Event

ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA

ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA
Dir. Shirley Clarke, 1985
USA, 85 min.

Ornette Coleman told his bandmates not to follow him, but to be with him. Shirley Clarke's documentary eschews conventions to create a fittingly free-form portrait of one of the most original innovators of all time. Clarke began filming with Ornette Coleman in the 60s, and her film documents the evolution of his life and work over three decades, incorporating performance footage, conversation with his friends and fellow musicians, his return to his boyhood home, recreations of his childhood, and experimental riffs that could only result from a deep and fertile creative connection between filmmaker and subject.

Friends, collaborators and admirers appearing in the film include Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Charlie Haden, William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Yoko Ono, Robert Palmer, Jayne Cortez, George Russell, Denardo Coleman and John Rockwell.