OCCUPY WALL STREET: WE ARE THE 99% - also known as THE 99%: OCCUPY EVERYWHERE, the title under which I signed out the Filmbuff DVD from my local library - would appear to be the 'other' 2013 documentary about the 'Occupy' movement, a disorganized but key protest in 2011 that pushed to the forefront of many issues (too many, according to some critics) that have since become ensconced in the national political discourse of not only the U.S. but many other developed countries around the globe.
The protest itself, at least as documented here by writer-producer-director Michael Perlman, comes off as glassy-eyed and naively idealistic, as much an "experience" of the sort that millennials are (then as now) so fond of turning everything they do into (via the same social media that spawned the New York gathering in the first place) as a movement with goals beyond what like-minded protesters were screaming for in decades past.
That's not entirely a bad thing as the United States has a long, rich, even complicated but altogether NECESSARY history of public protest, something still unheard of under the regimes in countries like China, but Perlman's doc runs barely over an hour, features only seven talking heads who are all allied with the cause (many of whom are allowed to gush excessively about how the event itself made them all warm and fuzzy about mankind), and offers only minimal context in which to place the event itself, as if the filmmaker figured future viewers would automatically be familiar. I am, but I'm sure others might not be, which is where the OTHER 2013 'Occupy' documentary, 99%: THE OCCUPY WALL STREET COLLABORATIVE FILM handily takes the prize with its multiple directors, purposeful repurposing of mountains of readily available video, bigger and higher-profile selection of interview subjects - including some critical of the movement - and overall better sense of context.
Perlman's film feels unfinished, and indeed my DVD appears to be a 2017 release of a 2013 film about a 2011 event, to which a few paragraphs have been added (oddly) after the closing credits to outline how the demands of the movement, or at least the ongoing discussion of them, are now part of the cultural debate, albeit in an era where everything that 'Occupy' stood for has pretty much been sidelined temporarily while the Donald Trump circus freak show wheezes toward it's inevitable, criminal demise.
Among Perlman's talking heads are three young people, presumably millennials, one grandmother and one retired NYPD cop who all participated in the event, as well as economist Jeffrey Sachs and - most damningly for the project in retrospect - entertainment mogul and celebrity activist (and sorta-kinda 1%-er) Russell Simmons, whose world came crashing down in a litany of sexual assault and harassment allegations right around the time this film was seemingly being dumped on DVD and presumably streaming channels. It would be interesting to know if Perlman smelled what was coming and decided to just get the thing out there and let it be damned or forgotten, or more realistically in hindsight, both.
Camerawork by cinematographer Tal Atzmon is an asset, with a consistent feel to the lighting and framing of interview subjects regardless of setting. I'm surprised he hasn't had a busier career since this was made, but it's delayed release undoubtedly didn't help.
The protest itself, at least as documented here by writer-producer-director Michael Perlman, comes off as glassy-eyed and naively idealistic, as much an "experience" of the sort that millennials are (then as now) so fond of turning everything they do into (via the same social media that spawned the New York gathering in the first place) as a movement with goals beyond what like-minded protesters were screaming for in decades past.
That's not entirely a bad thing as the United States has a long, rich, even complicated but altogether NECESSARY history of public protest, something still unheard of under the regimes in countries like China, but Perlman's doc runs barely over an hour, features only seven talking heads who are all allied with the cause (many of whom are allowed to gush excessively about how the event itself made them all warm and fuzzy about mankind), and offers only minimal context in which to place the event itself, as if the filmmaker figured future viewers would automatically be familiar. I am, but I'm sure others might not be, which is where the OTHER 2013 'Occupy' documentary, 99%: THE OCCUPY WALL STREET COLLABORATIVE FILM handily takes the prize with its multiple directors, purposeful repurposing of mountains of readily available video, bigger and higher-profile selection of interview subjects - including some critical of the movement - and overall better sense of context.
Perlman's film feels unfinished, and indeed my DVD appears to be a 2017 release of a 2013 film about a 2011 event, to which a few paragraphs have been added (oddly) after the closing credits to outline how the demands of the movement, or at least the ongoing discussion of them, are now part of the cultural debate, albeit in an era where everything that 'Occupy' stood for has pretty much been sidelined temporarily while the Donald Trump circus freak show wheezes toward it's inevitable, criminal demise.
Among Perlman's talking heads are three young people, presumably millennials, one grandmother and one retired NYPD cop who all participated in the event, as well as economist Jeffrey Sachs and - most damningly for the project in retrospect - entertainment mogul and celebrity activist (and sorta-kinda 1%-er) Russell Simmons, whose world came crashing down in a litany of sexual assault and harassment allegations right around the time this film was seemingly being dumped on DVD and presumably streaming channels. It would be interesting to know if Perlman smelled what was coming and decided to just get the thing out there and let it be damned or forgotten, or more realistically in hindsight, both.
Camerawork by cinematographer Tal Atzmon is an asset, with a consistent feel to the lighting and framing of interview subjects regardless of setting. I'm surprised he hasn't had a busier career since this was made, but it's delayed release undoubtedly didn't help.
