The Connection is a 1961 arthouse drama directed by Shirley Clarke. A film adaptation of the 1959 play of the same name, it stars William Redfield and Carl Lee and is the film debut of Roscoe Lee Browne.
In the prologue, cameraman J.J. Burden (Roscoe Lee Browne) narrates, stating that the following footage was given to him by his acquaintance Jim Dunn (William Redfield), whose current whereabouts are unknown. Feeling responsible for Dunn's abandoned documentary, Burden edited said footage as "honestly as [he] could".
The documentary begins thus, showcasing Dunn and Burden's attempt to chronicle the lives of jazz musicians, who themselves aren't too happy with their presence. As the musicians rebel against Dunn and Burden, Dunn finds himself more and more entangled in the narrative that he supposedly controls.
This movie provides examples of:
- The Ace: In-Universe, Cowboy is portrayed as this among the jazz performers since not only is he the group's drug handler, he is also their leader.
- The Alcoholic: Implied. The musicians drink plenty of wine although this is only suggested by Sister Salvation's discovery of empty wine bottles in the bathroom.
- Ambiguously Bi: Solly is shown enjoying a booklet featuring bare-chested men, but he later demonstrates an implicit attraction to Sister Salvation.
- Bookends: The movie begins and ends with Harry playing jazz records on his turntable.
- Bottle Episode: The entire movie takes place in an apartment.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Given that the movie is a mockumentary, all of the characters are aware of the cameras and will occasionally address Dunn and Burden face-to-face.
- Camera Abuse: Sometimes, Dunn and Burden's cameras will face technical issues, leading to visual errors.
- Chromosome Casting: Downplayed. Every character on screen is male except for Sister Salvation.
- Double-Meaning Title:
- The title refers to Cowboy as he is the jazz performers' connection to drugs.
- Additionally, cameraman Burden is a mutual friend of Dunn and Jackie, one of the musicians, which makes Burden a connection between Dunn and the performers.
- Later on, Sister Salvation asks Solly if he knows Harry, who was introduced early on but departed before Salvation's arrival. This renders Harry a connection between Sister Salvation and the jazz guys.
- Drugs Are Bad: When Sister Salvation discovers that the main characters are getting high off drugs, she starts preaching about how drugs are an abomination to God.
- Found Footage Films: This movie is the Ur-Example as it consists of footage found by Burden.
- Functional Addict: While all of the instrumentalists are drug addicts, most of them are unaffected by said addiction. However, some of them still have issues like Leach, who has developed a tolerance to heroin and needs a bigger hit, and Ernie, who pawned off his instrument for drug money (and regrets doing so).
- Genre Deconstruction: Of the documentary.
- The first and biggest mistake Dunn makes in creating his jazz documentary is that he decided to tape the musicians at their apartment to chronicle their everyday lives. However, since the apartment is where the musicians can consume their drugs without unwanted attention from the police, they justifiably feel uncomfortable with the loss of privacy from the strangers recording them. As such, none of the musicians are able to behave normally, contradicting the documentary's true-to-life nature. Dunn tries to remedy this by instructing them, unknowingly worsening the problem by trying to control the subjects.
- Moreover, the only reason the jazz artists agree to be on film is mainly because they are getting paid (and not very much at that) and because one of them used to be schoolmates with Dunn's cameraman Burden. Without these aforementioned factors, Dunn and Burden wouldn't have access to the jazz group's apartment.
- Guest-Star Party Member:
- Harry is a silent man who randomly enters the flat to play his jazz music on his record player before leaving just as randomly.
- Sister Salvation is introduced alongside Cowboy halfway in the film as Cowboy invited her to the apartment for some tea. She eventually leaves after mourning her own mortality and plays no further part in the story.
- Hypocrite: Dunn chastises the jazz performers for being uncomfortable with the cameras and microphones but blows a fuse when he realizes that Burden is still taping him. Additionally, Dunn claims that he doesn't want to create a "Hollywood picture" and instead wants to produce a factual documentary, yet he does his best to manipulate the narrative, just like a Hollywood director does.
- Irony: While Cowboy resents Dunn and Burden for trying to produce a movie about him and his crew, he does a good job pretending to be the stereotypical hero expected by Dunn before revealing that he has no intention of going along with Dunn's direction.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At one point, Dunn asks Sam if he ever thought about being an actor.
- Living Prop: Freddie, Larry, and Michael hardly engage in the main story and generally serve as a source of background music with their song practice.
- Missed Him by That Much: Sister Salvation was correct in expecting Harry at the jazz musicians' den, but Harry had already left by the time she got there. Many minutes after she makes her exit, Harry reappears once more.
- Mockumentary: The movie is a fictional documentary about jazz players, at least that was Dunn's intention.
- Realism: Nothing fantastical ever occurs and is merely a slice of the jazz players' everyday lives.
- Source Music: All of the music is diegetic, which is justified as Dunn is shooting a documentary about jazz musicians, who occasionally practice their songs in the background.
- Unbuilt Trope: While considered the first found footage movie, The Connection retroactively subverts and deconstructs the genre's modern trends.
- Thanks to influential entries in the genre like Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project, most found-footage films tend to be horror flavored and generally end with the camerapeople's deaths to justify the "found footage" label. The Connection instead offers a more mundane explanation for the found footage: After losing interest in filmmaking, Dunn handed the raw footage over to Burden before departing for parts unknown.
- In contrast to later found-footage protagonists, neither Dunn nor Burden ever capture anything out of the ordinary on their cameras. Part of the movie's Postmodernism is that there is no real grand narrative and no actual hero. Dunn tries to depict Cowboy as the "hero" of the documentary, but Cowboy rejects Dunn's embellishment of his character and mocks him and Burden for invading his privacy.
- You Bastard!: Most of the jazz artists, at one point or another, criticize Dunn and Burden for disturbing their privacy and watching them.Cowboy: [at Burden] Man, what do you think we do? Live in a freak show?
