USA
, 75 min
Shown in 1981
CREDITS
- dir
-
Robert Gardner
- scr
-
Robert Gardner
- cam
-
Doug Harris
- cast
-
Darren Brown, Mark Cardova, Cynthia McPherson
The surprise film debut at Locarno’s International Film Festival in Switzerland last year was Robert Gardner’s Clarence and Angel. The film won two prizes, one of them the Humanitarian Award, for its contributions to understanding and friendship among mankind. It was this quality that surprised everyone, in an era when the commercial imaginations that nurture programs on television and for the Hollywood gristmills would drive one into hiding from an ethnic boogeyman. Robert Gardner was born in Washington, D.C. and majored in cinema at McGill University (Montreal), Columbia University and the College of the City of New York. In 1975, he made his first short film, I Can Hear You All the Way Down the Hall, which revealed a talent for humor. With the aid of financial grants, he was able to begin preparations for a feature film. He remembered a time when he took an examination, not long before his graduation from high school. There was a break-period, and he sat talking to a fellow examinee. The man suddenly laughed aloud and, when Gardner questioned him, the man replied that had not learned to read until he was 13 years old. He then continued his story about his early lack of education, his migrant parents and the pain of illiteracy. Gardner remembered his astonishment and decided to use that stranger as the basis for his film. Clarence and Angel are the names of two 12-year-old boys in present-day Harlem. Clarence’s parents are Southern migrant workers who have recently moved to New York City and the boy goes to school for the first time. His inability to read makes him the butt of vicious jokes from his classmates and exasperated resignation from his teacher. Clarence’s frustration causes him to become aggressive and troublesome to such an extent that, almost daily, he is sent out into the corridor and ordered to face the wall in silence. Here, he meets Angel, a hyperactive, imaginative Puerto Rican boy of the same age, and a friendship develops. It is a miracle that Robert Gardner was able to find two splendid, natural actors, and the supporting players are equally memorable. One sees a film that changes the commonplace into the noblest of miracles and makes us proud to feel more humane, long after it ends.
—Albert Johnson
FACTOID #347
The world premiere of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert took place at the 1994 San Francisco International Film Festival at the Castro Theatre.
