Back in
1987, Berlin-based filmmaker (and one of my former professors) Karl Kels made a
short piece called “Bowery/Fragment” while on a fellowship from Cooper Union.
It’s seven silent, black-and-white minutes in front of the Prince Hotel with a group of
now-extinct Bowery bums. The men sit around in chairs, dominating the sidewalk, drinking
beers and clowning around. They seem to show no signs of shame or embarrassment
when one man begins playing with the sagging breasts of another.
Nowadays, we’re most likely to visit the Bowery for one of three purposes: going to a concert, looking at art, or buying organic groceries.
As of yesterday, Film Forum is showing a recently restored 35mm print of Lionel Rogosin’s first feature, On the Bowery (1956). It runs until September 23.
As a staunch Kubelkian formalist, Kels would probably deride Rogosin’s effort for its obviously staged quality. Though billed as a documentary (indeed, it won best doc at the 1957 Venice Film Festival), it employs actors, a script, and fairly contrived editing. Before the Maysles, Pennebaker and Leacock fully developed the verité style, documentarians like Rogosin still worked under the precedent of Robert Flaherty. On the Bowery is equal parts truth and fiction, and its subjects are both actors and actualities. Ray Salyer (“Ray”), a gruffly handsome man with something of Brando’s waterfront diction, was given several studio offers after the film’s premiere, but “deciding that drink was more important, one night he just hopped a train and was never heard from again.” The other protagonist, Gorman Hendricks (who claims in the film to have once been a surgeon), died almost immediately after filming from cirrhosis of the liver. Ray comes to the Bowery from New Jersey’s railroads, hoping to find a good few day’s work. He leaves the Bowery after squandering all his summer earnings on drink, “disgusted with this place” and determined to get to Chicago before it’s too late. His new friend Gorman, who steals his suitcase their first night together and uses it as leverage for two night’s stay in a flophouse, is a man of ambiguous morals that one never feels inclined to judge—perhaps Rogosin’s most impressive feat in this terse, hour-long portrait.
“The acting, most of the time, is improvised on the spot, the dialogues are real, and so are the faces and situations,” wrote Jonas Mekas (“Lionel Rogosin and Come Back, Africa,” Movie Journal, 6 April 1960). “Even if we know that some of the situations were staged and some of the dialogue imposed, they still contain all the freshness and roughness of life. The very amateurism of the cast becomes a part of the movie’s truth and authenticity. And then there are scenes which are simply great.” A few years later, in 1966, Mekas, Rogosin and Shirley Clarke would go on to create the short-lived Filmmakers' Distribution Center. Due to his limited output, Rogosin is perhaps most important as an organizer, creator of the Bleecker Street Cinema and Impact Films Distribution (both out of commission by the late 1970s). A wealthy son of a textile impresario whose films were part of a broader campaign against racial violence, Vietnam and nuclear warfare, he died in LA in virtual obscurity almost 10 years ago. He's also noteworthy for launching the career of none other than Miriam Makeba.
New York Times critic Bosley Crowther didn’t like the film, calling it “merely a good montage of good photographs of drunks and bums, scrutinized and listened to ad nauseam. And we mean ad nauseam!” It’s true that On the Bowery doesn’t have the structural rigor of, say, Martha Rosler’s 1975 photo-essay shot in the same locale. Its careful framing and cloying score occasionally veer from the gritty to the precious. But unlike a photograph, which freezes a sordid picture into an indelible tableau, film is a time-based medium that carefully polices its images. Many of Rogosin’s most striking shots last no more than a heartbeat: a ribcage protruding from the darkness of a Bowery Mission floor, spittle falling from a drunkard’s mouth, a thickset nose red with alcohol—when images flit past as they do in montage, they seem somehow less exploitative than those at which we can keep on staring until we’ve had our day’s fill of dereliction.
