Business and
Economics
BookWars ***
2000 78 min. Jason Rosette/Camerado
(dist by Transit Media Communications 1-800-343-5540). PPR
Color Cover
When filmmaker/narrator Jason Rosette first set up his
table amongst NYC's street bokosellers, he didn't know that
George Eliot was a woman. Before long, Rosette was not only
well-versed about Victorian women novelists' penchant for
adopting men's names (to conform to society's sense of
propriety and to improve sales), he'd also learned many
tricks of the trade (if you wrap plastic around a book, for
instance, you can double the asking price). Combining
interviews with fellow sidewalk peddlers of lterature,
philosophy, popular fiction and "bad religion", together
with handheld camcorder shots of sellers dickering, buyers
whining, and the ever present parade that is New York City
street life, Rosette spins a loosely structured tale of
dipsy-dumpster diving for cast-off books, battles with
local police in the wake of Mayor Giuliani's efforts to
clean up the mean streets, and tales of incredible finds at
the Friends of the Library book sales (Rosette had a
library "friend" whom he anonymously refers to as his
source in much the same way a junkie would talk to a
dealer.)
In addition to the low-budget look, viewers have to endure
the affectations of youth, beginning with the subtitle "a
flick by Rosette" and continually cropping up in Rosette's
overlaid narration, which is delivered in a halting, beat
poetic style, punctuated by vapid Kerouac-ian
on-the-road-isms and, occasionally, tuly awful metaphors
(on the police crackdown, for example, he intones-with
apparent seriousness-"a snake had entered the garden").
Still, there's a fascinating charm in watching these grumpy
young and old men at work (earning $50 on a slow day,
several hundred on a good), smooth talkers who are equally
adept at pushing Kierkegaard and Clancly, professionals who
know the difference between a cheaply constructed Doubleday
Book Club edition and the real thing. Already a hit in NYC
art theaters and on the film circuit, BookWars< is
recomended, with reservations. [Note: the box correctly
proclaims that the film contains "raw language"-not that
anyone should necessarily expect different from NYC street
merchants.] Aud: C, P. R. Pitman)