“When I came back from the Montreal shoot last May
I saw the relentless encroachments of gentrification in Harlem.
I was a seized by a strange rage
Of a boy-child fighting to defend his bullied mother.
With time, the ferocity abated but not the intent.
It’s still there in everything I do.
Studied, cunning, cool.”
That is what I told a friend in a short film that I made almost three years ago.* I had just completed Au Pied du Mur, a feature-length documentary about the gentrification of the East End Montreal neighborhood which had been my home for twenty years. It had taken a lot of ingenuity, a bit of scriptwriting and a couple of actors to convey the unspoken and authentic thoughts and feelings of a working-class community sans paroles. I would have had to admit that in my film about them I spoke their mind.
Harlem, however, was just waiting impatiently to speak its mind, to command attention and provide direction. All that we, the film-makers, had to do was follow, receive and respond. As our final editor said when he reviewed the footage, “You have at least three or four films here. Maybe more. Which one do you want?”
The one that everybody who had taken part in this production wanted was a face-to-face collective self-declaration of the many people with their very different points of view that constituted a single mind and that spoke with one voice: The Voice of Harlem.
Our film traces their amazing articulation of what is happening to them right now, of what has already been lost and what yet threatens to be lost. Along the way we are invited to capture the precious and powerful scenes of the richness of a community that still gathers in clusters on the corner and in the park. And we are included in their extraordinary celebration of a life made worth living in the face of oppression, suspicion and deprivation. Both young and old, folks with more and folks with less money, education and faith, those from both sides of the law, all exhibit a daunting dignity and mysterious spirit of forgivingness. Our film finally closes on their expressions of hope and resignation, and of sorrow and resistance that cover the whole spectrum of this dialogic communion of consciousnesses which our audience is invited to join in and carry on.
As for myself, for whom this film had become no more mine than any of us remain our mother’s child, my rage had changed to wonder and love for a community that might well be destroyed but whose territory can never be claimed by their invaders - for it will be an empty space that the black folk of Harlem leave behind. One that has lost its Soul.
But the film ends on a strangely optimistic note with this monologue of mine interpolated with a hip-hop verse by one of our crew that you can hear on our trailer.**
It took me a while to believe that the people of Harlem
refrained from engaging in hatred.
The fact the white people were afraid of them nonetheless
I picked up quick. But black folk missed.
Strange eh?
Less strange was that everything that had appeared to have happened
Now revealed itself as having been arranged.
Arranged to tame Harlem and make it safe.
Awaiting gentrification
All the glory that Harlem had once displayed
The crew on the corner, in the park, on the stoop
The Boss, the bars, the BBQ’s
The jive, the swagger, the thunder, the shine
Would send a shiver through the spiritless visitors
Who have come hungry to make this black folks’ home their own.
And you know, I trembled before the dawning thought
That this film was becoming part of the story it was reporting.
And altering.
HARLEM USA became my tag, my sticker, my instrument of resistance
My Shine.
External Links
Harlem USA: WebsiteTrailer: Harlem USANadia Denton
I saw the relentless encroachments of gentrification in Harlem.
I was a seized by a strange rage
Of a boy-child fighting to defend his bullied mother.
With time, the ferocity abated but not the intent.
It’s still there in everything I do.
Studied, cunning, cool.”
That is what I told a friend in a short film that I made almost three years ago.* I had just completed Au Pied du Mur, a feature-length documentary about the gentrification of the East End Montreal neighborhood which had been my home for twenty years. It had taken a lot of ingenuity, a bit of scriptwriting and a couple of actors to convey the unspoken and authentic thoughts and feelings of a working-class community sans paroles. I would have had to admit that in my film about them I spoke their mind.
Harlem, however, was just waiting impatiently to speak its mind, to command attention and provide direction. All that we, the film-makers, had to do was follow, receive and respond. As our final editor said when he reviewed the footage, “You have at least three or four films here. Maybe more. Which one do you want?”
The one that everybody who had taken part in this production wanted was a face-to-face collective self-declaration of the many people with their very different points of view that constituted a single mind and that spoke with one voice: The Voice of Harlem.
Harlem USA
Harlem, soon an empty space, a lost soul?
Our film traces their amazing articulation of what is happening to them right now, of what has already been lost and what yet threatens to be lost. Along the way we are invited to capture the precious and powerful scenes of the richness of a community that still gathers in clusters on the corner and in the park. And we are included in their extraordinary celebration of a life made worth living in the face of oppression, suspicion and deprivation. Both young and old, folks with more and folks with less money, education and faith, those from both sides of the law, all exhibit a daunting dignity and mysterious spirit of forgivingness. Our film finally closes on their expressions of hope and resignation, and of sorrow and resistance that cover the whole spectrum of this dialogic communion of consciousnesses which our audience is invited to join in and carry on. As for myself, for whom this film had become no more mine than any of us remain our mother’s child, my rage had changed to wonder and love for a community that might well be destroyed but whose territory can never be claimed by their invaders - for it will be an empty space that the black folk of Harlem leave behind. One that has lost its Soul.
But the film ends on a strangely optimistic note with this monologue of mine interpolated with a hip-hop verse by one of our crew that you can hear on our trailer.**
It took me a while to believe that the people of Harlem
refrained from engaging in hatred.
The fact the white people were afraid of them nonetheless
I picked up quick. But black folk missed.
Strange eh?
Less strange was that everything that had appeared to have happened
Now revealed itself as having been arranged.
Arranged to tame Harlem and make it safe.
Awaiting gentrification
All the glory that Harlem had once displayed
The crew on the corner, in the park, on the stoop
The Boss, the bars, the BBQ’s
The jive, the swagger, the thunder, the shine
Would send a shiver through the spiritless visitors
Who have come hungry to make this black folks’ home their own.
And you know, I trembled before the dawning thought
That this film was becoming part of the story it was reporting.
And altering.
HARLEM USA became my tag, my sticker, my instrument of resistance
My Shine.
Harlem USA
External Links
Harlem USA: WebsiteTrailer: Harlem USANadia Denton
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Click here to speak out or read (1) comments about this articleMy rage had changed to wonder and love for a community that might well be destroyed but whose territory can never be claimed by their invaders
Eric Schachter
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