Film #157: On The Bowery

On The Bowery was the product of a year's work by Lionel Rogosin who, convinced the area and its people were sure fodder for a documentary, committed the year 1955 to studying the hard-scrabble world of New York City's downtrodden Bowery district. In the process, he befriended one of the more knowing characters there, Gorman Hendricks (who died only weeks before the film debuted), and began exploring filming possibilities. He attempted, at first, to shoot with hidden cameras, but that didn't produce the intimate effect Rogosin was going for. Then he hired a commercial crew to film the Bowery goings-on. That didn't work, either. Finally, upon meeting writer Mark Sufrin and cinematographer Dick Bagley at the Village's famous White Horse Tavern (where author Dylan Thomas drank himself to death), Rogosin concocted a bare-bones script for the film that allowed for much leeway when it came to illustrating the filthy walks taken by the Bowery's down-and-out.

Rogosin decided to focus in on Hendricks, as a friendly rep of the old guard, and mainly on Ray Salyer, a tall and handsome newcomer to the district.  In the film, Salyer finds his body is still strong, but his will weakened. A former North Carolinian, he stumbles his way through this odd world, sleeping on streets, working a day here and there, one moment resolving to give up drinking, and then quickly giving in to that feeling of loneliness that drives many away from, and then back into, liquor's seductive grasp. This short film (only 65 minutes long) finds the time to dramatize Salyer's battle, to the extent that he was soon offered, after the film's release, a contract to work as a Hollywood actor.  But Ray Salyer chose to stay on the Bowery and reportedly died in 1963, less than a decade later. 

After long days and nights of shooting, Rogosin retired to the editing rooms with editor Helen Levitt and consultant Carl Lerner, and in 1956 emerged with one of the most striking looks at NYC street life ever put on film. The movie is an eyeful, through and through. At almost all times, we're aware of a slight story imposed on the piece, but there's also always a strict, concurrent sense what we are seeing is absolutely real. It's a weird feeling I've never gotten from any documentary. In this day of doc reenactments, we're watching out for signs of fakery. But somehow, I don't hold this sense against On The Bowery. The way the men talk and fight and scrap and hustle and sing, the silvery way they're captured in black-and-white, in always grimy surroundings...all of this makes me believe every second of it. Yes. This is how it was.

Now the Bowery, like many NYC neighborhoods, has been co-opted by higher prices. At Bowery and Broome, I used to go to a run-down hotel called the Pioneer. Great prices and lots of history. Now it's called the Sohotel, and the history is still there, but the costs have risen. This is not the Bowery I had grown up hearing about, and had once seen briefly in my mid-80s NYU days. Like 42nd Street, Harlem, the East Village, and Times Square, the place has been polished up, for better or worse. But Rogosin's film reminds us, with powerful force, of the misery that once occurred there, and has now been relegated to more secret locales.

On The Bowery, after being forgotten for many years, was reinvigorated by the Rogosin Heritage Inc. and Cineteca del Comune di Bologna. The restoration of this Oscar-nominated film--which is also part of the National Film Registry--is based on the original negatives preserved at the Anthology Film Archives in New York. It was carried out at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in March 2006

A milestone in American cinema. On The Bowery is very special to me. Rogosin's film is so true to my memories of that place and time. It's a rare achievement.--Martin Scorsese

2013 Atlanta Film Festival review: SUBMIT: THE DOCUMENTARY

It feels strange to be reviewing a documentary like Submit, which deals frankly with the growing scourge of cyberbullying.  It doesn't fit neatly into the documentary slot, as it feels more like an educational film than anything else.   That's not a bad thing, mind you; Submit is certainly out to inform.   But, with its scare tactics and stern narration (both of which are absolutely called for), it also does so in much the same way that those old driving and drug-abuse films did in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and those sorts of films are rarely reviewed.   But that's really meant as a comment on the film's style rather than on its very important substance. 

Directed by Muta Ali Muhammad (the grandson of acting legends Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee) and generously produced by Les Ottolenghi (who also serves as the film's impassioned narrator), Submit paints a harrowing and often demoralizing view of present-day internet mores gone horribly wrong.   It visits with those families whose lives have been tainted with tragedy after a bullied young family member has ended their life (these are some utterly heartbreaking moments).   And the film furthers a crushing sense of hopelessness by illustrating how this obvious crime is difficult to solve by legislation or, really, any form of punishment for its perpetrators.  One memorable sequence, for instance, shows how taking such crimes to court can often act as a de facto revictimization of bullied families, as it often results in mounting lawyer bills that go unpaid because of the difficulty of extracting funds from the bullying parties (who, anyway, regularly go unidentified).  Just as chilling are the many interviews with teens and pre-teens, who rarely seem to grasp the negative repercussions of their online activities (it's too bad that the film features few, if any, interviews with the bullies themselves; one is left wanting to get inside their nasty little heads).   Luckily, the filmmakers leave us with a tentative solution: Submit posits that the only way to fight this wave of lethal unpleasantness is a culture-wide change of thinking that leans more towards empathy and away from cruelty.   However, in an increasingly depersonalized world that views online meanness as both funny and a show of strength, this has to be seen as a tall order.  

As an educational film, Submit (I prefer to leaves off the words "The Documentary" in its title) does its job with much effect. and with an unexpectedly wide variety of notable interviewees, from legendary Democratic House Representative John Lewis to conservative icon Bill Bennett).  It's especially heartening to know that the filmmakers plan on making the documentary available, for free, to schools and institutions nationwide.  That has to be seen as a great service.   And so, as a suitable kickoff for a national discussion of this wicked problem, Submit bravely stands up to the plate. 

Below is my interview with Submit: The Documentary producer Les Ottolenghi, conducted at the 2013 Atlanta Film Festival, with camerawork and editing by Rich Gedney:

2013 Atlanta Film Festival review: ZIPPER: CONEY ISLAND'S LAST WILD RIDE

Coney Island.  What do those words say to you? Does it matter where you are reading this from?  Istanbul? San Antonio? Sydney? Los Angeles? No, probably not...

The mere mention of Coney Island transmits a like mindview to all of the world's people--one very much unlike any other theme park or neighborhood. The distinct image of Coney Island is a hand-painted one, particularly musty and authentic, and obviously mom-and-pop-run. It is a singular place--a place of nutty beauty. It's a masterful confluence of sand, surf, boardwalk, cotton candy, the Wonder Wheel, goofy games, teeming crowds, and chaos--and all easily experienced at an affordable price.  

But, for decades now, the Coney Island legacy--which reaches all the way back to 1829--has been threatened by greedy developers and NYC politicians with dollar signs in their eyes. Amy Nicholson's fabulous new documentary, Zipper: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride, does a superb job of reducing this complex zoning issue/political football into understandable bite-sizes, while movingly portraying the tale of one single representative feature at the park: the crazy tumbler of a ride known as the Zipper.

