The Cool World

The Cool World is the first film about Harlem that was actually shot in Harlem. Hanging the camera from the ceiling provides a very personal experience for the viewer. The viewer is there as a participant, not as a spectator.

The Cool World is a very much not a Hollywood looking film with fast moving, up close, scenes. Dark yellow hued interior scenes capture the true feeling of the dwellings of the gang members. Shirley Clarke has taken us into The Cool World.

Little known trivia, is that Wally Cox's wife acted in this film. Another little known piece of trivia is that, since she lived in the Chelsea Hotel during the time that Sid Vicious also lived there, Shirley Clarke was a consultant on the film Sid and Nancy.

Shirley Clarke is one of those filmmakers I've heard about but I never seen any of her films, until now.

In New York at this time Cassavetes and many other filmmakers were doing films outside of the Hollywood system and tried to tell a different kind of film.

Shirley Clarke was definitely a part of this filmmovement using and deploying the same kind of style, tone and content.

This socialrealistic, gritty, dramadocumentary about street life in Harlem in 60's seen from a very young African American male by the name of Duke who joins a gang called the Pythons and starts waging a war against a rival gang called the Wolfs, is interesting albeit very flawed film experience.

At times this film is reminiscent of Cassavetes but being a very flawed film, the use of stock footage, voice-over, improvisational acting, etc means that Clarke sometimes ends up being a protegé to b-moviemaker Doris Wishman.

It may seem odd that I'm comparing the two but at times these two filmmakers seem to have a lot in common.

At best this film comes across as very dark, realistic portrayal of inner city youth crime in 60's. The film doesn't shy away from drugabuse, prostitution, interracial relationships etc.

Strangely, this film hasn't been released on DVD nor have Criterion, Masters of cinema etc released her films in a DVD box.

Shirley Clarke should get that treatment, she deserves it. And this film should be seen by more people interested in early American independent cinema.

"The Cool World", a 1963 independent film directed by Shirley Clarke is probably the most shocking, interesting, and realistic film I have ever seen. The films follows the character of Duke played by Rony Clanton. This film shows how it really was to be an African American teen growing up in urban America (Harlem, N.Y.) in the 1960's. The gun serves as a character in the film itself, for it demonstrates manhood for the character of Duke.

By no means is this film a glorification of street life that is so common today in American pop culture. The viewer will see in this film how ugly crime is especially these characters who are driven to commit crimes because of the desperate, depressed situations of the ghetto. The character of Duke searches throughout this movie for a gun to own as almost a way to arm himself against the failures that surround him daily such as rat infested tenements, garbage filled streets, drugs, pimps, prostitutes, gangs, and over zealous cops.

If John Cassevetes is considered the new phase of film making that occurred in the late 1950's with his superb film "Shadows" then Shirley Clarke is his female counterpart. Shirley Clarke masterfully merges documentary footage and Jazz music to the actual film that creates somewhat of a frightening, haunting, realistic portrait of urban America that I feel has not been seen very much in cinema since "The Cool World". It is interesting to note that actors Clarence Williams III, Antonio Fargas, Gloria Foster, and Peter De Anda who appeared in this film went on to make great strides of achievement in both film and television in the 1970's.

"The Cool World" is shown in many film festivals across the country. Unfortunately it is not on video, but someday I hope it will be for the world to see. I rate this movie **** excellent.

In the early '70's, at age 12 I was sleepily channel surfing late at night, (past my bedtime at a friend's house) looking for monster movies. I believe I was watching Channel 2, (KTVU Oakland, California's then independent now Fox-affiliated TV station) when I was riveted awake by the most amazing film. For years I looked for it, telling anyone who would listen about how real it seemed. How compelling it was. I never found anyone else who had seen it, let alone a theater showing it, a video or a DVD of it. One of the reasons I came to IMDb was to at last find confirmation of The Cool World's existence (not the Ralph Bakshi cartoon). I found some lobby cards at a collector's fair and bought them. Hope was awakened in me in the early '90's when I heard of a special showing at the Roxie Cinema. The print was on loan from Shirley Clarke as it was so rare. The day came and I arrived at the cinema and the print didn't appear due to a shipping snafu. By now I was losing hope. When I first wrote this I hadn't seen it again. Recently, I saw it at last. It is an amazing cultural document of 1960's Harlem.

What we have here is one of the most honest depictions of a culture I've seen in an American film. The montages of the streets of Harlem with the voice over feels like a poetic travelogue of a place and time you don't want to visit. This film also feels far ahead of its time, showing stuff you wouldn't see in Hollywood for at least another decade. I can see how this movie could have inspired the early features of Ralph Bakshi with its style and broad focus on urban characters from NYC.

Unfortunately this film is pretty obscure which means that tracking down a decent copy is hard, but it is possible to find a very grainy copy on YouTube.