Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives

THE EYES OF THE CITY: RICHARD SANDLER

June 6 – June 11

One of the great chroniclers of New York City street life since the 1980s, photographer and filmmaker Richard Sandler has devoted himself to capturing the city in all its grimy, chaotic, often unhinged, and always uncontainable glory. Sandler first documented New York through an extensive body of indelible, mostly black-and-white photographs that vibrate with the energy of the metropolis and its diverse residents, and stand as one of the most indispensable records of 1980s-90s NYC. But in the early 1990s, he began to shift his attention to film and video. The initial result was the still-under-recognized masterpiece of filmic street photography, THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE, a proudly unvarnished, rough-and-tumble document of a rapidly changing Times Square and of the incredible collection of eccentrics, street preachers, panhandlers, entertainers, and other charismatic city dwellers who comprised the rich human comedy of the neighborhood at the time. Both documenting and directly engaging with the people he encountered, Sandler created a work that captures the pulse of the city like few others.

THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE was followed by other films in the same vein, most of them even more rarely screened, including films focusing on different corners or dimensions of New York: the East Village in BRAVE NEW YORK (2004), the subway in SWAY (2006), the aftermath of 9/11 in EVERYBODY IS HURTING (2006), and so on, all of them suffused with the sharp-eyed but fully committed fascination that distinguishes his work.

Anthology is honored to host Sandler in person, for screenings of all these works, as well as his lyrical short films (shot in New York, Los Angeles, and Martha’s Vineyard).

This retrospective has been co-organized with Jake Perlin.

Special thanks to Richard Sandler; Jake Perlin (The Film Desk); JP Lopez/Elara Pictures; and Josh Safdie.

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