On the Bowery

Lionel Rogosin's 1956 film takes place on the Bowery in New York, at the time the district where the homeless and men lost to drink gathered. Rogosin lived in the area for months, came to know people, and then built a story by having them play themselves. The film stands between documentary and fiction. It follows a few days of a man named Ray; the scenes are written but the dialogue comes in the performers' own language. The conversations in bars and the people sleeping on the pavement were recorded directly. That method influenced the American independent cinema that followed. The film won the documentary prize at Venice and was nominated at the Academy Awards. Rogosin used the same approach in his later films. Who it's for: those interested in film history and the boundary between documentary and fiction. Who it's not for: viewers who want to avoid images of alcoholism and poverty; the film shows them with no distance at all.