troupe worked in and around the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd St in New York City, often setting up multiple cameras and monitors on the roof or in the stairwell. The Chelsea guest participants included Viva, Arthur C. Clarke, and Agnès Varda. The troupe went on tour to colleges and media centers, including Bucknell College in Pennsylvania where they worked with drama and dance students in a massive evening performance in the student center and SUNY Cortland where they created a video mural with art students.
Clarke was an enthusiastic and supportive teacher who influenced a generation of video makers. She became a professor at UCLA in 1975, teaching film and video until 1985. On September 23, 1997, Clarke died of a stroke after a struggle with Alzheimer's shortly before her 78th birthday.
[edit] Reference
- ^ Philip Purser Obituary of Clarke's sister, Elaine Dundy, The Guardian, 8 May 2008.
- ^ Ubuweb
[edit] Filmography
- 1954- A Dance in the Sun and In Paris Parks
- 1955- Bullfight
- 1957- A Moment in Love
- 1958- Skyscraper and Brussels "Loops"
- 1959- Bridges-Go-Round
- 1960- A Scary Time
- 1961- The Connection
- 1963- The Cool World and Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World
- 1967- Portrait of Jason and Man in Polar Regions
- 1978- Trans, One Two Three and Mysterium; Initiation
- 1981- Savage/Love
- 1982- Tongues
- 1985- Ornette: Made in America
