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"Style Wars had an immense impact on me when I first saw it. It opened up a valid artistic culture encapsulated in and reflecting the wider culture I was familiar with."
–Arthur C. Danto, Art Critic of The Nation
Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
full review
MORE ABOUT THE FILM
RELATED FILMS
Writings On the Wall
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New York's legendary Kings of Graffiti own a special place in the hip hop pantheon. Style Wars is regarded by many as the definitive document of the emerging hip hop culture, an emblem of the original, embracing spirit that burst forth to the world from underground tunnels, uptown streets, clubs and playgrounds.
The film chronicles an extraordinary epoch of youthful creativity and civic controversy. Teenage graffiti artists made New York City's ramshackle subway system their public playground, battleground, and spectacular artistic canvas. Opposing them were Mayor Edward Koch, the police, and the Transit Authority. As MC's and DJs rocked the city with new sounds, street corner B-boy breakdance battles became performance art. Today this superbly photographed, world-acclaimed, prizewinning film, newly hailed at New York's Tribeca Film Festival, and in Europe from Berlin to Barcelona, is more timely than ever. The phrase "New York, 1982" (the superimposed title that starts the film) has itself become a code for a legendary time of heroic teenage exploits, a touchstone for successive generations of youth worldwide, many of whom can recite the film's dialogue by heart.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The new double-disc, user-friendly DVD now adds two and a half hours of newly filmed and archival material that contextualize developing urban culture from multiple viewpoints, including many of the original film's subjects, the filmmakers, and others.
The original film is re-mixed in 5.1 and 2.0. Other features include:
* Twenty-six penetrating update interviews with original participants who explore their diverse and extraordinary life experiences, then and now; filmed by Joey Garfield, director of Breath Control, the History of the Human Beatbox, and by the original filmmakers
* Six additional interviews with other major artistic contributors to New York graffiti and early hip hop history, who offer valuable recollections
* Twenty-three minutes of illuminating film outtakes with such important figures as Lady Pink, Kase 2, and the graffiti writers' nemesis, Transit Detective Hickey
* Over 200 stunning works of subway graffiti art--photographed by famed photographer and co-producer Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, and graffiti artists themselves accessible from individual artists pages, from the "Hall of Fame" page, or viewable as one long train panning through the frame in a continuous 30-minute loop
* Extraordinary archive footage from 1980 of the first-ever public demonstration of "breakdancing" (rocking) before a public audience; and of Tracy168 "Wild Style" and friends in the streets and on the trains in the 70s
* On-camera interviews and audio-commentary with director/producer Tony Silver and producer Henry Chalfant about what made the graffiti cultural explosion possible in the public spaces of the city; its artistic and social implications; and the genesis of the film itself
English Subtitles for the Non-Hearing and Hard-of-Hearing
Appropriate for:
College/University
70 minutes • VHS • Closed
Captioned
210 minutes • DVD • Closed
Captioned
32 minutes • VHS
PURCHASE OR RENT
Have a discount/promotional code for this film? Enter it here and click on "Update".
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70
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VHS
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| Institutions (Colleges/Universities) |
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210
min./
DVD
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| Institutions (Colleges/Universities) |
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| Community Groups/ Public Libraries/ High Schools |
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| Rental |
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32
min./
VHS
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| Institutions (Colleges/Universities) |
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| Community Groups/ Public Libraries/ High Schools |
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| Rental |
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REVIEWS
"A stunning achievement. The mother and son constitute one of the most deeply human encounters I know of on film."
Ronald Gottesman, Professor of English
University of Southern California
"One of the greatest documentaries ever made."
Alexander Alland, Professor of Anthropology
Columbia University
"Practically every question addressed by scholars in the arts - folk, popular and high style - is raised at some point in this film and discussed in considerable detail."
Nora Groce, American Anthropologist
"A breakthrough documentary."
A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Groundbreaking and nearly perfect. It's the kids themselves who speak most eloquently to their work."
Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
More Reviews
AWARDS / SCREENINGS
- Tribeca Film Festival - 2003
- Edinburgh International Film Festival - 2003
- Stockholm Film Festival - 2003
- In-Edit Film Festival (Barcelona) - 2003
- Backjumps ñ the Live Issue (Berlin) - 2003
- Bergen International Film Festival (Norway) - 2003
- Black Soil Film Festival (Rotterdam) - 2003
- Sundance Film Festival, Grand Prize
- National Black Programming Consortium, Prized Pieces Award
- Montreal Festival of Films on Art, Grand Prize
- American Film Festival, Blue Ribbon
- Athens Film Festival, Grand Prize
- Chicago Film Festival, Silver Hugo
- Houston International Film Festival, Silver Award
- Toronto Film Festival
- PBS, Channel Four (UK), Learning Channel, plus Germany, Scandinavia,Switzerland, Spain, etc.
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