NATIVE NEW YORKER (US, 2005, Steve Bilich)
/"...the stuff dreams - and nightmares - are made of." -The Austin Chronicle
NATIVE NEW YORKER, Steve Bilich (2005), 2006 Tribeca Film Festival Best Documentary Short
Shot before, during and after 9/11, NATIVE NEW YORKER took several years of filming with a 1924 hand-cranked Cine-Kodak camera.
Shaman Trail Scout 'Coyote' takes a journey which transcends time, from Inwood Park (where the island was traded for beads and booze), down a native trail (now 'Broadway'), into lower Manhattan (sacred burial ground, now including the newest natives of this island empire).
Terry 'Coyote' Murphy in a scene from NATIVE NEW YORKER
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About the soundtrack:
“When I compose music for a film, I try to make an organic connection to what I see or hear on screen and how I approach the score. With Native New Yorker, because it is a "silent film", what I latched onto as a link between the music and visuals was choosing instrumentation inspired by the abundance of so many street musicians. The layering of rhythms and the incessant pulsing of the music reflects the energy and the many facets of the city as well as the motion and pace of the images created by Steve Bilich. In addition, the "flicker" caused by the use of the silent film era camera suggested the tempo and pulse of the music.
We see a myriad of musicians on the street, and I try to bring out their spirit in my music. For example, as both violin and guitar buskers appear on screen, we hear strings and guitar throughout, as well as percussion instruments for the drummers seen in the park. Additionally, piano, while not on screen, plays a prominent role as a nod to the music of the silent film era.
The music that I composed, however, approaches the film with my sound and rhythm tendencies which blurs the sense of time. We hear the haunting sounds of Native American chanting, as well as Middle Eastern vocalizing, representing characters, actions and events both on and off screen. The breathy sounds of the native flutes are emblematic of the life force present and shared by all cultures.”
-William Susman
NATIVE NEW YORKER
(US, 2005)
Director: Steve Bilich
Produced by: Steve Bilich and William Susman
Music: William Susman
Cast: Terry 'Coyote' Murphy
- 13 minutes
- 16mm
- B&W
- Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 1080p .mp4 file on server
Published By: Gartenberg Media Enterprises
Institutional Price: $150
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PROGRAMMER JON GARTENBERG AND KODAK REPRESENTATIVE STEVE GARFINKEL on NATIVE NEW YORKER (4 MIN) - CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO
"I am a film historian, and I've been watching silent films for a long time, and I can tell when something is very uniquely created, and that was my first response to Steve's film. It's not formulaic or routine or glossy at all. This is not a film that was going to get anyone an agent or a Hollywood deal; it's a very personal film, and that's the first thing that impressed me about it. The second thing I found intriguing was that, yes, it does have a 9/11 element to it, but you don't find that out until much later in the film, so that it takes on a much more intense emotional resonance. What's interesting about that is the fact that at Tribeca, which was founded coming out of 9/11, we still get films that refer to 9/11, but it's no longer the central or main premise of film. There's a certain subtlety that's emerged over time, and Steve's film is a perfect example of that. And the third thing that attracted me to 'Native New Yorker' is the fact that it fit into what I call the tradition of the city symphony films. Usually these were old, silent films that attempted to show the life of a city from morning to night. Steve's film is more structured geographically, from Upper Manhattan to Lower Manhattan, and so, to me, it's a city symphony functioning on a different level. And, also, it was made with this old, historical camera. It's a document of history created by a piece of history. And fourth, on a social and political level, the film equalizes in a sense the death and destruction caused by the terrorist attackers on 9/11 vs. the historic displacement and death of the Native Americans by the occupying Europeans centuries earlier."
-Jon Gartenberg, GME President and former Tribeca Film Festival Experimental Film Curator
NATIVE NEW YORKER is available worldwide exclusively from GME for acquisition and exhibition by cultural organizations, as well as for clip licensing by commercial productions.