Ornette: Made in America captures Ornette Coleman’s evolution over three decades. Returning home to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1983 as a famed performer and composer, documentary footage, dramatic scenes and some of the first music video-style segments ever made chronicle his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon. Among those who contribute to the film include William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer, Jayne Cortez and John Rockwell. The film focuses on the struggles and triumphs of Ornette Coleman’s life as well as on the inspired intelligence that spawned his creativity and ensured his success. Experimental pioneer, Shirley Clarke’s film explores the rhythms, images and myths of America seen through they eyes of an artist’s ever-expanding imagination and experience.
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