Mark Street, 2018, 68 min.
Work Songs
A longshorewoman in San Pedro, CA bemoans the decline of unions, a cab driver in Pittsburgh talks about a drunk customer who asked him to drive to Boston, an organic farmer talks about evolving marketing strategies, a t-shirt factory in North Carolina comes to life as the day progresses.
Work Songs is playing with the short film Happy?
Mark Street, 2000, 20 min.
Happy? is an exploration of how the passage of time affects people. In the eight months preceding January 1, 2000, filmmaker Mark Street shot digital video in New York City, approaching passersby on the street and asking them direct questions about how they felt about the passage of time. Using the millennium as a starting point (“Are you ready for the millennium?”), a way of opening up discussion with strangers, the interviews took on a rollicking, discursive quality.
Happy? challenges and tweaks the hype about the millennium and asks direct questions about how people negotiate growing up, older and the world changing around them. The mainstream media concentrated on the “celebrations” planned and issues about dysfunctional technology. This work amplifies actual thoughts and feelings about things changing on personal and global levels. Happy? attempts to show how people are struggling with issues of decay and transition in a famously unreflective age and country.
Live discussion with Mark Street and Phillip Lopate Wednesday, May 20th 4PM EST
Zoom Q&A with filmmakers Gordon Quinn, Brett Story & Mark Street focused on their films in the series Le Joli Maysles Saturday, May 23rd at 4pm est.
This film is streaming as part of the month long series Le Joli Maysles, celebrating the lovely month of May with repertory and new release documentaries in conversation with the seminal 1963 film Le Joli Mai by Chris Marker. These films approach Marker’s man-on-the-street documentary technique sometimes as a jumping off point for their own process and purposes, and sometimes pushing against the implications of this process.
We are working out kinks in our streaming platform. If you are experiencing difficulty viewing this film check out the Virtual Cinema FAQ or contact us at virtual@maysles.org
Due to the nature of this screening we are unable to offer sliding scale ticketing prices. A portion of all ticket sales from Work Songs will go to directly supporting Maysles Cinema and our documentary education programs for young people in Harlem during these uncertain times. We continue to be incredibly grateful for our engaged and resilient community and their support. If you would like to make an additional donation to Maysles Documentary Center you can follow THIS LINK.
