Shirley Clarke was no ordinary documentary filmmaker. One of the first women to break the male lock on independent filmmaking in the ’50s and ’60s, Clarke grew up in New York, a child of wealthy parents who provided her with a comfortable upbringing of privilege and private schools.
But that world wasn’t her creative milieu. Instead, she turned her camera on a gritty collection of controversial misfits who operated beyond the margins of polite society — heroin-addicted jazz musicians, a gay African American prostitute, black gangs on the streets of Harlem — and paid a hefty price for doing so. Her first feature film, "The Connection" (1961), about heroin-shooting musicians played by real drug offenders, was banned in the State of New York as obscene, ostensibly for using a shot of a girlie magazine as well as a "vulgar" synonym for the drug. 
"She helped to inspire a new film movement and make urgently vibrant work that blurs fiction and nonfiction, only to be marginalized, written out of histories and dismissed as a dilettante," wrote New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis of Clarke, who died in 1997.
Shirley Clarke
In 1975, Clarke’s reputation as an avant-garde filmmaker with an idiosyncratic way of making films brought her to UCLA, where she taught film until 1985, inspiring a younger generation of film artists to defy convention and make socially meaningful films. Among them were a group of Los Angeles-based African and African American film artists known as the L.A. Rebellion — most of whom met as students in UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television — who went on to produce a significant body of work in the 1960s through 1980s.
"Last year, when we did the huge ‘L.A. Rebellion’ exhibition of African American filmmakers who had gone to UCLA, almost all of them mentioned Shirley Clarke as a mentor," said Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. "These young filmmakers created independent cinema that was non-racist and far from Hollywood — and her name came up over and over again."
Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest, especially among film historians and cinema buffs, in Clarke’s work, spurred in part by UCLA Film and Television Archive’s restoration of "The Connection," and its subsequent release on DVD by Milestone Films.
In the upcoming UCLA Festival of Preservation for 2013, the archive's much-lauded, biennial presentation of its efforts to preserve and restore our national movie image heritage, two more of Clarke's restored films will be shown. More than 25 film noirs, documentaries and feature films will be screened during the festival, which begins Friday, March 1, and runs through Saturday, March. 30.
On Thursday, March 14, Clarke’s Oscar-winning documentary, "Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel
with the World" (1963), will screen. Clarke shot it just months before Frost died. "It’s a fascinating and personal look at one of the greatest poets of the 20th century," said Horak. "Clarke managed to get him to open up and show a warmth that hadn’t been seen before. Frost’s public persona previously had been as an extremely gruff and not very friendly person."
Clarke's film on Robert Frost begins with a voiceover from President John F. Kennedy, a tribute he gave the poet during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony on March 26, 1962.
On Sunday, March 24, "Ornette: Made in America" (1985), will showcase Clarke’s abilities to draw out complex personalities. The subject of the documentary, jazz musician Ornette Coleman, who may appear as part of the archive program via Skype, is an artist as adventurous and experimental in music as Clarke was in film and video.
Clarke’s portrayal of Ornette was her last major piece, the end point of a career that had brought her only a few accolades, archive film preservationist Ross Lipman noted. But because of new interest in her work, both "Ornette" and another Clarke film, "Portrait of Jason," premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in the last two years. Horak saw the films draw substantial crowds in Berlin, "because up until up now, her films really have only been available in a limited way." 
Clarke, an early pioneer of video experimentation, was considered controversial on several fronts. In her private life, she had an interracial relationship with an African-American man "when that was considered taboo by white America," said Horak.
Jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman
In her work, her controversial subject matter was coupled with an unconventional way of making films. "Her work is really interesting because it is quite unique stylistically — and a little on the eccentric side," Horak said. "Clarke did not cut film the way others did — she never seemed interested in doing things the standard way, or the way that others did things."
Clarke was also the only woman who joined with 22 other dissident filmmakers in 1960 to establish the New American Cinema to support a new generation of independent filmmakers. "I’m revolting against the conventions of movies," she told the New York Times in 1962. "Who says a film has to cost a million dollars and be safe and innocuous enough to satisfy every 12-year-old in America?"
Although it’s been almost 30 years since Clarke taught on campus, her presence endures. 
Nancy Richardson, a UCLA professor of film and television and a film editor with credits on many movies, recalled how excited students were about her arrival at UCLA. "She was a maverick, a pioneer, an avant-garde independent filmmaker and a true artist in so many ways."
"The Connection," a film adaptation of a play about heroin-addicted musicians, was banned in the State of New York before a judge overturned the ruling.
Clarke’s Design Course, in which students focused on visual elements instead of a narrative structure, was renowned among UCLA film students, recalled William McDonald, chair of the film, television and digital media department. Although, as a student, he never took the class, he shot a few projects for students who did. "Everything was fair game. Wild work came out of the class."
"It was a class where you could really experiment with elements that weren’t necessarily going to fit in with your required film projects," Richardson said.
Clarke told her students that she was not a great director, but rather a skilled editor. "She continued to ‘direct’ film well into post-production," Richardson recalled. "She said if she had been a better director, she would have known she didn’t need to shoot 11 takes, when it was actually take two that she used."
That lesson still resonates with Richardson. "Every time I am in my editing room and looking at take 11 or 17, I find myself going back to check take two. A lot of times, the technical bugs of lighting and blocking have been worked out in take one, and take two really is the fresh take where the actors are the most authentic. And I remember Shirley saying that."
Clarke’s fascination with those living on the margins of society also left its mark on students.
"Shirley did not shy away from controversy or controversial personalities," Richardson said. "She was willing and ready to look at the dark side. … She seemed to identify or at least be fascinated by people who were on the fringes. Her fascination with outsiders was a huge influence on her students."
For more information on the UCLA Festival of Preservation, including how to purchase tickets, go here.
