Clarke, Shirley, 1919-1997
Variant namesBorn in New York, Shirley Clarke first made waves as a dancer studying with modern choreographers like Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and Doris Humphrey. In early short films, such as A Dance in the Sun (1953), Bullfight (1955), and Bridges Go Round (1958), she successfully fused her interests in choreography and cinema. Subsequent feature films The Connection (1961), The Cool World (1964), and Portrait of Jason (1967) were landmarks of independent cinema, charting an uncompromising path through controversial subject matter. Her portrait of the poet Robert Frost, Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World (1963) won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Her final feature, Ornette: Made in America (1985), is another portrait, this time of the jazz musician Ornette Coleman.
Clarke was also a social organizer, co-founding the Film-Makers Cooperative and Film-Makers Distribution Center with Jonas Mekas in New York, and later the Tee Pee Videospace Troupe. She was the recipient of many awards and retrospectives, and from 1975 to 1985 taught film and video production at the University of California, Los Angeles. She died in Boston in 1997.
Role | Title | Holding Repository |
---|
Filters:
Relation | Name | |
---|---|---|
associatedWith | Anthology Film Archives. | corporateBody |
associatedWith | Bartlett, Freude | person |
parentOf | Clarke, Wendy Mitman, 1962- | person |
associatedWith | Filmmakers Distribution Center. | corporateBody |
associatedWith | Frost, Robert, 1874-1963. | person |
associatedWith | Graves, Robert Ranke, 1895-1985 | person |
associatedWith | Jordan, June, 1936-2002. | person |
associatedWith | Paik, Nam June, 1932-2006. | person |
associatedWith | Serious Business Company. | corporateBody |
Place Name | Admin Code | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
New York City | NY | US |
Subject |
---|
African Americans |
Dance |
Documentary films |
Drug addicts |
Experimental films |
Independent filmmakers |
Motion picture producers and directors |
Motion pictures |
Women in the motion picture industry |
Occupation |
---|
Dancer |
Filmmaker |
Activity |
---|
Person
Birth 1919-10-02
Death 1997-09-23
Americans
English