Events

[SCREENING] Called “the most extraordinary film I’ve seen in my life” by no less than Ingmar Bergman, the 1967 documentary Portrait of Jason was all but lost for decades. Painstaking research by the film archivists at Milestone Film led to the discovery of sufficient elements to restore the film, which will be screened this week at Hallwalls. Director Shirley Clarke (whose The Connection and Ornette: Made in America have also recently been screened at Hallwalls) spent 12 hours in a room at Manhattan’s Chelsea Hotel interviewing Jason Holliday, a gay hustler and cabaret performer. This was groundbreaking enough for its time, but the results remain extraordinary. Holliday’s carefully constructed persona is worn down by the filmmakers through questioning, and while we can never be sure that the removed layers don’t simply reveal another façade, the portrait of a man marginalized from society by race, sexuality and class is none the less indelible.