Customer Reviews

Style Wars: Revisited

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First, let me say that the original PBS documentary is a 5 STAR ***** film and I love the two-disc DVD issue that came out a few years ago, BUT this one??? NO WAY. It's the same as the other DVD even though they claim that the "revisited" one had 34 minutes of extra footage etc. It's the SAME as the other DVD and they say that once you play it. No new old footage in there, except maybe a few small but insignificant clips. If you want the good one, buy the 2-disc DVD that came out in 2004 I think. This is a rip off quite frankly and I am not even sure why they bothered to issue another DVD, simply because they have 4 new interviews and a few minor clips.

this is a classic, with tones of great visuals. One artist gives a short tutorial at the start of a piece. The different artists featured, give a glimpse of a diverse and integrated culture, spanning music, dance and art. Best scene is one with a young artist and his mother. A look she gives the camera when she hears him say he will never get busted. haha, great stuff

Style Wars (1983) from directors Henry Chalfant and Tony Silver,
is a grass roots, street-level documentary that is easily
digested, as it's pleasing to the eyes.

It offers a glimpse of 10 to 16 year olds, in the inner cities of
Brooklyn, Bronx back in the 1970's and 1980's, who are surrounded
by high rises, who brainstormed for ideas back in the 1970's to
have fun and pass the time.

In this particular instance, it involves dance competitions, art
competitions, music competitions, expressed in various
recreational halls through the break-dance styles, DJ-ing and
rapping, free-styling with rhymes as well as by using up 15 to 20
canisters per subway train in color painting them.

This subculture, comprising the "personal lives" of dozens of
youths (in contrast to school, or professional endeavors) is
specialized to the point that various youths' aliases become
"stars" in their own right, with verbal histories or accounts
being told and passed down to other joining this movement, who
are pigeon holed in this ghetto.

The psych of those taking part, is underpinned by a sense of peer
pressure in the group for the best art, dance moves and ability
to rhyme, coupled with a sense of ego gratification by somehow
having become world-class, as their assigned names or tags are
seen on trains crossing the city. Perhaps a sensitive point for
the undertrodden in the inner cities, housing projects,
accustomed to poverty, yet crossing all background and cultural
lines.

The images taken are numerous, well chosen, and the narrative
well planned, the testimonies frequent, the educational aspects
to the masses very understandable. Underground terminology such
as "bombing" (meaning to deface a train for the first time),
breaking and rocking (meaning, doing a style of dance), are a few
explained.

Some locations are reminiscent of those seen in Escape from the
Bronx, by Enzo Castellari or Warriors by Walter Hill, such as the
manhole entrance, or the underground warehouse, etc.

Inevitably the idea is taken from the ephemeral, to amateur, to
professional, as viewers see graffitists sketching ideas back
home, planning out missions on trains, organizing themselves in
time and space, approprating 15 paint cans at a time, from
stores, in their competition. To the point that 8 year olds are
given an apprenticeship of sorts into become accomplished
graffittists.

All sides of the story are told, with messages from the mayor of
the city, police detectives, concerned parents, outraged public
transit users, keeping in mind that these deeds against property
pale in comparison to behaviors against people also processed in
the justice system (murders. etc) or even, the 3-card-Monte,
pickpockets, shoplifts, etc.

The movie redeems itself, by calling attention to art galleries,
school programs for those with a talent in visual art, by
suggesting that the "big time" is possible into the mass media.
It also underlines sensitivity campaigns against graffiti, by
boxers Hector Camacho and Alex Ramos.

The art culture of Hip Hop through Graffiti has evaporated over the years. Graffiti was a big part of Hip Hop until Hip Hop morphed into rap, then Gansta Rap, then into this crap they produce today. Where has the art of the graffiti hip hop generation have gone? This DVD is the look at the beginning that incorporates Dance, Rap and Graffiti art.

This is a must-have for any hip-hop fan. This film captures hip-hop in it's prime> Back when the four elements where in full effect; Breaking/DJing/Graffiti/and MCing. This film also captures the founders of hip-hop. I love this film and feel it should be seen by everyone, hiup-hop fan or not.

Okay, theres no Spiderman or Doc but this is the one of the earliest forms of recorded graffiti. This is the element of that whole youth driven culture. Raw and smacks you in the face this is the real story. This is that whole keepin' it real thing before keeping it real. Cold streets and and that whole feeling of how far man has come can be felt in this film going back. More points of authority and the people who rebelled against spoken word. An era gone forever.