The Berlinale Forum had a number of special screenings in addition to its line-up of boundary-pushing cinema of mixed forms.  There were classics by the Japanese director Kawashima Yuzo, Cambodian cinema of the 60s, and two films by Shirley Clarke among other assorted treasures.  I was able to catch Clarke’s The Connection (1961) at the Arsenal Cinema, the screening site of the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art.

Clarke’s complex film is highly theatrical, radically reflexive, and also a documentary-like spoof.  The length of the film takes place in the run-down apartment of a drug addict named Leach (Warren Finnerty) where his junkie friends, including a jazz band, hang out all day doing nothing in paradigmatic slackeresque fashion.  They are waiting for their connection to arrive with their fix of heroin.  While they do, a documentary filmmaker captures their routine in an effort to reveal the truth about their living situation.  As the film plays it becomes apparent that the documentarian doesn’t really know what he wants and he slowly slides into an acceptance of their drugged way of life, including sampling heroin for the first time and reducing himself to both subject and filmmaker.

The Connection is an early example of American independent cinema that owes something to the path that Cassavetes opened in 1959 with his film Shadows.  Still it is a fiercely individual work that is maybe more combative and critical, and more layered, than Cassavetes’ well-known debut.  The Connection was also Clarke’s debut film and dare I say it, it is the work of a more assured professional hand.  It is a very rigorous and controlled film that feigns the look of improvisation, while Shadows is pure riffing that is self-aware.  I prefer Clarke’s film and find it to have more clarity and power.

The Connection is a tour-de-force of ensemble acting with strong performances by all the featured players.  Brilliant in design and execution, it is one of those films that makes you feel as if you have missed out on a crucial stage in the history of American cinema.  I’ll look forward to discovering the rest of Clarke’s films in the hopes they can live up to the lofty status of this one.