Portrait of Jason
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Portrait of Jason'' is a 1967
documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
directed, produced and edited by
Shirley Clarke Shirley Clarke (née Brimberg; October 2, 1919 – September 23, 1997) was an American filmmaker. Life Born Shirley Brimberg in New York City, she was the daughter of a Polish-immigrant father who made his fortune in manufacturing. Her mother w ...
and starring
Jason Holliday Jason Holliday (June 8, 1924 – June 15, 1998) (birth name: Aaron Payne) was an American hustler and nightclub performer. He is the star of Shirley Clarke's 1967 documentary ''Portrait of Jason''. Life The facts surrounding Aaron Payne's life ar ...
(né Aaron Payne, 1924-1998). In 2015, the United States
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
selected the film for preservation in the
National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


Synopsis

A gay African-American hustler and aspiring
cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...
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 The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
and
cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or high ...
techniques to reach the tragedy underlying Jason's theatrical, exaggerated persona.


Production background

Filming for ''Portrait of Jason'' took place in the living room of Clarke's
Hotel Chelsea The Hotel Chelsea (also the Chelsea Hotel or the Chelsea) is a hotel in Manhattan, New York City, built between 1883 and 1885. The 250-unit hotel is located at 222 West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, in the neighborhood of Ch ...
penthouse apartment. The shoot started at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 3, 1966, and ended 12 hours later. 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: 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

Upon its 1967 release,
Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' admired ''Portrait of Jason'' as a "curious and fascinating example of cinéma vérité, all the ramifications of which cannot be immediately known." Swedish filmmaker
Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...
called ''Portrait of Jason'' "the most extraordinary film I've seen in my life."


Restoration and re-release

In 2013, Dennis Doros, co-founder of
Milestone Films Milestone Film and Video is an independent film distribution company, founded in 1990 in the United States by Dennis Doros and Amy Heller. The company researches and distributes cinematographic material from around the world, including silent film, ...
and board member of the
Association of Moving Image Archivists The Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization established to advance the field of moving image archiving by fostering cooperation among individuals and organizations concerned with the acquisition, ...
, 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 The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is a major archive of motion picture, television, radio, and theater research materials. Located in the headquarters building of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, the ...
archives. An intensive restoration effort of the original print received over $26,000 from a
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
campaign as well as funding from
Academy Film Archive The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...
. Among other funders were
Steve Buscemi Steven Vincent Buscemi ( ,As stated in interviews by Buscemi himself, some may insist that his pronunciation of his own name is "wrong" because it does not match the original Italian pronunciation as well. It is not uncommon for people to pronou ...
, the Winterfilm Collective, and tiff.cinematheque. Josef Lindner and Michael Pogorzelski supervised the restoration, which involved the cooperation of the
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is a major archive of motion picture, television, radio, and theater research materials. Located in the headquarters building of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, the ...
, the
Swedish Film Institute The Swedish Film Institute ( sv, Svenska Filminstitutet) was founded in 1963 to support and develop the Swedish film industry. The institute is housed in the ''Filmhuset'' building located in Gärdet, Östermalm in Stockholm. The building, comp ...
, the
UCLA Film & Television Archive The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Also a nonprofit exhibition venue, the archiv ...
, the
Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...
, the
Berlinale The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
International Forum of New Cinema, and Wendy Clarke. The mastering of the restoration was completed by Modern Videofilm. In April 2013,
Milestone Films Milestone Film and Video is an independent film distribution company, founded in 1990 in the United States by Dennis Doros and Amy Heller. The company researches and distributes cinematographic material from around the world, including silent film, ...
released the restored print.


Later reception

As of March 20, 2018, ''Portrait of Jason'' holds a 100% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 8.64/10. On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
s Melissa Anderson wrote that ''Portrait of Jason'' "says more about race, class, and sexuality than just about any movie before or since." Documentary filmmaker
Connie Field Connie Field is an American film director known for her work in documentaries. Her works include ''The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter'' (1980), ''Forever Activists'' (1990), ''Freedom on My Mind'' (1994) and ''Have You Heard from Johannesbur ...
assesses the film quite negatively: In 2015, Stephen Winter directed a film called '' Jason and Shirley'', starting
Sarah Schulman Sarah Miriam Schulman (born July 28, 1958) is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at College of Staten Island (CSI) and a Fellow a ...
and Jack Waters, which is a fictionalized and critical re-imagination of the daylong filming of ''Portrait of Jason'' in December 1966.


See also

* List of American films of 1967


References


External links

* *
Peeling Away the Layers In 'A Portrait of Jason'
NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

One Man, Saved From Invisibility: Shirley Clarke’s ‘Portrait of Jason,’ Back in Circulation

The Anti-Restoration of Portrait of Jason: A Conversation with Dennis Doros
Chicago Film Society The Chicago Film Society (CFS) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving celluloid film and celluloid film culture. Widely known for historically informed screenings of 35mm, 70mm, 16mm and 8mm films, the CFS also mai ...
, 2013 {{Authority control 1967 documentary films 1967 LGBT-related films 1967 films African-American LGBT-related films African-American films American documentary films American LGBT-related films Documentary films about African Americans Documentary films about gay men Films directed by Shirley Clarke Documentary films about male prostitution United States National Film Registry films Documentary films about prostitution in the United States 1960s English-language films 1960s American films