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The Connection
Directed by
Shirley Clarke
Not Rated
1961
1h 50m
Drama
7.0
95%
79%
Add to Watchlist
Men sent their own way await heroin in Leach's apartment.
More
Where to Watch The Connection
Kanopy
Free
Criterion Channel
Subscription
Cast of The Connection
Warren Finnerty
Leach
Jerome Raphael
Solly
Garry Goodrow
Ernie
Carl Lee
Cowboy
Barbara Winchester
Sister Salvation
Henry Proach
Harry
Roscoe Lee Browne
J. J. Burden (as Roscoe Brown)
William Redfield
Jim Dunn
Freddie Redd
Piano Player
Jackie McLean
Sax Player
Larry Richie
Drummer
Michael Mattos
Bass Player
Linda Veras
Siren
Jim Anderson
Sam
The Connection Ratings & Reviews
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
[Clarke] gets at the inner truth of addicts - that they're pining for transcendence in the void.
New York Times
Bosley Crowther
There is little about it to warrant the clamorous interest of the average moviegoer or to distinguish it as a significant piece of cinematic art.
Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Dennis Schwartz
An uncompromising look at a group of drug addicts waiting in a Manhattan loft for a heroin fix.
Filmcritic.com
Chris Barsanti
Exhausting and occasionally juvenile, The Connection is, nevertheless, an experience.
Slant Magazine
Jaime N. Christley
The junkies, as expected, are the real show, and it's here that the theatrical predilections emerge, less "that Barton Fink feeling" and more The Iceman Cometh.
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
John Beifuss
Whatever its place on the scale of so-called authenticity, 'The Connection' is concerned with many of the same issues as its more legitimately underground successors. As someone in the movie observes: 'The question is, like why ain't we dead, y'know?'
Film Threat
Phil Hall
A marvel of low-budget/high-imagination filmmaking.
EmanuelLevy.Com
Emanuel Levy
Though now hailed as trailblazer for alternative cinema, at the time, Clarke's experimental work about heroin junkies, was so controversial that it was banned for a year due to its "foul" language.
The New York Review of Books
J. Hoberman
The Connection is not a great movie but it is a singular and multi-faceted historical artifact.
New York Post
Archer Winsten
With so much to offer, the picture can be excused from the duties of entertainment in the pleasurable sense.
The New Yorker
Richard Brody
The quartet of musicians, led by the pianist and composer Freddie Redd and the caustic-toned post-bop saxophonist Jackie McLean, perform brilliantly on-camera as they dramatize both the agonized wait and the needed high.
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
A lean, mean saga of jazz, junk and rebellion.
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The film retains the same beatnik wit that the play effectively distilled, as well as a few scary shocks.
FF2 Media
Amelie Lasker
Director Shirley Clarke's performance background strongly influences this carefully paced, masterfully acted, beautifully scored drama.
Esquire Magazine
Dwight MacDonald
The danger was that it would be just a photographed stage play. Miss Clarke has avoided this partly by brilliant technical effects, but chiefly by using the camera as the voyeur's eye of the director who is supposed to be making a documentary.
Seanax.com
Sean Axmaker
Experimental theater meets cinéma verité with a self-aware sensibility: drama in documentary form.
Parallax View
Sean Axmaker
It's experimental theater meets cinéma verité with a self-aware sensibility: a drama in documentary form.
Seattle Film Blog
Kathy Fennessy
[Shirley] Clarke, a dancer-turned-independent filmmaker, was no finger-wagging moralist. Her depiction of junkies may have been more realistic than most, but the entire film serves as a disincentive to try the stuff.
TV Guide
It is a jolting look at the drug crowd.
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