Edinburgh International Film Festival

            Portrait of Jason is a documentary directed by Shirley Clark.  It is the real story of Jason Holliday.  It is about two hours of Jason, a homosexual black man, setting in front of the camera telling stories from his life.

            This movie left me a little curious as to what the point of the movie had been.  It was basically a two hour home video.  It is filmed over one long thirteen hour night and later edited down to the finished product.  I found a lot of his stories interesting, but was unable to keep up with what the idea behind the film was.  Another problem I had with the film was that as the night progresses Jason gets more and more drunk.  This made him repetitive and hard to understand.  I like the idea of the movie, just set someone in front of the camera and see what happens, but this came off more like an interrogation than an interview.  I didn’t like the cinematography in the movie.  It would constantly go out of focus and leave this faceless blob talking.  I’m certain that this was done to create a certain effect; however, it escapes me as to what that effect might have been.  I will give Portrait of Jason one star.  It was an interesting idea but didn’t translate onto the screen very well.