Shirley Clarke Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Henry Breitrose

Critical Essay by Henry Breitrose

Shirley Clarke was originally a dancer. Before making films she took the precaution of learning a great deal about film technique; but she remains an instinctual film-maker, whose feeling for movement generally seems to have carried over into her feeling for the camera.

The theme of Bridges-Go-Round—as far as words can describe it—is the bridges that link Manhattan to Brooklyn, queens, the Bronx, and the New Jersey shore. In actuality, the bridges become plastic materials for a highly abstract subjective study in structures and movements. The images were printed "bi-packed"—running sandwiched together through the printer—in order to give them equal intensity. They are manipulated in a complex but extremely arresting way: the great steel girders, the taut cables, the towers and railings and roadways and abutments seem almost to dance. An exciting sense of color works with Mrs. Clarke's lively rhythmic sense….

On its simplest level Skyscraper is the chronicle...
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