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Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures
Captured (Documentary)
Unedited by Anthropology.Tv
Movie Review: Captured
By William J. Carmody
When I first heard the coined term several years ago, “little brother is watching big brother” I thought the phrase was rather “neologistic” in nature and before it’s time considering the fact that it has always been the “norm” for “big brother to watch little brother” which in todays society is more so prevelant than ever before post 9-11-01. But with the creation and implementation of the home video camera in the early 1980’s and with the advancement of audio / video technology ranging from a ½” magnetic tape decades ago to a ¼” micro DVC (Digital Video Chip) or smaller for that matter today, a cause and effect pattern and process has emerged over the last 30 years that has changed the modern world forever making the civilian video hobbyist into an almost professional film maker and documentarian; in essence making “time capsules” for future generations to see firsthand what has taken place before bringing them to where they are today. Creating an entire media frenzy of documenting what is real and has actually happened to the contemporary day propagandization of Reality TV whereupon situations are created from what is false thus making the public believe it to be real. George Orwell’s 1984 could be re-written today and titled; AIHD (via-1984 using the number / letter alphabet) “All In High Definition”.
Enter Clayton Patterson a New York City professional photographer and documentarian film maker whom since 1979 has dedicated his life to recording the final age of raw imagination and anarchy in New York City’s Lower East Side, a neighborhood renowned for its art and music scene, as well as its long-term residents radical minds. A neighborhood which has been slowly disappearing and dying over the years which today, is littered with the ghosts of the neighborhoods past. Patterson’s work over the years has captured both the colorful side and the dark and seedy underbelly of New York City, an underbelly that “the City” does not and never has wanted the general public to ever see or know about. Crime, drugs, prostitution, death, murder, mayhem, gentrification, corruption, overdevelopment, homelessness, hardcore, anarchy, creativeness, and passion are all words that can be used to define the 2008 (84 minute) independent film about Patterson’s work over the years titled Captured which was Directed by Ben Solomon and Dan Levin and Produced by Ben Solomon, Dan Levin, and Jenner Furst.
Over the years Patterson has taken hundreds of thousands of photographs of people and locations on New York’s Lower East Side and has recorded thousands of hours of video footage with his primary claim to fame emanating from the infamous 1988 Tompkins Square Park riots (August 6th and 7th) all of which was recorded by Patterson resulting in over 100 police brutality complaints and the firing of numerous NYPD Police Officers for their actions and thus creating a new weapon of choice for the average Joe Citizen to use to fight back and even at times STOP “big brother” and it’s otherwise near immortal political machine. Ask any NYPD cop that has worked on the Lower East Side in the 80’s and 90’s and they will tell you that Clayton Patterson is a “piece of shit scumbag that hates cops and makes a career recording what they do”. Yet this comes down to the simple statement and question, if cops have nothing to hide, why worry about being recorded? The NYPD has long had a “non-official policy” of arresting photographers, videographers, and the general public with cameras and destroying their film or equipment without any probable cause or reason. Clayton Patterson can attest to this practice, considering the fact that he himself has been arrested numerous times over the years without merit just for simply documenting what is happening in a public society and being Clayton Patterson. Patterson even had several of his front teeth knocked out by a police officer whom had stuck Patterson in the mouth with a wooden police baton while he was taking pictures of area residents protesting evictions.
As a former NYPD cop myself that had exposed police abuse and corruption between 2003 and 2005, I can tell you with absolute certainty that in my experiences in the NYPD as well as in my Police Academy Class training the NYPD had never discussed the Tompkins Square Park Riots. Nor did the police department ever instruct about the publics use of home video cameras, and bypassed any detailed discussions what-so-ever about Police Corruption other than a standard brief speech and a few page written text about it’s history in the NYPD. Even more disturbing is the fact that today and over the last few years most criminals on the street and non-criminal civilians alike have at any given moment in time better audio / video equipment in their possession than the police department have readily available even for criminal investigations. Usually within seconds of a police / civilian interaction in public or even in an isolated location that interaction is recorded and uploaded to the internet or a YouTube page for the entire world to see; sometimes even well before the entire incident has come to completion.
Many police officers that have been caught on video doing wrong then have the audacity to complain about the recording when their actions are publically scrutinized when in fact about ½ the time the officers in question should not have been doing what they were caught doing in the first place bringing about the second guessing and scrutiny themselves by their own behavior. In fact some of these officers in question should have not been permitted to become police officers in the first place but somehow either slipped through the cracks or were “pushed” through the system regardless of any red flags that may have been raised prior to their time of appointment. One such perfect example is the case of former NYPD Officer Patrick Pogan whom on July 25th 2008 assaulted a cyclist without any provocation or reason in Times Square in front of tens of thousands of people which was caught on video by a tourist. Interestingly, the date of this incident in 2008 was just 2 weeks away from the historic date of the 1988 Tompkins Square Park Riot. The video of Pogan attacking the cyclist was a huge media hit and was one of the highest watched videos on YouTube in 2008. The video can be seen at the following link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ
Having grown up in the NYC area in the 70’s and 80’s I not only remembered what I had watched in the film Captured from the local news reports, but recall witnessing certain events in the film first hand. I even remember seeing Patterson himself years ago before I ever knew his work or who he was snapping away on the streets of the LES. I also remember how the Lower East Side was back then and the film Captured truly is a perfect title for the movie because it really did capture what was going on and it brought me back to a time and place both mentality and spiritually that I never thought I would be again. This film is the REAL DEAL!
The film Captured can be viewed here; http://www.snagfilms.com/films/watch/captured/