Shirley Clarke
Directing
- Born
- October 2, 1919 · New York City, New York, USA
- Died
- September 23, 1997 (age 77)
A major figure of the American avant garde, Shirley Brimberg Clarke (1919-1997) was born into privilege as the daughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants who made their fortune in manufacturing. Rebelling against a repressive bourgeois upbringing, Clarke turned first to dance, and later film and video, to express her distinctive vision of the world.
Moving freely across genres and media throughout her career (and often within a single work), Clarke’s cinema explores the porous boundaries between narrative and documentary filmmaking, and film and other media, such as painting, dance, performance and video. Her 1960s features The Connection (1961), The Cool World (1963) and Portrait of Jason (1967), for which she is arguably best remembered, address issues of urban alienation, poverty, addiction and racism, focusing on lives lived at the margins of American society. Fearless in both her personal and creative life, Clarke produced a body of work that is as formally innovative as it is rooted in social protest.
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Clarke initially trained as a dancer, immersing herself in New York’s vibrant post-war avant-garde dance scene. Although her dance career never quite earned her the critical acclaim she’d hoped for, it had a lasting impact on her subsequent filmmaking and video work, informing an interest in how movement is recorded formally, while introducing her to key avant-garde dancers and choreographers.
Source: https://denniscooperblog.com/shirley-clarke-day-2/
Known for
Behind the camera47
- 2016Fear Flight Director
- 2016A Short Lecture and Demonstration on the Evolution of Ragtime as Presented by Jelly Roll Morton Director
- 2016Home Movies #20: Dance Tests Director
- 2016Decroux Film Director
- 2016Outtakes for 'In Paris Parks' Director
- 2016This Is Not 'In Paris Parks' Director
- 2016Bullfight: The C and D Rolls Director
- 2016Rose and the Players – Part 1 Director
- 2016Rose and the Players – Part 2 Director
- 1986
