Part of a retrospective on Shirley Clarke, this is a documentary about an African-American gay male prostitute in the 1960s. Shot over twelve hours, and then whittled down to just under two hours, Jason talks about his sexual exploits, various jobs he’s had, and impersonations of Mae West and Barbara Streisand.

 

I did not enjoy this viewing experience. One, I was exhausted after such a long day. Two, it just wasn’t all that great. Jason was a ham for the first half of this film. He talked about some of the rich women for whom he’d been a house boy, and how he didn’t really know how to clean or keep house at all.

 

Jason spent some time in Riker’s Island, and he talked about how he (essentially) ripped some people off over money for a nightclub act that had never come to fruition. At the time of the interview, he was seeing a shrink or two, and intoxicated and lounging, told about some of the questions they asked him (i.e.-about his sex life, and his body). He’d been sent to Bellevue and slit his wrists while there.

 

Further on into the interview he spoke about his parents. His father was abusive, and his mother was good to him, but not very loving. Towards the end of the interview, after drinking quite a bit, and smoking both cigarettes and pot, Jason isn’t as lucid as he had been. In fact, Shirley Clarke and her collaborator Carl Lee began to berate him, and cut him down. This was the most real he was during the entire film. His emotions and reactions for the last half hour was the best part of the movie.

 

One tree out of 5