This eye opening timepiece of The Big Apple far from midtown is mostly a sloppy collection of snippets, poorly edited and presented by the likes of Helen Levitt and James Agee who we would expect more of. Made the same year as their Oscar nominated The Quiet One, it comes across as a compendium of outtakes that irritate rather than inform as waifs of all ages run the streets in what is called both "theatre and battleground." The imagery and history being recorded is priceless but presented in such a haphazard fashion its abrasive editing never allows the audience to dwell on the calamity of inner city poverty an spirit long enough before moving on to the next brief poorly recorded shot of repetitive child's play on the mean streets of NYC. In spite of its inept presentation some powerful moments remain as well as images, frozen in a single frame, that would make superb works of photo journalism but overall this doc is a chaotic mess.
Review of In the Street