In production for six years (and shot largely on Super 16 mm film), Zipper deftly juggles the issues.  It pays attention to the colorful characters (led by owner Eddie Miranda) who operate the Zipper five months out of the year, and who still made enough money to feed their families during the off months (thus disputing the claims of politicians who say that Coney Island's rides and businesses cannot financially sustain their owners). Meanwhile, it also profiles the nominal (and, I suppose, well-meaning, at least in his own mind) villain of the piece. This is Joe Sitt and he's the head of Thor Equities, the money-awash firm that's been buying up Coney Island properties for a long time now, with the intent of ultimately sending the mom-and-pop stores packing in favor of a shiny new Coney Island that replaces those treasured businesses with seaside condos, Friday's, Applebee's, Taco Bell's, Bubba Gump's, and Gap outlets (like we need more of those).

Zipper has its story further complicated by Coney Island's local commissioners, who first seem as if they are on the side of those who want to keep Coney Island "karny kool," but who eventually show their true colors in supporting Joe Sitt's (and Mayor Bloomberg's) selling of Coney Island down the river. This aspect of the film is infuriating, especially since Nicholson's cameras handily captures the zeal with which Coney Island, in all of its gorgeous, hand-crafted glory, is attended by millions of people each year (and the numbers don't lie: all of this development is having an negative effect on the park's attendance). It's basically a place that is not broken, but is being fixed anyway. 

Ultimately, Zipper is most memorable, though, for its examination of this one, single ride--one that is loved immensely by all who are violated by it (a highlight of the film is a compilations of videos shot by riders who have their camera going while their ride cage is rocking in the air; this segment is a veritable symphony of screams). By the time the film's heartbreaking climax comes, you might be shedding a tear for all those things in Coney Island, and even in your own city, that are historically rich, but which are being washed away in the tide of supposed progress. In that and in many other ways, Amy Nicholson's lively documentary Zipper: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride is historically and culturally invaluable in and of itself. 

Below is my interview with Zipper's producer/director Amy Nicholson, shot by Rich Gedney and conducted at the 2013 Atlanta Film Festival:

2012 Atlanta Film Festival review: BASICALLY FRIGHTENED: THE MUSICAL MADNESS OF COL. BRUCE HAMPTON

It's taken over seven years (and 300 hours of footage) for the filmmakers to get a handle on its structure, but the documentary about legendary musical guru Col. Bruce Hampton is finally here, and it's named Basically Frightened, after the good colonel's poetic, funny (he's a VERY funny guy, Hampton), and bluesy list-song about things that give him the willies.  Given that he's one of the most daring personalities ever to hit a stage (and we're talking Frank Zappa-type daring here; Zappa was a contemporary and a fan), after seeing this vastly entertaining tribute piece you might well think that Hampton really isn't afraid of anything, except maybe his own shadow.  He's been in the music biz for five decades now while flying decidedly under the radar, except to say that he's been tremendously influential to the jam band movement best represented by those who often headline the famed H.O.R.D.E. festival, including Dave Matthews, The Allman Brothers, Derek Trucks, The Grateful Dead, Blues Traveller, Phish, Widespread Panic, Unknown Hinson, Peter Buck (of REM), Susan Tedeschi, and Rolling Stones associate Chuck Leavell (also repped here is the late Phil Walden, the CEO of Capricorn Records, who goes on record as labeling Hampton "the Vincent Van Gogh of rock 'n roll").   Each of these artists have veered from their road schedules to provide interviews singing the praises of their "crazed uncle," and this is certainly a feature of Basically Frightened that will help it find its audience.



Also represented here is Billy Bob Thornton, who cut his directorial teeth in the early 90s by helming a video featuring Col. Bruce and one of his many bands (the colonel has led, most famously, the Hampton Grease Band, The Lost Ones, The Aquarium Rescue Unit, and his present outfit The Pharaoh Gummint).  Thornton went on to cast Hampton in a key scene for his Oscar-winning Sling Blade, in which the colonel plays the idiosyncratic lyricist for Dwight Yoakam's troubled troupe (the late, great Vic Chesnutt provides the music). That was the first time I'd ever seen Col. Bruce Hampton, even though I'm a native Atlantan.   In the years before Sling Blade, I had read Hampton's name as it headlined many an Atlanta music venue, but I'd somehow missed seeing the man in action until 2005, when I finally met him at an October 26th gig in Tucker, GA.  I walked into the place and shook his hand, and he said "Happy birthday" to me.  I was awe-struck.   How could he have known that today was my birthday?

But, in fact, he does this with everybody.  The documentary even has a segment devoted to this unusual talent, which keys into Hampton's otherworldly connection to the writhings of the universe.  Col. Bruce seems to be a magnet and conductor for inexplicable phenomenon.   One of Basically Frightened's memorable moments has a few of Hampton's cohorts describing an on-the-road shake-up during which all witnessed a UFO arrival near a many-peopled mountaintop.  A newcomer might chalk this sort of thing up to some sort of reductive acid flashback, but the film makes it clear that Col. Bruce and his band are vehemently anti-drug (at least, for their own purposes).  Their wildness comes naturally, even onstage, where there seems to exist a miraculous telepathy between Hampton and his bandmates.   The UFO sequence, like most of the movie, is goosed with underground-comix-flavored graphics by Joe Peary, whose work helps break up the film's tremendously talky visage.

And that brings me to my one major complaint with Basically Frightened: it's yakkity-yak all the way.  In its zeal to educate, it sometimes becomes headsy and pedantic.  The film begins with a tidal wave of praise from people you might know better that Hampton, and it subsequently seems to plead the viewer to dig deeper into this musical treasure (the problem here is that much of Bruce's output is hard to access nowadays).  But I feel that, in movies, showing is better than telling and, save for one powerful segment, Basically Frightened is afraid to let Col. Bruce's music take center stage.  I've since seen Hampton live three times, and the thing that strikes me about his acumen is his loving inclusion of all musical styles.  In a Hampton live show, you might hear pure funk, followed by bluesy travelling, and then with a delve into classic country music.  Then, in the middle, you might get total performance-artist wildness.  But Basically Frightened prefers the wildness, because it's more visual (the sight of Col. Bruce speaking tongues at a microphone IS something extraordinary).

