Friday's screening introduced by Dr. Garth Jowett, University of Houston

Originally banned in New York for its subject matter and language, this unconventional debut feature from filmmaker Shirley Clarke is now regarded as a staple of the New American Cinema. Based on a play by Jack Gelber of The Living Theatre, the story centers on junkies waiting for their dealer in a Greenwich Village loft, and features jazz musicians Freddie Redd and Jackie McLean. Shown here on a beautiful new 35mm print, this rarely seen film from one of our greatest female directors has never looked better.

‘‘Right now, I’m revolting against the conventions of movies. Who says a film has to cost a million dollars and be safe and innocuous enough to satisfy every 12-year-old in America?... We’re creating a movie equivalent of Off Broadway, fresh and experimental and personal. The lovely thing is that I’m alive at just the time when I can do this.’’ — Shirley Clarke, 1962 

The feature will be preceded by Clarke’s experimental short film, Bridges Go Round (1958), which features a jazz score by Teo Macero. 

The Connection was preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding by the Film Foundation.

For more than thirty years Garth Jowett has been a professor of communication, specializing in both film and propaganda studies, at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston. He has been an avid jazz fan and scholar since he was 12. In Houston his jazz radio show The Sounds Of Jazz has been heard since 1979, starting on KUHF-FM, and then moving to KTRU-FM. After a number of years wandering in the jazz radio wilderness, he now presents this show on KPFT-FM.