Artistic Vision
To understand our project as simply more than an organized flow of multimedia attached to strings of factual dictation, it is necessary to detach oneself from the general notion that with attempts at presenting legitimate historiography comes a lack of artistry. While this documentary maps out the long history and enduring journey of the Gay Rights Movement factually, it also contextualizes it in respect to concurrent New York history. Furthermore, the documentary takes on subjective and emotionally evocative undertones that, when stripped of its historical specificities, tell of a largely poignant narrative that many can relate to—gay or not.
The individual’s (more specifically, the New Yorker’s) conception of “home” is the extended metaphor and prominent symbol that we’ve laced through the film’s entirety—whether in the script, images, video and audio feed, or music. In effort to not only simply illustrate the “The Peopling of New York,” we went beyond the call of the traditional historical story telling of a movement and its history. We focused on a group of individuals that “peopled” a part of New York despite unrelenting discrimination; a group of individuals who had been cursed with relentless misfortune and the burden of overcoming so much adversity to achieve a sense of belonging and home. We followed this group who, for years, found themselves emotionally and physically displaced—squatters without the comfort of a stable home. When they did finally put up the fight to reclaim their home, they found unexpected success and a strength that, until then, had been wearing rather thin. A short time after, however, the community would face the steady “un-peopling” of their newly reclaimed home as they had experienced time and time again because of varying reasons often out of their control. When they had finally found a replacement home, it was a fixer-upper of sorts that came with a whole new list of trials and tribulations. However, with time and the endless faith, courage, and determination of New Yorkers, the community managed to “re-people” the area and build themselves a functioning place that they could regard as a symbolic home for years to come.