However, rarely does the soundtrack allow for anything other note except "weird."  Hampton's music serves as background for the interviews, but it registers as nothing but noise.  It's no surprise that the film's most effective sequence concludes with the brilliant "Hallifax," off of the Hampton Grease Band's notoriously low-selling debut double-disc Music to Eat.  It helps that the story of Hampton's promising-then-disappointing major label bow is classic documentary material (this is also the film's only emotional low-point).  But the fact that directors Michael Koepenick and Tom Lawson III cap this sequence with a full minute of Hampton's incredible song, which goes on for a trip-taking nine minutes on the album, lets us breathe a little bit while companioned only by the music and photographed scenes from 1969's Atlanta Music Festival.  Full disclosure: I saw a rough cut of this movie back in the mid-2000s, because one of my best friends Tim O'Donnell, was hard at work editing the piece, and did so with tremendous results alongside his fellow editors.  But, with all the performance footage shot for this film, it surprises me that the final product--timing in at around 90 minutes--doesn't allow for more unencumbered moments of musical bliss.   Midway through watching Basically Frightened, I wondered if a Stop Making Sense-style concert movie might do a better job of introducing the masses to Col. Bruce; I could see it leading to impassioned record-buying much more effectively than do the adoring words from a coterie of the man's well-loved admirers. I have to admit that watching the movie proved to be a respectful intro to this this monumental artist.  In that way, I think Basically Frightened does its job--but only as a primer.  I contend a meticulously-filmed stage performance is absolutely in order.  The brave and never self-important Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret. deserves another tribute, this time purely tune- and performance-based.

Courtesy of my friend Rich Gedney (who did the camerawork here), I took some time out at the Atlanta Film Festival closing party to interview director Michael Koepenick regarding his impassioned involvement with this project.   Check it out...

2012 Atlanta Film Festival review: TRASH DANCE

Andrew Garrison's Trash Dance is a scant 68 minutes long, yet this joyous documentary succeeds in profiling the meeting of two disparate worlds: one of Austin, Texas trash collectors performing their day-to-day duties, and the other of avant-garde choreographer Allison Orr, whose calling is to take untrained dancers and fit them into performances highlighting their daily lives.   These blue-collar workers have a difficult time, at first, understanding what the unfailingly sunny Orr is trying to do, but it doesn't take them long to get into the spirit of this project, mainly because Orr herself is so eager to learn about their world.  She's done this sort of thing before with firefighters, gondoliers and Elvis impersonators, so she's well prepared to dive into her new subject matter head first.  She's seen riding the backs of garbage trucks, hurling bags of lawn trimmings into the crushers, and even reluctantly scooping up animal carcasses off the side of the road (Trash Dance illuminates for us the myriad varieties of refuse collecting, too--something to which I don't think many of us have given much thought).

Garrison's cameras somehow find the time to highlight the winning personalities of each garbage man and woman here, delving into how they landed and what they think of their gigs. The filmmaker clearly has much respect for these workers who've deigned to take a job few would consider embarking on.  He captures a lovable bunch of people who're totally up for working with Orr, whose infectious enthusiasm results in a beautifully rainswept final performance involving not only the inventively-placed workers, but their treasured vehicles and machinery as well. Trash Dance is, ultimately, a tasty bon-bon of a movie, even if its subject matter might seem a little stinky to the uninitiated.

2012 Atlanta Film Festival review: STREET DOGS OF SOUTH CENTRAL

Given the title of Bill Marin's documentary Street Dogs of South Central, I was nervous as sat down for its screening at the Atlanta Film Festival.   I'm an avid animal lover, and I was afraid I was in for 90 minutes of misery; my heart breaks when I see even one dog or cat on the streets, much less whole packs of them.   But the makers of this unique twist on the nature film know theirs is a sensitive subject, and so they handle it gingerly.   The film, narrated by Queen Latifah, focuses in on two sets of dogs: a Black lab called Elsie, who sees her litter of four puppies dwindle to two as she teaches them to navigate the brutal Los Angeles streets; and a couple of pit bulls called Jack and Jill (the film informs us that pit bulls are the most common strays in South Central as many people choose them to be fighters and guard dogs, but are disappointed when they often turn out to be docile--this is a factoid that tells a lot about this rough neighborhood).   The movie, picked up by Animal Planet and Lion's Gate, doesn't exactly shy away from the harsh lives these animals lead; particularly disturbing are any scenes where a dog is seen trying to make its way across a busy motorway (this is a sight that, in real life, can always send me into a tizzy), and a long sequence in which Elsie, deep in heat, is pursued for long hours by scads of amorous, snarling alpha dogs (these scenes hammer home the key need for animals to be spayed and neutered).

But amidst examinations of their foraging and survival, Merin and his team are careful to include moments of joy shared by their subjects as they play and snuggle together.  Yes, somehow there are such scenes of happiness.   Also, smartly, the filmmakers avoid showing scenes of outright horror; there are no dead dogs or crushing scenes of pound life here (though the threat of death quite obviously hangs over these animals every minute of the day).  Street Dogs of South Central suffers from its overdone wall-to-wall scoring, which marks it squarely as television product.  However, the narration, while also a bit incessant, is well-written and delivered with passion, and the film is photographed superbly.  Moreover, its mission--to remind people that there are 30,000 dogs like this in every major city, and that it's a problem that needs further concern from all humans--is a sound one.  This is an intrepid work that deserves to be seen, and debated.

Courtesy of my photographer/editor Rich Gedney, here's my interview with the producer Vincent Ueber and director/co-photographer Bill Marin, done at the closing night party of the 2012 Atlanta Film Festival.  This interview is followed by a short preview of the movie.

Film #138: Disneyland Dream (RIP: Robbins Barstow 1919-2010)

In 2008, among the 25 movies that the National Film Registry included in its yearly list of American movies to be preserved was one title I didn't recognize (not something new for me with the Registry; they're astonishing authorities on indespensible film obscurities). The movie's was called Disneyland Dream, and it was made in 1956 by a Connecticut family man named Robbins Barstow. I saw the title on the list, and simply shrugged back in 2008. But recently, I was looking at a compendium of the 525 movies the Registry has dedicated themselves to, and I saw Disneyland Dream down there again and, curious, I tracked it down on the astounding Internet Moving Image Archive.

I was immediately charmed and won over by Barstow's epic 16mm home movie. As you can surmise, the film tells the story of the Barstow family--Robbins, wife Meg, kids Mary, David and Dan--and their journey to California's Magic Kingdom. But, to me, the equally fascinating aspect of the film takes place in and around the Barstows' New England home, where they prepare to enter a contest given by the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. Each family member concocts a little project to illustrate, to parent company 3M, why they love Scotch Tape; the winners will be treated to that tony California vacation. These are the parts I really love--the making of the projects, the wait for results, the talks to the family parrot Binky, and the hilarious slo-mo/fainting/fireworked reactions of each family member as they hear the good news. Whole bunches of sweetness are blooming all around in this movie.

Barstow goes all out with Disneyland Dream. He narrates the film, of course (the soundtrack was added in 1995; I suppose he voiced it live previously). But there are credits, an opening theme via Sergei Rachmaninoff, special effects, and even a movie star (though Robbins could have not know this back then). Apparently, in the shot where the Robbins' family first arrives at Disneyland, they pass under a train's bridge, and you can glimpse a little boy in a top hat down in the right hand corner of the screen. This was confirmed, by the star himself (in a letter to Barstow) to be none other than Steve Martin, caught on film for the first time as he works as a pamphlet hawker for the theme park (Steve Martin appears at about 5:22 in Part 3, seen below). This is a particularly nifty revelation about a film which is already a gem.

