Joel Meyerowitz talking about his father in a screenshot from the documentary Joel Meyerowitz: The Pulse of the Street (2016), directed by Philippe Jamet. ( Courtesy The Darkroom Rumour)
The documentary Joel Meyerowitz: The Pulse of the Street (2016), directed by Philippe Jamet, is available on the streaming platform The Darkroom Rumour. As I suggested in a previous post, Darkroom Rumour has aggregated 100 films on photography, with categories ranging from major figures in the art to “emerging,” reportage, architectural, nature, experimental, and other photography, as well as videos on “darkroom masters” and several dozen articles to offer context.
Meyerowitz, who began using color film for art photography early among his peers (in 1962), is most famous for his large-format, color-suffused photographs of Cape Cod and his street photography from nine months at Ground Zero, following the attacks of 9-11.
In the documentary Meyerowitz gives a sort of history of America from mid-century to post-9-11. He frames this, as he sits speaking to the camera, with his own experiences on “the street,” illustrated by film footage (it is unclear if it is his) and stills that he shot. Since the history he offers is tied mostly to the vibe of each decade as he believes it to have been, and because the doc is 52 minutes long, there are many generalizations such as “innocent” or “paranoid.”
It is a lot to hang on an arbitrary length of time—unsatisfying as history and a bit fraught at times as cultural critique, as when he expresses his strong dislike of and irritation with public graffiti. He quickly goes on to suggest graffiti is good because it gives voice to those in “the neighborhoods,” but it sounds as if he has realized he must be supportive of other artists. He also grouses about computers getting involved in the ’90s, so that “photography in public didn’t look like reality.” He means advertising photography though, or at least that is what is shown behind him, and that seems like an odd charge. How often has advertising—especially the fashion photography shown in the segment—ever looked much like reality?
As with the other documentary I watched on Darkroom, those looking for Master Class-style tips on photographic technique and equipment will be disappointed. The closest to these are Meyerowitz’s explanations of finding his way to his subjects, as when he tells the story of his minor adventures in gaining access to the wreckage of the World Trade Center. In the end, we must be grateful for the photos he shot there—they are sublime—but he seems to join the ranks of narrators who cannot tell stories of their own mastery as interesting as the work itself.
It was moving to me that he credited his father with showing him how to see and read the world, and how that, coupled with a single session as assistant to Robert Frank, made Meyerowitz catch fire. That fire has lasted nearly 65 years.
“[Y]ou are never bored on the street,” Meyerowitz says near the end of the film. “If you have a camera and go to it, you will get everything that you cannot expect or anticipate. It will happen to you. […] I go for a walk in the world. And the world gives me its gifts.”
