New York Booksellers Documentary ‚Bookwars‘ (‚Terrific‘ – LA Times * ‚Superb‘ – NY Film Critics Circle) Street and Sidewalks NYC

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

New York booksellers documentary, ‚Book Wars‘, about sellers of used, antiquarian, and paperback books on sidewalks and streets of Manhattan (scenes from the movie) | | Website:

UPDATE: ‚BookWars‘ has most recently found a home at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York collection of Circulating Film and Video

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(From Wikipedia) BookWars is an independent film from New York City by Jason „Jack RO“ Rosette produced by Camerado, about the life and times of New York City street booksellers.[1] Made on an ultra-low budget in a jazzy, impressionistic style reminiscent of the films of Robert Frank and poetry of the Beat Generation, BookWars is the only first-person documentary made during then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s controversial „Quality of Life“ campaign, which sought to limit and control individuals engaged in informal economic activities on the streets of New York City.

BookWars was released in June 2000, winning the Best Documentary Award at the 2000 New York Underground Film Festival IndieWire and premiering theatrically at New York’s Cinema Village.[2] Despite its minuscule budget (estimated at $10,000, prerelease) BookWars enjoyed numerous domestic and international TV sales and has to date generated revenue of several hundred thousand dollars.

Synopsis

„BookWars is: The gritty, untamed world of street booksellers, exposed in a remarkable feature film that chronicles their lives and loves and their unique perspectives on life. Shot entirely on location by fellow street bookseller and filmmaker Jason Rosette, and produced by James and John Montoya, Alan Fulford and filmmaker Michel Negroponte, BookWars explores the other side of the book tables that line the streets of New York City’s Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, 6th avenue, and elsewhere in New York City.“
Plot

BookWars is a creative documentary which is told in an unconventional, narrative style. The film opens with the narrator (who is also the film’s director) driving out West along a desert highway, relating to the audience his previous experiences as a streetside bookseller in New York City. The entire documentary – including the central events involving his experiences among the street booksellers in New York – is thus „told“ as a long conversation.

The narrator describes his post-graduation years in New York, and how he ended up at one point virtually penniless. Driven by a desperate need to pay the rent, he resorts to wheeling his own books out to the street to try to sell them. He reveals that he was not only successful in making a significant amount of cash on that first day, but he has also met a variety of interesting and strange characters of the streets of New York – including other street booksellers.

A motley assortment of street booksellers on West 4th street, in Greenwich Village, New York City, are first introduced. Among them: “Slick” Rick Sherman, a semi-professional magician; Al Mappo, so named because he only sells maps and atlases; Emil, who says only he „escaped”, though we do not know from where; and Pete Whitney: King of the booksellers, toad collector, and collage artist.

BookWars next introduces another group of street booksellers who hawk their trade on nearby 6th Avenue. Mainly black and minority individuals, they ply books and magazines in parallel fashion to the nearby West 4th street booksellers, who are primarily white. The booksellers on 6th Avenue suffer greater exposure to the law, with many claiming this to be due to racial profiling.

Some of the significant personalities that are introduced on 6th Avenue include: Marvin, always wearing his trademark black hat; and Ron, from Jamaica – charismatic, streetwise and outspoken.

After the introduction of the primary characters (including the narrator bookseller himself), BookWars discusses, mainly through informal testimony, the various aspects of the street bookseller’s life in chapter-by-chapter fashion.

The tools and tricks of the street bookseller’s trade are revealed: ways and techniques to maximize income; how to deal with difficult, and sometimes dangerous customers; where and how to get more books; how the booksellers have a right to distribute literature (commercially or otherwise) in public, as per the First Amendment to the United States Constitution; and so on. [More at Wikipedia]