Naturally, Disneyland Dream taps into that idyllic 1950s innocence to which many people futilely wish this country could return. I personally feel a rush of warmth when seeing the reaction of the Barstows' neighbors to the family's good fortune; this is a close, friendly world long gone, it seems. But the film's remarkable in other sociological ways. It points to a time where home movie-making was a hobby only a few took as seriously as did Barstow. This film--one of many by the director--clearly required a mini-scaled version of the planning and follow-through that goes into any professional documentary. The shot choices are intelligent and well-schemed, the editing detailed, and occasional effects (simple things like slow motion, rudimentary animation, and backwards-running shots) are unusual for a vacation film. Still, and irresistibly, with its occasionally clunky cuts and camerawork, the movie never feels anything less than a labor of unschooled film love.

And, then, of course, as a travelogue of 1950s California, the film is an invaluable historical document. The Disneyland footage is the main event here, and it doesn't disappoint, of course. But we also get glimpses of 50s-era airplanes and automobiles, luxury hotels, Davy Crockett jackets and hats, St. Louis, Hollywood and Vine, and an aerial view of New York City (the Barstows had to connect to another flight at NYC's NY International Airport, which later changed its name to JFK). Movie fans will also dig the family's trip to Grauman's Chinese Theater (I think the theater is showing The Robe, and we can see the handprints of Bill Hart, John Barrymore, Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe). Plus we get a superb tour of Will Rogers' home, Knotts' Berry Farm and--best of all--the Walt Disney and Universal Studios, where we can peep quickly at old small-town and European-themed backlots and facades. The whole thing--with Barstow's wry, cozy commentary as an essential addendum--is just a spectacular tornado of fun.

Since aqe 10, Barstow had been a lifelong booster of amateur filmmaking, having shown his movies in local outlets and on Connecticut public access for years before Disneyland Dream made the National Film Registry. Once this event occurred, though, the film entered a new era of appreciation, going viral online at 76,000 downloads (an earlier movie of his, 1936's fanfilm Tarzan and the Rocky Gorge, has fared even better at more than 150,000 downloads; 16 more of his movies can be seen at the Moving Image Archive and Disneyland Dream can be purchased on a Barstow-produced DVD--complete with a making-of documentary--through Amazon).

On November 7, Robbins Barstow passed away at 91, having spent his life as a well-loved educational administrator (his day job), filmmaker, world traveler, husband, father, and grandfather. His legacy is one of time well-spent, and well-documented, here in this terra realm. He's obviously an inspiration to many filmmakers and viewers still today. And here, for that fabled viewing pleasure of yours, is a big reason why: Disneyland Dream, in four parts, via that great repository of amateur film, You Tube. Enjoy it, and thank you, Robbins Barstow!

Film #136: Player Hating: A Love Story

The beginning of Maggie Hadleigh-West's newest documentary, Player Hating: A Love Story has Brooklyn's Crown Heights hip-hop sensation Half-A-Mill and his posse pressing the front doors of a local venue as bonafide guest listers. It's an in-line madhouse, and there's a crush of security at the threshold, and this is the heightened atmosphere Half-A-Mill desires. "I want my voice to be heard all over the world," he smiles, and dreams. The corner of earth he's being heard in now, though, is one where, Half admits, "you could get into an argument at a store and wind up gettin' killed." The world is changing; there's a lot more triggers being pulled.

Half-A-Mill looks guilty and downbeat when asked by the director if he's a thug. He answers in a gentle voice: "Yeah, you gotta thug it out here." And so Hadleigh-West is along for the ride, 180 days away from the release of Half-A-Mill's debut record Million. She gains full access to Half's crew, the Godfa Criminals, and routes through their prayers for a way out of a lifestyle they may not know how to abandon. She asks Half who his heroes are and, since they come from movies, this tells us a lot:


Some of my heroes was like Goldie or Super Fly. See, Super Fly was a hustler. Goldie was a pimp. He was The Mack, you know what I'm sayin'? He was the master at macking. The pimps, the macks, the hustlers--they created a style back in the days where you could make some. Roll up in those big Cadillacs like money wasn't no problem. These kind of people, they was heroes, because out of a bad situation, they was still living like they was kings, like they was rich, like they was in control...even though they had to do a lot of negative things to do it. You know what I'm sayin'? They did this at a time when people was looked upon like Willy Wimps in society. So it's like, the pimps and the hustlers, they really just outshined all that. When someone has that kinda power, in a neighborhood with nothing, that's what you call makin' something out of nothin'

This is the bottom line of the Player Hating concept: despising those that can make something out of "nothing." Haters have a powerful "professional" jealousy that makes it so that no one can make anything out of anything. This is poverty's effect on its sufferers: it kills almost everything it touches, because what one person gets, another one loses. Hadleigh-West approaches this harsh realm as an extreme outsider, and as such, she gets the truth because, maybe, none of these guys she points her camera at believes their words are really gonna be heard. For all its undeniable energy, Player Hating: A Love Story is a movie that leaves you feeling broadly bruised.

Still, also, you can feel much love throughout the piece, justifying that initially odd subtitle. Violence is touched upon (none is seen, though loss is felt), but the movie's primarily about friendship, and how it's threatened by the juggernaut economics our heroes can barely grasp in light of all their suffering, creativity, fame, stage time, and limo rides. There is, I cannot lie, a bunch of lingering heartbreak in Player Hating: A Love Story: one scene has Half, talking on the phone after the record release, coming to near-tearful conclusions about who really owns the record business: the industry or the artists? The filmmaker knows this is nothing that Frankie Lymon hadn't struggled over with "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" The only difference is, now, Half-A-Mill can catch his record being bootlegged on the Brooklyn streets almost immediately, which he kindly says he can almost understand, given the hard lives being lead all around him.


The film seems to come across more spirit when it centers in on Dooliani, an always-smiling member of Half's entourage, and an unofficial father figure. Doo's been in and out of jail almost all his life, having started selling hard drugs at 13, with his mother as a single parent. But now he's focused in his duties in raising his own son. But one chilling "This can't be good" moment arrives when Little Doo is asked about guns in the neighborhood. "Kids just use 'em to scare people," he says, and then he goes on to tell a story about a cousin who, during a sleepover, put a pistol in his mouth while he was asleep. His unknowing father, cradling his son's head, asks "Why didn't you tell me?" and then inquires if the gun was real, and the child's face is so despondent as he admits "It was real. It had bullets in it. He showed me." Doo Sr. seems speechless, but then pride creeps on to his face when Maggie asks the kid "Were you scared?"

"No. What have I got to be scared for? When I woke up, I slapped him."

