When times are bleakest, someone usually makes art. It may be rude and crude, or optimistic, or pessimistic, as tentative as a baby chick cracking through an egg, as ham-fisted and foot-stomping as a baby gorilla. But with 8- and 16-millimeter cameras available, some people decided to make movies. With drugs as cheap as dirt, and dirt and rubble everywhere, the Lower East Side of Manhattan proved a perfect Petri dish.
"Blank City," a fascinating documentary film of the period. opens tonight and runs through the weekend as part of the Webster University Film Series.
Director Celine Danhier, who also appears to do much of the conversing with the dozens of actors, artists and hangers-on who populated the area and populate the movie, does not have a real focus, but that's a plus. Everyone talks, old clips illustrate the conversations, and even some 40 years later, there's a feeling of passion. There are well-remembered names like Steve Buscemi, Jim Jarmusch, William Burroughs, Patti Astor, Deborah Harry, Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Waters, who talked of "the peak of debauchery in New York." There are people who came and went. Others died, or vanished, but all left a mark.
Writer John Lurie points out that "technique was banned," and that painters became filmmakers, actors became musicians. Everyone did what he or she wanted to do, and while a lot of nonsense was created, a lot of art was, too. Danhier points out that, with money unimportant and barter prevalent, people still were creative. One of the filmmakers talks of trying to rent a piece of equipment for his film. "He wanted 40 dollars for a day," he recalls. "I told him I only had ten. 'All right,' he said, 'you can have it for seven.'"
Scott B. and Beth B., pioneers, are present at length, along with Lydia Lunch, Ann Magnuson, Amos Poe (a pioneer of the movement), James Nares, Michael Oblowitz, Susan Seidelman and dozens of others.
People who like movies — really like them and want to learn more about them and their history — will find "Blank City" a gripping and fascinating story.
Blank City opes tonight at 7:30, continues Saturday and Sunday at the same time at the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus
–Joe