The Public Eye

In forties New York, Leon Bernstein sells crime photographs to the papers, listening to the police radio and reaching the scene first. When a nightclub owner asks for his help, he steps for the first time inside the world he photographs. Howard Franklin wrote and directed. Joe Pesci plays Bernstein, Barbara Hershey the woman. The character has a real source: Arthur Fellig, the photographer who worked in New York in the forties under the name Weegee. His pictures are both the film's visual reference and the story's foundation. The cinematography imitates those photographs directly: hard flash, deep shadow, chaotic framing. The noir look here comes from photography rather than from cinema. Pesci steps out of his usual hard roles to play a lonely, obsessive man. The film drew no interest on release and was quickly forgotten; it later came to be spoken of as one of Pesci's best. Who it is for: viewers who like the history of photography and period noir. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a fast crime story; this is built on observation.