The violence of this Brooklyn world takes over more strongly when Hadleigh-West breaks away from Half-A-Mill's goals and dives into the souls inhabiting the concrete projects. She talks to one guy hanging outside the courts about the names of the dead family members tattooed on his arm: three out of four were murdered, and when Maggie says "None of my family members have been killed like that," her subject says only "You're just a lucky one, that's all." The politics of it aren't even mentioned. Only deals for cash give these guys faith, and who the hell can blame them? They know where the bread's at.


Hadleigh-West, the director of the incomparable NYC street doc War Zone, enters into a NYC documentary pantheon that includes Richard Sandler's The Gods of Times Square and Marc Singer's Dark Days with this piece. I love Hadleigh-West's imperfect (but always impeccably held) camera. Its grain makes me feel good. It ain't no Red Eye or anything like that. It has much more character. Her hardware's the equivalent of a war-beaten 16mm camera (especially during the lovely night shots), and it adds a gorgeous grit to the images. No one will mind the low budget. And while I usually dislike documentaries where the not-ready-for-prime-time makers become players in the story (Morgan Spurlock and Nick Broomfield, take note), I adore how Hadleigh-West sweetly fits herself into Player Hating. She's wise enough to let us know every step of the way who everyone is, where we are in the story, which of Half's tracks we're listening to, and what his sales tallies are. And even though her voice is heard, she's never intrusive; we're never resentful of her presence, because she's obviously made her subjects feel first-name comfortable with her (so much so that, when Hadleigh-West finally makes a camera appearance hugging Half-a-Mill goodbye, we feel a palpable burst of devotion towards her).


I've struggled slightly with figuring out if Player Hating: A Love Story plays into white people's doofus prejudices about the hip hop industry, or if it taps into the true reality of it. But this is a silly sideshow sort of concern. Obviously, Hadleigh-West cares deeply about these soul-baring artists (note, specifically, Half's song "Life Hurts," played over the closing credits). She desperately wants to let the world know about the danger in which her subjects are constantly mired, not because of the rap industry itself, but due to an impoverished environment and those resulting values (even those values which we all share). "I coulda been a bum on the street, I coulda been killed," Half says. "I could have been in jail for the rest of my life...Out here, if you're gonna get in this game, the gangster gonna come out of you. The struggle is still on but, guess what, you still mackin', baby."

Half-A-Mill, with and without specs, always speaks so intelligently. He goes on: "The only person in this life you have to prove something to is yourself. Once you feel famous to yourself, you're automatically famous to everybody else. I'm talkin' about self-love." When the record lands, this is when the even more bloody, genuine world--the one outside of the the 'hood--steps in. And it becomes too much for a lot of people involved. Player Hating: A Love Story is one of the premier documents of the Hip Hop Age, and as such deserves a large audience, because it humanely holds nothing back. Absolutely nothing.

NYFF Review #2: The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu

In covering the NY Film Festival, I just couldn't do a review a day. Much less two reviews. This is not how I roll.

So I've decided to review the 2010 New York Film Festival as such:

My first day, I wandered into the Walter Reade Theater, not knowing what to expect. I'm seriously hurting for money, so my therapist thought I should come equipped with cards and resumes. But I've arrived with neither, and don't expect to be passing out either during my time here. It's just too weird, to be searching for a job in a place where people expect you to have one. So I keep to myself. The others here at the festival, they seem like they are of another Earth. And they don't bother getting to know me, so I'm safe.

And, in this spirit, my first film of the the 2010 NYFF is called The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu. I went in knowing only a few things about Ceauşescu: (1) he was the "dictator" of Romania from 1964 to 1989; (2) he squandered the country's money on a ridiculous, ego-boosting building project; (3) he and his wife, looking like your unsuspecting grandparents, were executed by his one-time public upon the fall of Communism.

Given this, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu strikes me as a film about evil not knowing that it's evil. At least media-wise, Ceauşescu was forward-thinking: he made sure his filmmaking team was running at least an hour of every day he was in power. On many days, they were powered up five times that. But they were only recording that which he demanded they record. As a result, filmmaker Andrei Ujica has at his disposal, in the construction of this remarkable movie, thousands of hours of footage to pick through. Via choice and circumstance, he narrowed his overlook down to 240 hours of footage (all keenly shot, even including Ceauşescu's private hunting expeditions). From Ujica's notating eye, we get this portrait of a man who didn't bother to notice his steady slide into darkness.

The black-and-white footage, from behind the Comintern, shows Ceauşescu thinking he's doing a good thing for his people. He's freeing them from bondage. And, most importantly, he's making sure they are fed. From here, he goes on a road trip, on a tour through markets, sampling the breads and the meats available now to the Romanians. And, yeah, see how great I am? You can buy and eat this shit! (That is, until things got really bad, and the loaves of bread and the sides of meat were made of plastic, all for the camera to capture.)

But, later, when color bleeds into the scene, politics get into the mix. And after he visits China, and Mao, you start to notice a lot more portraits of Ceauşescu plastered up all over the place. Always a bad sign. Political rule #1: If you need to put your mug all over your country, then you're a dictator.

One of the biggest laughs I got at the 2010 NYFF was the phony-fied image of a Romanian parade, circa 1970 or so, highlighting the Romanian athletes soon to be displaying their wares at the Olympics. In this parade: a moving boxing ring, a moving volleyball court, each inching their way down the parade route. Ridiculous. Outlandish. One of the best laughs I've gotten from 2010 movies came from The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu.

Andrei Ujica, who's done two other films about Ceauşescu (CHOW-chess-cue, as I learned) before this one, has some feeling for his subject. The elderly Ceauşescu and his wife, Elena, are seen at the beginning and the end, mama and papa, basically pleading for their lives. And though we don't see their deaths (no one did; they occurred so quickly that even cameras couldn't capture them), we can feel the filmmakers' sideways remorse at their speedy trial (though he knows they're just, especially after the dictator ordered his armies to fire upon his protesting people). Interestingly, though, the film seems to be slightly as much an apologia as a damnation. Those of us not in the know--those of us not Romanian--have no idea, from only this film, why the man and his wife were dispatched so ignominiously. But we can get a good notion from the pointless 80-foot-high ceilinged palaces built on countless acres of land while regular Romanians were lucky to find a crust of bread. But, still, is justice done?

And is this an "autobiography?" Not a minute of this footage--and there's three hours of it here--failed being rubber stamped by the Ceauşescu camp (and this includes his meeting with Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, too). So maybe this is a filmed memoir. Yeah, the Romanian president didn't have the final cut, but The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu is the truest kind of document: one that's been, by image only, given the okay, and with all good things included, by its maker, and almost all good things included by the editor (the film nearly approaches travelogue territory). The only problem is, though he was surrounded by luxury, one extravagance this film's cherished and dirtied subject never could afford was the will to suss out who he was, really, in the larger scheme of the world. And I'm certain all the filming failed to help.

