Marc Levin

Brick City

admin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

In Brick City, Sundance Channel’s five-part documentary series about life in Newark, NJ circa 2008, the camera crew follows Cory Booker, a mayor who is passionate about making a difference in the crime beleaguered city. Along with the mayor, directors Marc Levin and Mark Benjamin (and producer Forest Whitaker) also zoom in on the efforts of community activists, Central High School Principal Ras Baraka, the Newark police department, and even two gang members who have fallen in love and work to help make their community a better place: Jada (a Blood) and Creep (a Crip).

Often compared in feel and tone with HBO’s The Wire, Brick City has the same type of honest, gritty immediacy. Booker, a highly charismatic mayor with a focus on healing the city, even though the tanked economy has made his dream of lowering the crime rate even more arduous, never seems at a loss for new ideas or words of encouragement for those with flagging spirits.

In the first episode, “Summer is Ours,” we learn that Newark is leading the nation in terms of homicide reduction. The mayor and police chief work together to devise systems and programs to thwart the traditional spike in crime during the months of July and August. Meanwhile, new mom, gang member and community counselor Jada is a study in contrasts, especially in her relationship with a rival gang member named Creep.

As a viewer (and reviewer), I found myself put off by these two and felt bad for their child. The language is rough and the fact that they’re still active gang members felt morally precarious. But, as the filming went along, I understood their experiences speak directly to gang members and that is why Jada’s counseling, in particular, is more effective coming from her authentic streetwise point of view. Still, when she and Creep find out they are expecting a new baby, I didn’t exactly feel their joy.

In the second episode, called “Struggle,” Jada finds herself in jail and Creep has to take care of the kids, the Mayor is facing some pretty grim budget issues, Governor Corzine teams up with Booker to create a new state program that will help ex-cons find jobs, and (yay, good news!) the crime rate is not rising as expected. However, the strain on Jada and Creep is beginning to tear apart the fabric of their relationship.

Brick City first ran on the Sundance Channel in September 2009, so most likely there will be reruns. If you can catch it, check it out—especially for the unflinching, inside look at how Newark's community activists work hard to balance their turbulent personal lives while reaching out to help make a difference to others.

Written by: Cheryl Reeves, December 27th 2009

Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags

admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Directed by Marc Levin

HBO Documentary Films

It has become cliche to tell the story of an American going from rags to riches based on their own impassioned journey using a unique and personal form of ingenuity and hard work, but we may be on the path toward establishing a new and unfortunate conventional wisdom that says it is just as common to go from rags to riches and then back to rags once again. It is this new economic reality that Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags explores in ways that are both haunting and saddening. This bracing documentary speaks through the experiences of those in the midst of their own struggles. It asks if the American consumer is willing to continue the "race to the bottom" for the sake of bottomed-out bargains or if they are going to make their choices in the marketplace a powerful tool in the struggle for labor rights around the globe.

Marc Levin's masterful chronicling of the decline of the garment industry in New York City has several stories of challenges and progress that come full circle. One example is the documentary's grave portrayal of the consequences of employee exploitation. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1921—in which hundreds of lives were lost after managers locked their employees in a crowded, unsafe high-rise—was repeated at the end of the century in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The sight of another company repeating the same senseless mistake with the same unnecessary and atrocious loss of life leaves the viewer with a conundrum of cynical proportions: with the decline of unions and authoritative regulatory structures to check global corporate power, what is the future of those that toil in a non-service industry? This is one of the most powerful aspects of the documentary because, through these stories, we witness the fact that while time may move inexorably forward in industry where people may, with time and due diligence, find fortune that lifts them out of poverty, the mainstream middle now find that time and due diligence are simply not enough to sustain wealth.

This acute sense of insecurity is not simply a long-building trend particular to the garment industry; it can also be found amongst manufacturing workers in America's Rust Belt, small farmers threatened by agribusiness, and factory workers in the South. They are the face of a middle class that is squeezed tighter and tighter by the year. Levin successfully pulls out of many stories a common thread that touches on how this singular struggling industry is emblematic of many sectors of the American economy.

** This film is currently airing on HBO**

Written by: Brandon Copeland, October 21st 2009