The Gods of Times Square

A video document of New York City on the eve of Times Square’s violent transition into modernity, The Gods of Times Square is a singular street-level snapshot allowing you to literally watch an entire era of the city vanish before your eyes like a fading Polaroid.

Over the years, Town Square’s 42nd Street has been host to a labyrinth of grind houses, porn emporiums, sex shows, pawn shops, gun dealers, pinball arcades, burlesque revivals, and adult bookstores. But it was also one of the last remaining bastions of free speech and open debate in America. Like Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park, anyone with a bible to beat and a hand to thump it could claim a street corner and challenge passersby to engage them. Before the advent of the home video market, the Deuce was also one of the only places you could go to see non-Hollywood fare outside of the drive-in. Go now, though, and you’re in kiddie Vegas. So what the hell happened?

In both this and his film Brave New York, director Richard Sandler captures the soul of New York better than virtually any working filmmaker. In Gods, we see how the Disney money hose whitewashed away much of the area’s character along with the riffraff. And even amidst all the lurid dens of smut peddlers and dope pushers, there were wholesome, hard-working individuals like the mom and pop hot dog stand featured in the film who were forced out of existence by both Mickey and the mayor’s clean-up committee. Which is worse, a soapbox city sanctuary for cinematic and human refuse, or a corporately-sanitized Mouse House tourist-trap?

At least with the old Times Square, the establishments were up front about what they were selling: cheap sex and disposable thrills. They would proudly declare, “She’s the pop-top princess with the recyclable can!” (Six-Pack Annie, 1975) Perhaps we’ve just traded one syndicate for another. Another question this film implicitly poses is whether we have abandoned our deities, too, or merely redressed our old vices in Victoria’s Secret.

Sandler always seems to be in the right place at the right time, and he’s the rare documentarian who knows how to use the camera expressively, with many of his compositions as oddly striking as his subjects. While he may be guilty of the occasional stylistic flourish, by and large his images are haunting, hilarious and hypnotic, often all at once. He catches apocalyptic street preachers raving about Doomsday, black militants admonishing whitey of impending race riots, a fledgling musician with a literal messianic complex, a strip joint addict/inner city school teacher, and a pudgy guy clothed in McDonalds logos from head to foot explaining why the new family-friendly Times Square is better. Reverend Billy (of the Church of Stop Shopping) even makes an appearance, going into the Disney store with a giant stuffed Mickey nailed to a cross and preaching to the shoppers, “Mickey Mouse is the Antichrist!” And above all these mortal proceedings tower ubiquitous Calvin Klein underwear models.

With brief yet intimate portraits of dozens of street people and pedestrians, we see first hand the collision of values at the ultimate cultural crossroads. It’s both a tribute to all the holy rollers who suit out and show up every week to wage battle for the city’s soul, and a mirror on people’s religious beliefs as reflections of their own fears and insecurities. The empathy that the filmmaker demonstrates towards the many interesting characters he encounters is refreshing, and the marvels he sees in the commonplace and day-to-day make The Gods of Times Square an inspiring watch.

-Andy Gately