Film #125: Broadway: The Golden Age

Even if you don't consider yourself a stage enthusiast (heck, I've only taken in five or six Broadway productions), you'll be overwhelmed by Rick McKay's joyful 2004 doc Broadway: The Golden Age. The charismatic McKay is a lifelong New York stage expert who, in narration, wealthily frames his movie with reminiscences of a now-unfathomably accessible time for Broadway (you could go see a play starring Marlon Brando for less than it cost to catch a film), then almost singlehandedly embarks on a quest to interview scads of mid-20th century stage stars, intending to center in on their stage recollections. The director ends up talking on-screen to 100 personalities, and emerges with quite a valuable document that--by showing us how important Broadway once was to shaping our taste in music, movies, writing and acting--does no less than put all 20th Century American culture into perspective. Among the subjects on which McKay focuses: the troubled gestation of West Side Story; Shirley MacLaine's storybook Broadway debut in The Pajama Game; the arrival of Brando on the Broadway scene; the now-forgotten matriarch of method acting Laurette Taylor (seen in revelatory, rare archival footage); and Angela Lansbury's stage triumph as Mame (McKay even includes some 8mm footage he secretly shot of Lansbury's performance).

Just a partial list of interviewees--some of whom passed away before or quickly after the film's release--is daunting: Carol Burnett, Martin Landau, Uta Hagen, Alec Baldwin, Robert Goulet, Shirley MacLaine, Jeremy Irons, Gwen Verdon, Al Hirschfeld, Elaine Strich, Carol Channing, Harold Prince, Maureen Stapleton, Robert Goulet, Stephen Sondheim, Kim Hunter, Fay Wray...and the cast goes on and on. McKay's juggling of these pieces is deft; he takes a project that could easily be expanded into a six-hour miniseries and condenses it down to 100 minutes without ever making us feel rushed (McKay is working on two other installments of his Broadway project: one covering the 70s, 80s and 90s; and one covering the present state of the art form). Another thing: unlike the recent PBS miniseries about Broadway musicals, Broadway: The Golden Age gives just as much lip service to dramas by, say, Williams or O'Neill. Adorned with meticulous photo and film research, a closing-credits array of songs sung live by some of the participants, and an obviously obsessive, well-informed passion for the subject matter, Rick McKay's Broadway: The Golden Age is authoritative, essential, and remarkable in every way.

Film #116: Begone Dull Care and Film #117: Neighbours

"I was inspired to make Neighbours by a stay of almost a year in the People's Republic of China. Although I only saw the beginnings of Mao's revolution, my faith in human nature was reinvigorated by it. Then I came back to Quebec and the Korean War began. (...) I decided to make a really strong film about anti-militarism and against war." --Norman McLaren

The Scottish-born McLaren had been making films for almost twenty years when he hit upon Neighbours, the groundbreaking animated war parable which he produced for the estimable National Film Board of Canada in 1952. He began his film career in the 1930s, sans camera, by painting directly on film stock (making him a precursor to the now-more famous expreimental-filmmaker extraordinaire Stan Brakhage). Begone Dull Care, made with Evylyn Lampart, utilizes a snappy jazz soundtrack from the Oscar Peterson Trio and, with it, is a vibrant masterpiece. No words can adequately describe it.



McLaren made deeper inroads into internationally-renowned territory with Neighbours, which won him, incredibly, the Oscar in 1952 for Best Documentary Short Subject. This, to me, is a amazingly wonderful outrage that COULD NOT HAPPEN TODAY. Neighbours is for sure an animated piece (via pixillation) and very much NOT a documentary--at least, in a traditional sense (it's, also, the only non-Disney short-subject ever to get TWO nominations--it was also cited for Best One-Reel Short Subject that same year, but lost to the now-forgotten Light in the Window: The Art of Vermeer).

Along with David Cronenberg, McLaren is Canada's most influential filmmaker; as proof, there's a whole wing of the NFBC named for him. McLaren served as artist and public servant for the National Film Board of Canada from 1941 to 1983. He is, thus, the one filmmaker most notable for bringing the National Film Board of Canada into full flower. And if you've ever taken a look at any NFBC animated or live-action shorts (like the one you're about to see, or like The Cat Came Back, Special Delivery, or scads of other well-loved Canadian shorts), you begin to realize how much McLaren did to steer the entire idea of what constitutes a good short towards new directions. Pre-McLaren, we had Disney and Warner Brothers, MGM and maybe UPA providing us with animated pieces; after the Canadians came in, the revolution was won, the genre was opened up for the world, and the indies have controlled the shorts market ever since (and I think the market for shorts is going way up, what with the Internet and everything). After Neighbours, McLaren garnered acclaim for 1957's A Chairy Tale (once spoofed brilliantly on SCTV's Canadian episode) and for Pas De Deux for which he won a BAFTA Award and the Palmes D'Or at Cannes in 1968. Also, 1984's Narcissus made a big splash at the festivals that year. But it was Neighbours that I and probably millions of others saw all throughout the early 80s as "filler" in between movies on HBO (HBO really showcased a lot of cool shorts in between movies in the late 70s/early 80s--things like Frank Film, Timepiece, Quasi at the Quackadero, Solly's Diner, and tons of neat early music videos).

Anyway, take a look at Neighbours. Even though I marveled at how the film won an Oscar as a documentary, I DO have to say this: this is a perfect representation of how wars begin and escalate, so as to it winning the documentary award--hell, why not? By the way, this is a surprisingly violent film; the scenes where the (SPOILER) two men, fighting over this dancing flower on this tiny plot of land, eventually kill each other's wives and children were initially excised from US prints of the movie; here they've been restored (although via a print of lesser quality). Note: apart from the early electronic score, the soundtrack was enhanced by McLaren's scratchings on the edge of the celluloid, read by the projector as sound; thus, even the SOUNDTRACK temporarily becomes animation. An unparalleled film from a real visionary.

Film #103: And I Will Not Leave You Until I Die

Working as a film festival programmer from 2002 to 2004 was one of the most rewarding and taxing experiences of my life. As the Programming Director of the Dahlonega International Film Festival (nicknamed the DIFF and now relocated in Rome, Georgia), I worked closely with Executive Director Barry Norman, a mass of dedicated volunteers and filmmakers, and the good people living in the North Georgia mountain town of Dahlonega (the first gold rush town in the U.S., predating California and Alaska). In doing so, Barry and I were both called upon to fill a lot of shoes. In fact, here's my full resume entry for the job:

For two years, personally evaluated movies from an average of 28 countries around the world (450 for 2002 festival, 825 in 2003); programmed 175 accepted shorts and features per year, grouping similarly-themed films together for exhibition in five venues for four-day festival; wrote and designed 60-page festival program that doubled as on-line content; selected jury members and recorded their personal evaluations of each entry; with the jury, judged accepted films for awards recognition; designed and implemented system for determining audience award recipients; corresponded with accepted filmmakers as to their festival participation; handled PR for local print and TV outlets; coordinated activities with Dahlonega township, local movie theater, and North Georgia Military Academy officials; hosted many film presentations, awards ceremony, and some filmmaker Q&As; selected festival Special Guests (Jeff Krulik in 2002, Caveh Zahedi in 2003) and worked with them to determine their festival contribution; represented the DIFF at other film-related events, including the Atlanta, Palm Beach, and New York Film Festivals.

