Directed by Tony Silver
Public Art Films, 1982
In 1983, I was a 10-year-old girl with a love for all things New York. I had a romanticized vision of the city being the epicentre of urban culture and I desperately wanted to leave my boring suburban home and move to The Big Apple to breakdance with the Rock Steady Crew.
At the time, the documentary Style Wars (directed by Tony Silver) was as much a piece of photojournalism as an investigation of a culture unknown to most PBS viewers. Hip hop was in its early stages, before it started influencing all levels of art and music. Graffiti itself was fairly new, and the documentary looked at how taggers viewed their individual artforms.
The film, which was re-released in 2005, is an authentic look at urban culture and the re-release of the original PBS film is a time capsule, documenting hip hop and graffiti as an uncommon rebellious movement. Today, we take hip hop culture and what it has given us in terms of mainstream commerce for granted. But at its conception, graffiti writers and hip hop originators were at the forefront of one of the biggest culture jams of modern history.
In Style Wars, Silver interviews legendary innovators of graffiti art at the time when they were first exploring the streets of New York. Legendary writers are featured – such as Zephyr, Seen and Doze. It’s a trip hearing a baby-faced Zephyr, probably one of the most well-known and iconic graf artists, talk about developing his individual style or Crazy Legs from the Rock Steady Crew showing off his new move (the windmill). These young people were the heart of hip hop culture and brought the idea of vandalism to high concept art – from the train yards to highbrow art galleries.
The documentary captures The Big Apple before its Disneyfication. The city went through a difficult time in the early ’80s – crime, boarded-up buildings, immense poverty – and the film gives an impartial view of New York.
Silver is a great documentarian, being careful not to sympathize or take sides with either the transit authority (who are in a fruitless battle with graffiti artists who relentlessly tag trains) and the graffiti artists themselves. It also reflects the debate of the time, between private and public property, interviewing New Yorkers on the street and asking their opinions of graffiti art.
Mayor Ed Koch also makes an appearance, with his hilarious views on graffiti counter-culture – he sounds more like a frustrated grandparent than a politician. Police and transit authorities blame the parents for not keeping their kids under control and Silver asks one mother her thoughts on her son’s activities.
Silver also touches on the war between graffiti artists, as some compete with one another and take the aggressive approach to ensure that they go all-city (having their tag on a train that runs across New York).
Style Wars takes the viewer into places you would never go, such as the bowels of the New York transit system, as you follow these artists on their quest to find fresh trains and avoid the authorities. The music from the time – Grandmaster Flash, The Treacherous Three and Trouble Funk – soundtrack the film and give it an important sense of time and place.
Love it or hate it, it’s hard to deny graffiti and hip hop’s influence and the film is superb at capturing the seeds of its invention. There will always be debate about the issues of public property and Style Wars manages to show the broad strokes of a cultural phenomenon with the fine line between crime and art.
Style Wars is great because it captures an exact moment in time – the very beginnings of hip hop – and is an important tome of popular culture. |
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