Review: The Connection

One of the great pleasures of being an insatiably voracious cinephile is venturing off the beaten path of "canonical" classics and discovering the comparatively unsung outliers—obscurities and oddities that are not easily categorized as belonging to a particular “movement,” thus challenging the very foundation of what textbooks generally consider the "definitive" history of film.

The Connection fits that description perfectly. Released in 1961, this uncompromisingly dark, sweaty, grimy study of drug addiction, media sensationalism, and class/racial tension is framed as a documentary. Director Shirley Clarke’s previous work was predominantly nonfiction—produced in collaboration with the likes of D. A. Pennebaker—and her experience with blurring the razor-thin line between “truth” (an abstract concept that is both elusive and illusive) and fabrication (no edited footage, after all, can ever be trusted to be a completely objective depiction of "reality"; the act of choosing to omit certain information inherently introduces bias) serves her well in this rare foray into narrative storytelling. While the premise initially seems to be relatively straightforward—a group of strung-out junkies languish in a filthy, derelict New York City apartment, impatiently awaiting the delivery of their latest fix—the characters’ increasing irritation at the presence of the diegetic “camera crew” complicates the conflict. Gradually, the passive, voyeuristic, “fly-on-the-wall” observers become participants in the drama—forced to confront the uncomfortable fact that they are exploiting their subjects’ suffering, profiting from their misery, reducing their misfortune to an “artistic statement.”

Can you believe that this movie predates Grey Gardens by over a decade?

Radical, innovative, and way ahead of its time, The Connection transcends the label of “stylistic experiment”; it is a singularly unique masterpiece that defies convention, genre, and form. It is, in a word, essential.