Style Wars (1983)
Genre: Documentary
Starring:
The Rebels: Daze, Dondi, Frosty Freeze, Kase 2, Crazy Legs, Mare, Min One, Seen, Skeme, Iz the Whiz
The Dicks: Edward I. Koch ("The People's Court"), Cap
Directed By: Tony Silver, Henry Chalfant
Overview: In the eighties, every NYC subway train sported graffiti. Here is the story of the people behind the paint cans, and those who ruin their efforts.
BOMBING
The art of doing any forms of graffiti.
TOY
An inexperienced graffiti writer.
TAG
A personal signature, usually vandalism with spraypaint, but can be any graffiti.
THROW UP
A quick graffiti bomb. So named since the bomb is just thrown up on a surface very quickly.
Your Filmsquish™ Host, me, Squish, thought he'd let you all in on a little doc made about a little sub-culture of urban youth in the NYC hood. I thought I'd take a break from the regular 'must review' content to make room for a special request review for the graffiti (with a touch of Hip-Hop) exposé, Style Wars.
"Rustoleum, Krylon, Wet-Look, Epoxy, Red Devil... When you got a can of Rustoleum in your hand, it's like holding three other shit brands in your hand." - Seen
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Style Wars is an indepth look at the people behind the graffiti that graced / tainted the New York City urban commuter landscape in the early eighties. More than anything, this doc teaches us what drives these kids to sully city property. They call their graffitti art and they call their act bombing. As they tell their stories, we hear about the old school bomber roots and the toys who are taking their place. We learn society's opinion and what they're doing to rid the world of this 'plague', that, according to mayor Koch, is on par with pickpockets and Three-card Monty swindlers for crimes that detriment the New Yorker's "quality of life".
Aside from image after impressively tagged image spray-painted on the side of subway cars, we get a taste of the lives of these kids, their breakdancing - like Crazy Legs and the rest of his
Rock Steady Crew - and even the mother of one of these boys pipes in with a few rhetorical questions of her own.
We explore the underground societies of subway tunnels and train yards, we witness these characters as they risk the deadly third rail, and we grow to hate Cap, who does throw ups over bombs, laying his ugly graffiti over more skillfully applied, 'more legitimate' graffiti, out of spite.
From the passionate speeches about paint and the thrill of getting chased by cops, to the special features where we revisit these men ten years later, this unique look into this street subculture, anyone into Hip-hop should give this a gander, especially since countless songs sample this film,
Black Star's "Respiration" for one, and "Aerosoul" by
Tommy Tee for another.
Overall Rating: 76% (Say It, THEN Spray It)
