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The Connection

1961

Men Held Captive By the Power Of Drugs

A title card announces that the film is a result of found footage assembled by cameraman J.J. Burden working for the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Jim Dunn, who has disappeared. Leach, a heroin addict, introduces the audience to his apartment where other heroin addicts, a mix of current and former jazz musicians, are waiting for Cowboy, their drug connection, to appear. Things go out of control as the men grow increasingly nervous and the cameraman keeps recording.

Warren Finnerty Jerome Raphael Garry Goodrow Carl Lee Barbara Winchester Henry Proach Roscoe Lee Browne William Redfield Freddie Redd Jackie McLean Larry Richie Michael Mattos Linda Veras Jim Anderson

Alternative Titles

Connection, La Conexión, O Promitheftis, 커넥션, Связной, 药头

Genre

Drama

Theatrical

03 May 1961

USA

03 May 1961

Theatrical Cannes

110 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★½

Cinematic Time Capsule
1961 Marathon - Film #15
”I’m just trying to make a honest human document.”
Jim Dunn’s simply trying to make a hip movie about junkies hanging in a flat, playing jazz, pondering life, and of course waiting for the man. So why won’t anyone cooperate?
Shirley Clarke’s mockumentary based on the off-Broadway show retains it's sense of staginess and performance, but also finds ways to keep the single-room set fresh, energetic and interesting.
By the way, Warren Finnerty as Leach reminds me so much of Steve Bescemi that the entire time I kept picturing him in the role and imagining how awesome that would have been…
”It was just, just, just, just one of those things.”

Cinematic Time Capsule - 1961 Ranked
Martin Scorsese’s Favorite Films
Review by laird ★★★★½

aka 8 1/2 Junkies
aka I'm Waiting For The Man, Unless You're Coming To Me, In Which Case I'm The Man
If it's true that The Apartment was considered rather adult and controversial in 1960, it seems impossible that this movie is from just one year later (Letterboxd has the date wrong for some reason).
Director Shirley Clarke is a trained dancer, and it shows in how she swirls the camera around the single location setting and moves the characters around with stunning choreography. It helps defy the constant staginess that threatens to bog the movie down. The shaming of filmmakers who exploit their documentary subjects and their rubber-necking audiences is wonderful and just as relevant today as then. It presents a bucketful of transgressions and vices, yet never casts judgment on anyone but the filmmaker (who is so square that he basically sounds like a black guy doing an exaggerated impression of a square white guy).
Review by theironcupcake ★★★★★ 15

"You’re fed up with everything for the moment. And like the rest of us, you’re a little hungry for a little hope. So you wait and worry… a fix of hope, a fix to forget, to remember, to be happy, to be sad, to be… to be."
Women Film Editors #59: Shirley Clarke
This is an extra special review.
For a brief time between the 1950s and 70s, my great-uncle Jerome Raphel worked in theater, film and TV as an actor. Simply put, he was a pretty cool dude who I had the good fortune to spend a lot of time with for the first twenty years of my life. I profiled his life and career on my former blog,…
Review by edgard713 ★★★★½ 2

The godfather of mockumentaries... sometimes when I watch this film, I wonder if there's more to life than drugs and jazz music.
Review by Lowe McKee 20

Has that heightened, artificial quality of a stage play (which it was) in it’s use of a single location, in the way each actor gets their big monologue, in the jazzy rat-a-tat back and forth rhythm of the dialogue. Yet despite that artifice it manages to access something so raw and real and complicated. Feels way ahead of its time. Electrifying filmmaking.
Also, check out my friend Jetta’s wonderful and informative review! Seriously, go read it! So cool that her great-uncle was one of the principal cast members in this. A great read.
Review by theironcupcake ★★★★★ 7

For those who have seen The Connection (currently available via the Watch TCM app), it might seem like one of the last movies in the world that anybody would turn to for comfort, yet that is precisely what I'm doing. As I mentioned in a previous review, my mom has to undergo surgery with general anesthesia to remove a lump from her breast and tomorrow is that day. The reason why I turn now to Shirley Clarke's hard-hitting portrait of heroin addiction among NYC jazz musicians isn't so much about the plot itself - though it is a brilliant film that I strongly recommend - but rather because of the special place that her film holds in our hearts. My…
Review by Henri ★★★★★ 2

This feels truly revolutionary considering it was made in -61. A stage play transformed into a sweaty, one-location mockumentary, which handles both its drug addict portrayal and especially the meta-level ethnological commentary so well. AND the brilliant camerawork and the lively jazz score even make it an entertaining watch in a sense! Kind of a warped (and better, sue me) version of 12 Angry Men, with very different themes of course.
Review by dankwit

reminder to self: try playing the 1st two velvet underground albums along with this to see how well they sync up
Review by Liz ★★★★

This is a jazz performance as a theatre piece as a faux documentary as a drama, and like a jazz performance, the improvisations are always interesting, if not great. This is at its best when it's using that faux documentary structure as a stylistic tool, allowing characters to monologue directly to the camera and making the takes run unusually and realistically long through the use of hidden cuts and whip pans. Though clearly a chamber piece, the documentary shooting style and use of various perspectives and cameras enliven something that otherwise could've been fairly dull, making the most off-off-Broadway moments (I mean this in a not-great way), like the Sister Salvation section, at least interesting to watch.
Would be interesting to program this with the other movie that got banned by the New York censor board in 1961, Nude on the Moon.
Review by Jenna Ipcar ★★★★

Shirley Clarke rocking the experimental fourth wall breaking stream of consciousness confessional druggy film a full two years before Gaspar Noe was even a gleam in his mother’s eye.
Review by Joe ★★★½ 2

Probably would have liked this a lot more if I'd been expecting the highly artificial nature of the performances - as is I loved it so long as no one was speaking. At its worst it has the feel of dated experimental theater, but at its best it's a thrilling look at a seedy corner of American life, akin to William S. Burroughs or The Velvet Underground. I expect I'll like it more if/when I see it again.
Review by Zachary ★★★★½

Man, we all pay our dues.
The Connection is a wild ride. A jazzy, druggy experience that feels at once like a stage play, an autodocumentary, and an unholy fusion of 12 Angry Men and Requiem for a Dream. Ernie's jazz-fueled anxious meltdown is everything every Aronofsky or Safdie brothers film wishes it was, and that's just a tiny slice of what's happening in these cramped apartment walls. That was exactly my tempo.

Letterboxd — Your life in film

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The Connection

Synopsis

Men Held Captive By the Power Of Drugs

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Releases by Date

Theatrical

03 May 1961

Releases by Country

USA

03 May 1961

Popular reviews

Where to watch

The Connection

Synopsis

Men Held Captive By the Power Of Drugs

Cast

Director Director

Producer Producer

Writer Writer

Editor Editor

Cinematography Cinematography

Production Design Production Design

Art Direction Art Direction

Composer Composer

Country

Language

Alternative Titles

Genre

Theatrical

03 May 1961

USA

03 May 1961

Popular reviews

Director

Producer

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Editor

Cinematography

Production Design

Art Direction

Composer