The Connection

Like an anteroom in hell, The Connection logs the listless waiting of West Village druggies caught in that irreducible moment before the dealer delivers. Director Shirley Clarke captures this hep crash pad with the distanced cool of a Miles Davis composition: the highly inventive roving camera, some marvelous medicated acting, and a poignant jazz score add up to a truly hip mise-en-scène. As luck would have it, half of the “dopers” are jazz musicians, including the great Jackie McLean on alto sax and Freddie Redd on piano, so when they’re not nodding out they’re counting down some great riffs in the key of H. Clarke’s first feature is also a critique of filmic reality, brought to us courtesy of a filmmaker within the story who is making a documentary about addicts.