Shirley Clarke (1919-1997) was an American independent filmmaker, electronic media pioneer, and teacher whose energetic force resisted the norm wherever life brought her. A decade after receiving her first camera as a wedding present, Clarke's film career launched with the short Dance in the Sun (1953). Her documentary Skyscraper (1959) garnered an Academy Award nomination, and her first feature film, The Connection (1961), adapted from Jack Gelber's Off-Broadway play portraying artists with heroin addiction, sparked attention when New York State censored it for obscenity. While Clarke's documentary Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World (1963) won an Oscar, she is perhaps best known for directing Portrait of Jason (1967), which featured an interview with a gay Black male entertainer and sex worker who openly discussed his experiences of success and discrimination. Until now, Clarke's legacy has been largely pushed to history's margins.
In Shirley Clarke, author Laurence Kardish presents a vivid portrait of a filmmaker whose life was often at odds with the societal expectations of a privileged woman born in twentieth-century New York City—a woman who radically admitted to being deeply conflicted about motherhood and advocated for reproductive rights. Frequently allowing Clarke to speak through her diaries, this biography follows her from birth through her modern dance training, personal relationships, collaborations with creatives like Agnès Varda, Sam Shepard, and Ornette Coleman, struggles with mental illness, and video adventures on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel. Kardish offers an up-close account of a rebel who battled convention to insist that the raw truth be told on screen, revealing a filmmaker whose countercultural impact and work in many media refuse to be ignored.
