The Cool World

There once was a a movement, mostly active in New York and a period in which movies were shot very raw, in an almost documentary like style. These type of movies try to give you an insight on the daily lives of often poor and struggling ethic groups, living in a certain part of town, as if it's really a documentary you are watching. Perhaps the best and also best known example of this style of film-making was John Cassavetes' 1959 movie "Shadows".

The movie is shot in the fashion of a documentary but that really doesn't mean that it also feels like one though. It's still very obviously an acted out movie, with scripted situations in it. The approach to it all still makes it feel like a very raw and also straight-forward movie, about crime, drugs and racial issues, all set in the Harlem ghetto, in New York City.

It's not necessarily a movie that follows a clear main plot line, which is consistent with this style of film-making but it's not really something that I like. Sure, it works out real fine for 20-30 minutes or so but after a while things just start to get less interesting to follow because there isn't really anything happening within the story and it isn't ever really going anywhere. I did understand the points the movie tried to make, with its raw approach, depicting the hard and desperate life within the ghetto but it just never came across as anything provoking or powerful.

It still could had been fine if only the movie had some more intriguing and likable characters in it. I don't really feel like we ever got to know any of them, which also doesn't really make you care about any of them or what happens within the movie its story. So no, this movie just isn't for me, though I'm still able to appreciate it and admire the way it got made and shot.

So still a movie I appreciated watching, just never one I ever loved.

7/10

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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.

This film is a tremendous achievement. It is unbelievable to me that it is not being preserved and protected by those who have the power to do so. It absolutely SHOULD be available on video and it should be regularly mentioned in discussions of the great films of the "American New Wave". The previous commenter was absolutely right to compare it to a Cassavettes picture because it has a very similar feel, in that it seems not so much like a movie with a narrative, but just a "snippet" of a time, almost taken randomly for two hours. We get all kinds of wonderful experiences in that two hours, including 1960's Harlem, disillusioned youth run amok, gritty street fare, etc. Not to mention the music in the film(a fantastic jazz soundtrack). This is a very valuable film, and the fact that it is directed by a woman is significant, as this seems to be an under-appreciated voice in American cinema. Criterion, let's get it together and get this available for people to see. OK?

After filming 'The Connection' in one room, Shirley Clarke this time came closest to making a classical feature film by taking to the mean streets of Harlem with a camera crew for this cinema verite equivalent of 'West Side Story', with a vivid jazz score by Mal Waldron; this time the rival gangs both being black, the hero belonging to the Pythons, whose mortal foes are The Wolves.

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.