Portrait of Jason Event / Social Media Post

April 28, 2025

Yesterday I presented the stunning documentary PORTRAIT OF JASON (1966) by Shirley Clarke at the @paristheaternyc as part @theacademy Museum Branch Selects. I invited Jack Waters @jaceogram – visual artist, film maker, writer, media artist, choreographer, performer and active member of the @filmcoop (which Clarke helped to found in the early 1960s) to join me to discuss his role as Jason in Stephen Winter’s “Jason and Shirley.”

Here Jack celebrates the preservation work on the film by Milestone Films drawing attention to the lack of visibility Clarke received during the heyday of the NEW AMERICAN CINEMA. He also explores how the film expresses the early ethos of queer liberation. Jack points to the brilliance of Clarke’s work but also asks if indeed Jason ever finds HIS voice in the film.

In 1995, my friend and fellow filmmaker Marlon Riggs – director of one of my favorite movies “Tongues Untied” – said in his film “Black Is…Black Ain’t”:

“How long, Jason, how long have they sung about the freedom and the righteousness and the beauty of the black man and ignored you. How long?”