Shaded beneath the Third Avenue El, the street is both prison and protector. There are no children, very few women, and its denizens display little interest in society's larger concerns. Despite the contrived nature of shooting—the 48-hour narrative was filmed over a period of four months—On the Bowery still smacks of historical truth. Cameras tend to make people nervous or unusually performative; but when you’re drunk, it’s of little concern who’s watching. Toddling around local dives and flophouses; pawning hats and watches for liquor; yelling over each other while enjoying a leisurely game of dominoes; grizzled post-war bums in ill-fitting clothes who still use words like “malarkey” and pronounce "Houston" correctly—that was Rogosin’s beat on this “saddest and maddest street in the world.” If Pull My Daisy (1959) helped give birth to a new generation, On the Bowery rang the death knell of another.
On the Bowery is playing at Film Forum from September 17 to the 23rd. It used to be available as an old Mystic Fire VHS, though there seems to be a new Rogosin DVD set courtesy of Gaumont (if you can afford it!) It's being screened with The Perfect Team, "a 45-minute account of the making of the film by Rogosin’s son Michael, with new and archival footage, and visits to The Bowery then and now." 209 W. Houston St., New York, NY.
In response to Seth Watter's commentary on "On The Bowery"-
I disagree with the conclusions of this article which bring up points that are often made in criticising
Flaherty 's films as well and merit a detailed answer/discussion to be continued at another point . For now let me say that Cinema verite which came later may have some positive aspects but lacks the profound nature that "On The Bowery" has and which also lead to a lot of superficial and "facile" cinema that we see today . "On The Bowery" had a profound effect on Cassevetes who took the impovisational methods and freedom that he saw in the film and combined that with his theatrical background and thus this went on to affect anyone influenced by Cassevetes . "On The Bowery" opened Cassevets eyes to what cinema can do . It seems to me that Mr.Watter's is following the ideas and esthetic that his teacher taught him and not seeing the film. I also think that he is missing the point as to what thiis film really means and was showing vis a vis America and the era that it as made as well as the deep pool of humanity that we touch in this film. I must agree that the importance of my father as a distributor and promoter of cinema culture is of the utmost importance . Never the less two confirmed masterpieces and possibly a third in "Good Times Wonderful Times" merits a central place in the history of American Independent cinema . In the next few years we will start to discover the full range of my father's films and actions that have been neglected by the mainstream media .
Jonas Mekas has called my father's generation the "Lost Generation" because of the difficulties they faced
in making and getting their films shown.
My conclusion would be that "On The Bowery" did not bring the death knell to a generation but was one of the most important films that gave birth to an Independent cinema in America. Neglected by the powers that be because it was too profound and political for the time.My father's films show the world the things that people do not want to see , that make one question society and our responsibilities and thus "disturb"."On The Bowery" is as fresh as it was 50 years ago and in my opinion lead the way for young filmmakers TODAY in how to get their films to a much deeper level if they study the methods that my father developed and show the same courage in the choice of their subjects.
My father's films will be available in the US within the year - contact MILESTONE FILMS
Posted by: Michael Rogosin | October 18, 2010 at 10:58 AM
I think it is unfortunate that Mr. Rogosin has felt the need to respond to my quips as if they were serious analysis, or as if they were printed in Film Quarterly and not a variety blog. I think it is also unfortunate that he has misinterpreted my brief description of the film's style as an ideological attack on its aesthetic, as if I were a Socialist Realist critic condemning Mandelstam and Bulgakov to the chopping block. (It should be noted that, unconstrained by monetary concerns, I only promote things on this blog that I actually like and admire.) Most of all, I think it is unfortunate that he has come here to write of my ignorance while furnishing a well-rehearsed PR script in its place. I am in no doubt as to the film's historical and artistic importance, though I am not convinced that liberal-humanist platitudes like "the deep pool of humanity that we touch" have any more legitimate place in critical discourse than my commentary above.
Regarding the ideas and aesthetics of my teachers, I can only say that we are all products of our education. A case in point--Mr. Rogosin seems unable to move beyond the lessons and beliefs of that most important teacher of all: one's parent. If we left behind artistic hagiography for a moment, we would realize that criticism is in no way incompatible with praise and admiration. When Parker Tyler wrote "Underground Film", he forced himself to take a critical eye toward the work of people he deeply respected, some of whom were his closest friends; and one can see similar self-laceration in writers like Farber and Sontag. In some ways, those books where objectivity forces us into 'betrayal' are the hardest to write of all...
Posted by: s.w. | October 18, 2010 at 12:32 PM