Wikipedia

Portrait of Jason

Portrait of Jason is a 1967 documentary film directed, produced and edited by Shirley Clarke and starring Jason Holliday (né Aaron Payne, 1924–1998).

Portrait of Jason
1967 newspaper advertisement promoting screenings of the film at New York theaters
Directed byShirley Clarke
Produced byShirley Clarke
StarringJason Holliday
Shirley Clarke
Carl Lee
CinematographyJeri Sopanen
Edited byShirley Clarke
Distributed byFilm-Makers' Distribution Center
Milestone Films (re-release)
Release dates
  • September 29, 1967 (1967-09-29) (NYFF)
  • October 2, 1967 (1967-10-02) (United States)
Running time
105 minutes
LanguageEnglish

In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[1]

Synopsis

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A gay African-American hustler and aspiring cabaret performer, Jason is the sole on-screen presence in the film. He narrates his troubled life story to the camera, behind which Clarke and her partner at the time, actor Carl Lee, provoke and berate Jason with increasing hostility as the film progresses. The film employs avant-garde and cinéma vérité techniques to expose the tragedy underlying Jason's theatrical, exaggerated persona.[2][3]

Production background

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Filming for Portrait of Jason took place in the living room of Clarke's Hotel Chelsea penthouse apartment. The shoot started at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 3, 1966, and ended 12 hours later.[4] While Clarke originally intended for Jason to be the only speaking character in the film, she included the off-screen voices of her, Carl Lee, and other crew members in the final cut. She later revealed why she did this:

When I saw the rushes I knew the real story of what happened that night in my living room had to include all of us, and so our question-reaction probes, our irritations and angers, as well as our laughter remain part of the film, essential to the reality of one winter's night in 1967.[4]

The inclusion of the off-camera voices is most important in the final reel, when Carl Lee and others begin to verbally attack Jason for wrongs he has done them or their perception of his bad character. The assaults make Jason become defensive and weepy for the first time in the film. However, by the very end of the film, he brushes off the continuing attacks by trying to make jokes of them, although, in stark contrast to the film before the final reel, he himself does not laugh. His final words are, "Finally. Oh, that was beautiful. I'm happy about the whole thing." His face is once again a completely out-of-focus abstraction, so the lack of visual information makes it difficult to know whether these words are meant to be sarcastic.

Contemporaneous reception

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Upon its 1967 release, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times admired Portrait of Jason as a "curious and fascinating example of cinéma vérité, all the ramifications of which cannot be immediately known."[3] Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman called Portrait of Jason "the most extraordinary film I've seen in my life."[5]

Restoration and re-release

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In 2013, Dennis Doros, co-founder of Milestone Films and board member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, gave a series of talks to universities and film societies about the search for the film, which was thought lost. However, the original print of the film had surfaced in the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research archives.[6]

An intensive restoration effort of the original print received over $26,000 from a Kickstarter campaign as well as funding from Academy Film Archive.[7] Among other funders were Steve Buscemi, the Winterfilm Collective, and TIFF Cinematheque.[8]

Josef Lindner and Michael Pogorzelski supervised the restoration, which involved the cooperation of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, the Swedish Film Institute, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Harry Ransom Center, the Berlinale International Forum of New Cinema, and Wendy Clarke. The mastering of the restoration was completed by Modern Videofilm.

In April 2013, Milestone Films released the restored print.[9]

Later reception

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As of February 16, 2023, Portrait of Jason holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Like any great work of art, Portrait of Jason tells a story that reaches far beyond its canvas in the act of illuminating its subject."[10] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[11]

The Village Voice's Melissa Anderson wrote that Portrait of Jason "says more about race, class, and sexuality than just about any movie before or since."[12]

Documentary filmmaker Connie Field assessed the film quite negatively:

I felt [Clarke] was exploiting him ... not because ... of trying to reveal a person at all. ... if you basically make someone drunk in front of your camera, that's exploitative. ... Who cares if the reality is that this person does drink a lot? You're the one supplying the liquor. ... at the end, when he is crying, I see a drunk crying, and I think only 'a drunk crying' rather than 'his soul is being revealed'.[13]

In 2015, Stephen Winter directed a film called Jason and Shirley, starting Sarah Schulman and Jack Waters, which is a fictionalized and critical re-imagination of the daylong filming of Portrait of Jason in December 1966.[14][15]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Barnes, Mike (December 16, 2015). "'Ghostbusters,' 'Top Gun,' 'Shawshank' Enter National Film Registry". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
  2. ^ Erickson, Hal (2007). "Portrait of Jason (1967): Review Summary". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 18, 2007. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  3. ^ a b Crowther, Bosley (September 30, 1967). "Film Festival: The Landscape of Love:'Elvira Madigan' Tells a Bittersweet Tale". The New York Times. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  4. ^ a b Portrait of Jason press kit 2013, p. 6.
  5. ^ "Portrait of Jason". IFC Center. AMC Networks. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  6. ^ Erickson, Glenn. "Milestone's theatrical restoration of Portrait of Jason". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014.
  7. ^ "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
  8. ^ Portrait of Jason press kit 2013, p. 33.
  9. ^ Doros, Dennis. "Portrait of Jason Film Restoration". Kickstarter. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  10. ^ "Portrait of Jason (1967)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  11. ^ "Portrait of Jason Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  12. ^ Anderson, Melissa (April 22, 2009). "The Films of Shirley Clarke at Anthology". The Village Voice. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  13. ^ "Essential Documentaries". TCM Spotlight: Trailblazing Women. Season 1. Episode 5. October 15, 2015. Turner Classic Movies.
  14. ^ Kenigsberg, Ben (October 19, 2015). "'Jason and Shirley' Reimagines the Making of a Landmark Documentary". The New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  15. ^ Brody, Richard. "Jason and Shirley". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 7, 2016.

Bibliography

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