Before Shirley Clarke became one of the few women to join the New American Cinema, she was a gifted dancer and choreographer. She drew on this experience for her short films that celebrate “the dance of life.” This 1956 film A Moment in Love is an elegant pas de deux performed by two young lovers dancing in the wilderness of nature. They frolic among the rocks, in fields and lakes, and even through clouds. Their graceful movements reveal their love, doubts and fears. In their reflections in the water, we see them merge together—but we also see the first ripples in their romantic affair.
The landscape that surrounds them shifts along with their moods: from natural idyll to the ruins of a deserted city. Clarke displays her skill experimenting at various levels, using background projection, coloring effects, and other visual innovations. Her camera manipulates the dancers’ movements so effectively that they seem to be floating among the clouds in eternal, supernatural bliss: “I started choreographing the cameras as well as the dancers in the frame.” A lyrical and emotionally moving dance film.