Even though it was a relatively small fest, it required a massive effort from everyone involved, and as such it taught me a great deal about what goes into making a film festival work. Now, when I attend the TriBeCa, New York, or Atlanta film fests, I have a very clear idea of what's wrong and right about them. This is an incredible mountain of information to be privy to, and I consider myself privileged to have been asked by the festival's founder, Barry Norman, to steward the event's film offerings. Indeed, I could write a novel about my beautiful, often frustrating and always tiring experiences in gorgeous Dahlonega, but I'll keep them all to myself for now. But, occasionally, my mind drifts back to the great and terrible films I saw as a result of the effort (the experience really gave a film analyst such as myself a deep understanding of how films operate best). One of the finest movies I was exposed during this time hailed from a Polish documentarian named Maciej Ademek. In 2000, he produced an incredible half-hour doc poetically titled And I Will Not Leave You Until I Die. To this day, I pop my VHS of the film into my player, and it never fails to touch my very soul. It's a movie that deserves to be seen widely, because it's funny, sentimental, realistic, and scintillating. It's everything we want movies to be.

And I Will Not Leave You Until I Die is the astonishing story of an immutable lifelong friendship. Frank and Andrej are two middle-aged buddies who, as childhood classmates, made a pact to stay by each other's sides, no matter what. See, these men are challenged to the nth degree--Frank is physically disabled, and Andy is mentally disabled. Early on, they decided to live a life together in which Frank would provide Andy with brains and Andy would provide Frank with hands. Ademek's masterful film reveals this unusually effective rapport as a miracle of collaboration. Though they're often seen slogging through a rather contemptuous world that sometimes seems to have forgotten them, they press on, refusing to let their disabilities knock them out of the fight for happiness and independence.

In their late 40s, they seem to have all the basics conquered. We catch them as they jokingly crack each other up, argue passionately over the purchase of a refrigerator, shop for groceries, toil on an idyllic country farm, cash their disability checks, and conscientiously groom themselves. But there's one thing missing from their lives: the loving presence of a woman. Much of And I Will Not Leave You Until I Die deals with Frank and Andy's desire for romance. We see them sitting on park benches, watching pretty ladies rushing off one place or another, or glancing at happy couples kissing, as they themselves starkly contemplate their loneliness. They're not passive about this at all, though: they peruse the personals columns (in some of the film's funniest scenes), and participate joyfully in singles' dances. And still they wait for romance to enter their lives. The movie's most heartbreaking moment comes when Andy finds Frank looking at an old, faded picture of his long-dead mother, and weeping over his longings for female companionship. It's all very powerful stuff.

And I Will Not Leave You Until I Die might seem to some as if it'd be a drag-in-the-dirt downer. But in actuality, it's a
serene and well-observed documentary that had everyone at Dahlonega laughing and crying tears of joy and anguish. Maciej Ademek (pictured right) won the DIFF's prize in 2002 for Best Documentary Short and was nominated for Best Short Film at the European Film Awards. He went on to be nominated again at the DIFF in 2003 for Competition, his incisive look at a Polish children's beauty contest. As a result of both films, I'll always have an eye peeled for Ademek's work; I feel sure he's due for a breakthrough to international popularity sooner or later. In fact, here's a preview for his first narrative film, Factory (Fabryka), released in 2006. I wanna see this!

Film #94: Grizzly Man

Werner Herzog’s 2005 documentary Grizzly Man somehow wasn't even nominated for the Academy Award taken home that year by another nature-centric movie called March of the Penguins. While I like them tuxedoed, flightless, Morgan Freeman-endorsed birds as much as the average bear, it doesn’t take a film expert to clue you in that Grizzly Man is the far more complex and superior movie.

Yeah, man, there’s lots of bear footage here, courtesy of the film’s main character, an exuberant but decidedly off-balance amateur filmmaker named Timothy Treadwell (no relation: that’s a name he gave himself; his real name was Timothy Dexter). Attempting to escape intense loneliness, a longtime alcohol addiction, and a failed attempt at being an actor (he apparently almost landed the Woody Harrelson role in the TV show Cheers), Treadwell began an intimate facination with the grizzlies dotting the Alaskan countryside. He’d been an animal lover since toddlerhood, but with his northerly sojourn, one could definitely say Treadwell escalated this adoration to the next level. Grizzly Man follows him over a number of years as he took shelter and rations into the wilderness while turning his video camera on himself as he communed rather recklessly with these big ol’ furry, hungry creatures.

Treadwell is a lovable but, in the end, pitiful figure--a man whose disappointment with the human race manifested itself into an ultimately fatal dalliance with gigantic, clawed forces of nature. Herzog is obviously taken with Treadwell’s enthusiasm and charisma (as the viewer no doubt will be), and he has good things to say about his stabs at filmmaking too. But the great director, so wise in the ways of the wild, is unafraid to also submit that the man tragically misunderstood his relationship with these animals...which is to say, in their eyes, he had none. Nature, even in the case of one who loves it so as Treadwell did, ultimately remains as cruel as its always been. Treadwell and his female companion, Amie Huguenard, unfortunately learned this the hard way.

I'm enchanted that Grizzly Man is as much a film about the movies as it is a personality profile and a nature doc. Here we have Herzog—himself a nature-obsessed, at least slightly unbalanced filmmaker (for proof, see Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, about Herzog’s helluva time trying to drag a ship across land in the Amazon Jungle for Fitzcarraldo). And then we have the ambitious filmmaker Treadwell, who resembles Herzog in his soul-immersion and recklessness, but who doesn't have 50 films to his credit. What Grizzly Man presents to us is an experienced filmmaker commenting on the value of an inexperienced artist’s work; as a result, it often morphs into a gentle documentary filmmaking seminar, where we witness beauty in Treadwell-captured moments that we might not have fully appreciated without Herzog’s patented deadpan commentary—beauty as in the frantic chase after a hat-stealing fox, or in the glacial winds blowing poetically through the pliant brush, or in some much-needed raindrops slapping the surface of a blue plastic tent. This charged footage, coupled with the more obviously gripping shots of bears desperately hunting for salmon, defiantly fighting each other for mating rights, or sizing Treadwell up, are features that easily make Grizzly Man as worthwhile, if not more so, than the penguin epic. In fact, they might make surprisingly apt companion pieces.

