Children of Jason

This is a list loosely inspired by Shirley Clarke’s masterful Portrait of Jason, a feature length study of Jason Holiday, street husler, gay prostitute, and occasional Mae West impersonator. The film is often casually labelled as being a documentary but it is much more than that limiting label would suggest. Jason, who immediately tells us that that isn’t even his real name, is a performer. We struggle to discern the real human being from the character he is creating before our eyes and our inability to resolve all we see or hear, combined with Clarke’s subtle method of obscuring our visual focus during...