They don’t come cooler than Cool World director Shirley Clarke. A pioneer in sixties independent movies, an innovator of the avant-garde, and key member of filmmaking collectives like Videofreex, Clarke is one of the best things to ever happen in underground American movies, up there with Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas.
BAM is a huge fan of Clarke, having given her an overdue retrospective in 2005 that showed not only her key works like The Cool World and The Connection, but an undeservedly under-discussed Agnès Varda movie in which she co-starred called Lions Love from 1969. Clarke shared the screen with our favorite Andy Warhol superstar Viva in that movie, but it was Clarke’s honest performance that made us such big fans.