Richard Sandler's Brave New York and Sway

New Yorkers, especially the seasoned ones, will be in for a bittersweet taste of the city's old way of doing things when Richard Sandler's artful documentaries Brave New York (2004, 56 minutes) and Sway (2006, 33 minutes) screen at the Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden on Friday, August 22nd, starting at 8:30 pm. Given Sandler's singular talent behind the camera, this is truly an event you won't wanna miss seeing projected big as life. (You can see some of Richard glowing black-and-white photography here.)
In Sandler's words, Brave New York "is a free-form documentary that loosely chronicles the last 12 years of intense change in the East Village. From the reopening of a newly curfewed Tompkins Square Park to the destruction of the cherished Loisaida Community Gardens, to the first yuppie invasions of the dot com years, to the present." Sway, meanwhile, similarly covers 14 years of camcorder-recorded subway rides.

For nearly ten years, I've been a fan of Richard's work, and I'm lucky enough to call him a friend as well, now that I've moved back to New York after a 15-year absence. I'm thankful for Brave New York because it tells me precisely what went on, at least in the East Village, during my absence. Like his amazing The Gods of Times Square (read my review here), the new video chronicles the effect Rudy Giuliani's policies had on the singular character of one legendary part of our city.
I have to very briefly address here my feelings on the subject of gentrification. They are, of course, mixed. On the one hand, I sort of am thankful for the Giuliani change. When I was living here in 1986, and again from 1989 to 1992, I found NYC to be a fascinating but often depressing place to live. One story I have to illustrate this will never leave me.

I was sitting in a moving subway train. Across from me was a thirtysomething blond-haired, suited-up guy, obviously some sort of professional. Back then, riding the subway would often be a long endurance test because you couldn't take any substantial ride without being set upon by some down-and-nearly-out homeless person with a sad story to tell for tears and profit. These stories were yelled out to a captive audience, and they would often make you wanna get a handgun and put a bullet through the back of your throat (especially if you were an empathetic, overworked person who still had no money to give, as I was).
Anyway, here we were, in this sparsely populated subway car. The door leading to the car next to us opened slowly and in rolls a guy with no legs, bedraggled, making his way through the world with one of those boxes on wheels, and with two handpieces designed to help him drag his body to and fro. The suit across from me impatiently rolled his eyes. The legless man started into his schpiel: "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't mean to bother you. As you can see, I have no legs..." and on it went. The suit started to get more agitated and, as the train came to a stop, he stood up violently, obviously at the end of his tether.

"Godammit, I can't stand anymore of this FREAK SHOW. Fuck, I can't BELIEVE this shit!" And with that top-of-the-lungs exclaimation, the suit rushed out of our lives. I felt bad for both men. And I'll never forget it.

Now that kind of public scene has largely gone by the wayside and I'm left wondering what's happened to all the homeless people and legless men. Of course, you see a few nowadays, but it ain't like 1989, lemme tell ya. Now, of course, since the city has become a safer place to live, we have yuppies and rich kids all over the godamn place. They are just as irritating to me, with their conspicuous consumption and smug smiles. But I have to admit, they are easier to block out of my mind. As for the disappearance of the amazing displays of public performance, artful graffiti, and local characters---this I truly do mourn. I want to again see unparalled sights like, as Sandler catches, the Ransom Corp (who invade a subway car and quite literally transform it into a party zone, to which one somewhat dazed rider says he is "indifferent"), or Gene Pool, the crushed-aluminum-can- covered unicyclist zooming serpentine through 2nd and 11th.Brave New York, in Sandler's unique, poetically quiet way, documents this not-so-old but seemingly ancient way of life through masterfully edited montages (by Sandler's main collaborator Daniel Brown). We get to see brilliant but unrecognized public speaking from the likes of Johnny Sloth, Karen Zusman, Pitts (a homeless man who delivers a fervent rant called "The Masquerade is Over"), and my favorite: Steve Ben Israel extolling the virtues of American Flag Condoms as if he were hawking them on a TV commercial! Exquisite.

And though much of the film is scored only with found sound, there are memorably spirited musical performances by the likes of the Hungry March Band, The Pink Pony Improv Orchestra, Jewish entertainer Seymour Rexite, and a climactic version of "Frightening, Love is the Hardest Thing" by a man named Sandy, whose truthful insights stunningly cap the film with hope. How Sandler gets these flashes of honesty on camera, I'll never know. He is indefatigable.Mark Twain, who visited an older New York often, said the key to happiness is to "dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening, and love as if you've never been hurt." There's a lot of happiness--and misery--in Brave New York and, I'm sure, in Sway. There's nothing, I repeat, nothing like a Richard Sandler documentary; he is one of New York's most valuable filmmakers.

TriBeCa Diaries #4: Run For Your Life

I stepped into Judd Ehrlich's Run For Your Life not knowing anything about the history of the New York City marathon. I stepped out an educated man. The event was started by a charismatic, Romanian-born businessman named Fred Lebow, whose enthusiasm for running began the marathon's infancy in 1969. At that time, people on the street weren't used to seeing runners jogging alongside cars in clothes that looked like underwear. In 1970, when the first marathon was launched, the participants--no women allowed, either--just sprinted a few times around Central Park. After female athletes were accepted in 1971, and after the marathon's route was amended to follow a path that swept through all five boroughs in 1976, the fevered publicity surrounding the event began to launch its popularity.


All the while, Lebow--whom one friend says "ran like a duck, but was slower than a duck"--acted as press agent, detail man, and provocateur. He used the marathon to feather his own nest with fame and a constant array of young women (but no money--he was famously broke a lot of the time). But he also used it to help an ailing, bankrupt New York City find its footing and its pride once again. Using his mastery of event planning and salesmanship, he garnered an array of big-time sponsors and, by 1977, a 5000-strong army of runners hoping to complete the course. Nowadays, the crowd numbers close to 20,000 (and there's nothing like seeing all those people crunch across the Verrazano Bridge in the opening helicopter shot).

Run For Your Life does what all fine docs do: it recounts a story we've never heard, but which has massive historical implications. It gives us a main character worthy of our attention. It has a complex structure that doesn't follow events as they happened in a timeline, but as they relate to one another. And it inventively illustrates its story with perceptive interviews (with marathon champs Bill Rogers and Grete Weitz among them), archive footage that's well-edited (by Alison Shermin), and stunning graphic work (by Nicholas Vranzian) that casts still images and CGI work into an appropriately low-fi 1970s look. I also have to mention its incredible source-music soundtrack of past hit songs and present-day songs that should be hits.

I've never been a runner--I'm too busy watching movies, so I've always found its appeal a bit mystifying--but now after seeing the inspiring Run For Your Life, I think I know what its point is. And certainly, for Fred Lebow and the adoring friends who surrounded him, it was about passion. That's a good enough explanation for me.