Portrait of Jason
NYFF Favorites
•
1h 47m
Directed by Shirley Clarke | 107 mins | 1967
A distillation of a single 12-hour interview in a room at the Chelsea Hotel with the charismatic Jason Holliday (“real” name Aaron Payne), a gay, African American cabaret dancer, part-time hustler, and full-time raconteur, Portrait of Jason grows from a moving, fascinating monologue testimonial to something still thornier and deeper, both a confrontational standoff between Holliday and filmmakers Clarke and Carl Lee, poking holes in their subject’s storytelling, and an inquiry into issues around representation and the privileged gaze of the camera that upends many still-prevalent assumptions in documentary filmmaking. “Transfixing, troubling, immensely powerful… a rocket ship into the future of gay liberation.”—Mark Harris, Film Comment
Up Next in NYFF Favorites
-
Sátántangó
Directed by Béla Tarr | 439 mins | 1994
A cinephile rite of passage, Tarr’s magnum opus immerses us in the world of about a dozen characters in a shuttered factory town who are visited by a messianic figure but are also distracted by their own eyebrow-raising personal missions. Creating a rich te... -
Stranger by the Lake
Directed by Alain Guiraudie | 100 mins | 2013
Lauded and laureled at Cannes, Guiradie’s understated, simmeringly sensual thriller explores the proximity of Eros and Thanatos in an idyllic, lakeside nude beach/cruising spot—shot for maximum pastoral splendor by DP Claire Mathon—where regular Franc... -
The Girl and the Spider
Directed by Ramon Zürcher and Silvan Zürcher | 98 mins | 2021
An apartment move-out produces an exquisite ballet of curious personal dramas and fraught relationships (new and old) thanks to the whisker-sensitive filmmaking of the Zürcher brothers. Set amid nosy neighbors, it’s a fine-grained cros...
