Studio 54

New York, 1977. Two friends turn an old television studio into a club. Steve Rubell stands at the door and decides himself who gets in; there are famous people inside and a crowd waiting outside. Within a year the club is the centre of the city. Then the tax inspectors come. It emerges that money was being kept out of the books and the two partners go to prison. The documentary talks to Ian Schrager, who did not speak about it for years and tells it for the first time. Matt Tyrnauer directs. Ian Schrager, people who worked at the club and names from the period speak in it. It is an American production. Steve Rubell died in 1989; the documentary describes him through archive footage. The narrative takes the selection at the door as a direct subject; who was let in and who was not stands at the centre. The documentary also describes the sexual freedom of the period and the years that came after it. The archive material is wide; a great deal of footage shot inside the club is used. The narrative shows the legal process in detail and takes the prosecution's side of it too. The documentary stands very close to Schrager; the narrative largely proceeds through his view. The matter it treats is the door; inside is described as a free place, but one man decided who came in. Its limit is distance; the narrative has one source, it is nostalgic, and the critical view is weak. Who it is for: viewers curious about the history of nightlife and seventies New York. Who it is not for: it is single voiced, the subject narrow, and the ending sad.