The Cool World (1963, Shirley Clarke)

Duke needs a gun and all around him is a crime world, New York somewhere between reality and fiction—a Shirley Clarke specialty, slowly intoxicating and indoctrinating him into a chaos spiral with an inevitable end. The adventure is nervous with a hectic rhythm; the dynamism of its images and emotions flowing from the ingenious picturing of a community as it is, casting non-acting Harlem teens who give partially improvised performances. Luanne is a sleazy dream, detached and curious, quietly fading the way a star does. For all its speed and sense of battle, the story is underscored with a certain boredom and apathy toward living in a broken world that feels familiar to me—that hypnotizing force that keeps the monotonous need for vengeance and retaliation potent. Mal Waldron composed the score to an urgent and dismal mood.