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India Press Store - Streetwise
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List Price: $19.98
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Your Save: $ 19.98 ( 100% )
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Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Starring: Roberta Joseph Hayes, Tom Waits, Lillie, Rat, Shadow (II)
Directed By: Martin Bell
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786303321042
Format: Color
ISBN: 6303321046
Label: Fox Lorber
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Release Date: 1997-11-11
Running Time: 92
Studio: Fox Lorber
Theatrical Release Date: 1984
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking, eye-opening view of streetlife for runaway kids
Comment: Although this video was shot some time ago, by the famed photographer Mary Ellen Mark, the conditions are as applicable now as they were back when it was made some years ago. This video "Streetwise" portays the life of several street kids in Seattle: "Tiny", the prostitute, who can't be any more than about 13 or 14; "Rat" who goes dumpster-diving for food; and Roberta Josephine (Bobbie Jo) who was eventually strangled to death by Gary Ridgway, the "Green River Killer", active in Seattle at that time and responsible for the deaths of many runaways in the Seattle area.
The conditions under which these kids live and survive is appalling. "Rat" lives in an abandoned hotel, the windows boarded up, sleeping on an old mattress on the floor. It's chilling to think of a kid being there, though he is with an older friend. You have to wonder how terrifying their home lives must have been to make them flee like that and end up on the streets with nowhere to go, and nobody to turn to. One boy hanged himself because he couldn't stand his life anymore.
The parents of these kids are nowhere to be seen; if they are, they are completely apathetic and uninvolved in their kids' lives; their boyfriends are far more important. This goes on as I write this; today, many kids live on the streets just as they did when this video was made. Yet nothing is being done about it. This video is well worth viewing; it provides an eye-opening look at the lives of these children, seen as "throwaways". In an age when everyone is baby-crazy, and going to any length whatsoever to have a child, it makes me wonder why some of these people don't take in foster kids and help them. I highly recommend this video. I'm a former college professor and I showed it to a graduate class of mine three years ago; they could not stop talking about it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: must-see
Comment: I absolutely love this movie. You get to know the characters intimately. I love how it is filmed in 1984 and looks it. Lost kids, lost time. POWERFUL. Please, PLEASE some one release this on DVD!
Customer Rating:
Summary: "She`s 13 Going On 21".....
Comment: Streetwise is a very sad documentary about the lives of
several runaways living on the streets of Seattle,Washington.
The film was made by Martin Bell,Mary Ellen Mark,and Cheryl Mccall.It was based straight from the Life magazine article
called "Streets Of The Lost".
Almost every reviewer of this documentary asks what became of
these kids.The answer is often quite grim.....
1)Dewayne Pomeroy hanged himself in July,1984,the day before his 17th birthday.Some of the street kids held a balloon release
and planted a tree in Freeway Park in his memory.
2)Lou Ellen Couch was stabbed by a man at an arcade on 1st and
Pike street during a fight in December,1985.Her last words
were,"Tell Martin and Mary Ellen Lulu died".....Some 319 people
attended her funeral.
Two floor plaques at the Pike Place Market bear the names of Dewayne and Lulu.
3)Roberta Joseph Hayes fell victim to the Green River killer
in 1987.She was last seen leaving a Portland jail.Her remains
were discovered near highway 410 around Enumclaw,Oregon in 1991.
4)Patti died of aids.
5)Munchkin has been working as a chef in Seattle for over 15
years now.
6)Ratt had been incarcerated in prison for a while,and was last
reported to be driving a truck at night for a living.
7)Shadow was last reported to be doing construction work.
8)Kimberly is married to a navy man.
9)Erin Blackwell now has 9 children.Two of her daughters live
with relatives.Her son,Daylon,lives on his own.Erin and her husband were reportedly planning to move to North Carolina.Mary
Ellen Mark still keeps in contact with Erin.
Customer Rating:
Summary: EVERYTHING LARRY CLARK's "kids" tried and failed to be...
Comment: Directed by Martin Bell,who directed his first feature film in 1990,the under-appreciated "American Heart", this 1985 academy award nominee is perhaps one the truly finest documentaries ever made. Inspired by a photo-essay for LIFE by Bell's wife,the brilliant photographer Mary Ellen Mark, "Streetwise" documents the daily lives of a group of throwaway kids who survive on the streets of Seattle through indomitable will to survive; there is,however,one casuality in the film - a teenage boy who committs suicide after viewing rushes of himself visiting his father in prison. His funeral becomes a point of transition in the film,which thereafter encourages the kids to react directly to the camera - not dramatising themselves,but acknowledging it's presence and the fact that the camera is now an active element in their lives,having it's own effect on their social environment. A very strange and disturbing film,oddly reminiscent of Paul Morrissey's "Trash" only in this case completely real. Since nobody pretends the camera isn't there - they frequently talk to it - it is questionable if "Streetwise" is really a documentary in the first place - or something else,a new kind of film that is totally sui generis - certainly no one has ever done anything even remotely comparable. This is one of the most unique films ever made. It could have been the start of a whole new way of making films,but Bell's later work is more along conventional fictional-narrative lines - although still quite good. But with "Streetwise" one ends up wondering which is better - the form or the content. In this case,both are of equal importance. These are real kids - not actors. They've just learned to adapt and accept the camera,the same way they've survived by adapting to and accepting a horrifyingly abnormal condition in life. It's nothing like "Kids",that's for sure. This is probably one of the best films ever made.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Easily The Best Documentary Ever Made
Comment: "Streetwise" is easily the best documentary ever made. It also ranks among the finest motion pictures of all time which makes it all the more astonishing that it has never been released on DVD. I have an old VHS copy that I taped many years ago off of cable TV and I drag it out now and again when I want to watch something incredible and compelling. "Streetwise" perfectly captures a moment and place in time--namely downtown Seattle in the early 1980s. It is a haunting and transcendent film that makes you wonder whatever became of most of these kids. I highly recommend "Streetwise" and I urge whomever is holding up the release of this film on DVD to get off their butts, settle the issues, and get this film out on DVD. There is still time, albeit not much, for a 20th anniversary release!
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