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On the Bowery

On the Bowery

1957
Drama, Documentary
1h 5m
A mix of documentary and scripted footage on the Bowery, New York City's skid row. (imdb)
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On the Bowery

1957
Drama, Documentary
1h 5m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 67.96% from 53 total ratings

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(53)
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Rated 16 Nov 2018
4
74th
At a time when Hollywood's Golden Age was at the zenith of widescreen Technicolor escapism, and a somber post-war condition was romanticized in films noir, Lionel Rogosin would transform American independent cinema in the image of neorealism, and remind us of poverty, addiction, and real people.
Rated 10 Apr 2020
73
64th
A gritty documentary combining staged scenes smoothly through a strict, minimalistic cinematography, and gorgeous lightning that lays grace upon each and every face. Watch it if sometimes you wish you could stare endlessly at those hungover faces you see on the bus.
Rated 15 Dec 2015
78
54th
A sad reminder that homelessness, addiction and psychological issues are not some new problem but an ever present reality. I suppose making this as a docu-fiction made sense at the time, but to me it puts an artificial and noticeable barrier between us and the subjects and while it's clear that the things shown represent a reality it's also clear that what we're watching is crafted and structured. It undermines the film's immediacy. Even so, this must have been a revelation at the time.
Rated 01 Apr 2011
80
77th
Benefits from loose scripting and non-professional cast. At the time there was nothing like it in American cinema, and even today it seems much more genuine than other films in the same mold.
Rated 20 Oct 2010
40
97th
"Lionel Rogosin's semi-documentary is an unflinching document of skid-row denizens, and humanist cinema at its unsentimental best." - Bill Weber
Rated 07 Sep 2021
70
72nd
Expressive, nearly hellish neorealism depiction of 50s America and its weary, drunk, futureless, hopeless proletarian men with nowhere to got except the same bar, with nothing to do -- when they are not working, looking for jobs or just tired of doing both -- except drinking. As my father in law says, when talking about life problems and shit, 'por isso que nóis bebe'. Capitalism's broken lives through the lens of both raw documentary filmmaking and some curiously natural, spontaneous staging.
Rated 14 Dec 2022
70
74th
Much of what is said by these drunkards is more meaningful and sincere than what gushes forth on a daily basis from the mouths of the sober population. That's just an observation, not an endorsement of drinking to excess. Rogosin comes perilously close here to making 'poverty porn', but avoids this fate by forcing the viewer to suffer with the Bowery boys. It's bleak. My grandfather on my father's side of the family was a functional alcoholic, and I see some of him in these men.

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