Documentary corner: Portrait of Jason

Along with bumblebees and pandas, another species that is seemingly on the verge of extinction is the raconteur. The word, which reached its height of popularity in the mid-20th century, is used to describe a teller of tales: someone who can take an amusing singular anecdote, and spin it into a tale of gold, causing you to hang onto every word. Today, the closest thing the Western world has to a true raconteur is director John Waters, aka 'The Pope of Trash'.This raconteur spirit is what makes Shirley Clarke’s 1967 documentary Portrait of Jason such a compelling watch.

Portrait of Jason, as the name would suggest, centres around Jason Holliday, a black, gay, aspiring cabaret performer. Over the course of 12 hours, Clarke and her team ask him questions about his life; his answers are vague, laced through with theatrical accounts of his early years as a hustler on the streets of New York City. As the night progresses, Clarke and her team become more and more hostile towards Holliday, abusing him with racial slurs, in an attempt to get underneath the exaggerated persona he has adopted. The 12 hours of footage are cut down to a much more manageable 105 minutes, with scenes floating in and out, cut together in a haze that gives an inebriated quality to the film.

A pioneer of the cinema verite movement, as well as a key player in the experimental film scene of the mid-20st century, Portrait of Jason may be Clarke’s masterpiece. Weaving together fact and fiction, she exploits the authenticity of the documentary format – which promises a ‘truth’, if such a thing can ever be achieved on film – by filling it with the ramblings of a man for whom authenticity is a quick route to an early grave, a man who has had to learn to adapt and hide in order to stay safe. At the same time, Clarke is playing a dangerous game, tiptoeing towards the ethical code of professional documentarians, and smashing it to pieces. The scenes where her and her partner berate Jason are some of the most uncomfortable things I have witnessed in a documentary, producing a palpable sense of unease. Clarke seems to be upending the conventions of the direct cinema movement; by both provoking her subject and manipulatively editing together the rushes she took over the twelve hours, she subverts the traditional role of the documentarian (derived from documentum, the latin word for ‘proof’, hinting at its structural importance in the concept of truth-telling), who is supposed to use the camera as a mechanical, all-seeing, all-consuming eye.

Portrait of Jason not only shows the true power of a raconteur – a power that can get one out of trouble just as often as it gets one in it – but Clarke also highlights the force and weaknesses of the documentary genre as a whole. Her and Jason leave no question unanswered, no story unsaid.