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After weeks of filming the mundane and the magical in the colorful borough of Jackson Heights in the summer of 2014, and performing the gargantuan task of reducing more than 160 hours of footage to the 190 minute documentary “In Jackson Heights,” director Frederick Wiseman gained new insight into the lives of 20th century immigrants from South Asia and South America. He also reportedly captured the essence of grassroots democracy, the battle of small businesses against big box stores, and the life of 20th century immigrants, some displaced from violent countries and urban battlefields. In so doing, he may just have elevated to the status of hipness, the largely lower-middle class district full of struggling new immigrants from various parts of the globe including South Asia and South America.
“In Jackson Heights,” a social documentary produced, directed and edited by Wiseman, opens at Film Forum Nov. 4, the latest in his 40 documentaries in a 50-year career of film-making. Known for his uncompromising long cinematic social commentaries on a wide range of institutions and cultures, Wiseman was perhaps the right person to turn a patient eye to the amalgam of cultures probably not found anywhere else in the world.
His previous works have looked at a prison for the criminally insane, a high school, military, police, juvenile court, and the welfare system. His cultural films explored La Comédie Franҫaise, the Paris Opéra Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and London’s National Gallery. This time it was a tapestry of myriad colors and cultures that make up Jackson Heights, once the base of Indian-American immigrants, who have over time left for greener pastures, though leaving an indelible mark on the community.
Wiseman’s latest work turns a sympathetic and sometimes humorous eye on a neighborhood where newer immigrants from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal and those from Peru, Colombia, and Mexico, rub shoulders with elderly residents of Jewish, Irish, and Italian ancestry; where 167 languages are spoken; and where a Third World country is mirrored in the hubbub of elevated trains, honking cars, and foot traffic among what one publicist calls the hodge-podge of stores selling everything from whole baby goats, to saris, and Bollywood DVDs; Tibetan food, and classes for would-be cabbies, and where LGBT activists flourish amid some of the most conservative cultures.
“Wiseman embraces a community that revels in still being affordable, 20 minutes from “the city,” and resolutely unhip,” says a Film Forum publicity release. “Unhip” by whose measure is the question. While Jackson Heights is far from being or becoming the heavily marketed hip Brooklyn, its residents are comfortable in their skins and flamboyant in flaunting their culture.
“I wanted to show the new group of immigrants to America because I was till now familiar with the immigrants who came at the end of the 19th Century,” Wiseman told Desi Talk in between shooting for his 41st documentary. Asked what was distinct about South Asians he met, Wiseman said, “They were certainly interested in preserving the culture and religion of the country they came from at the same time as wanting to assimilate. In the 19th century, immigrants wanted to forget their countries of origin.”
While filming “In Jackson Heights” Wiseman was there from early morning to late at night daily, with his small crew, an assistant and a cameraman, said Mohammad Rashid, a Bangladeshi-American community activist, who was Wiseman’s man-Friday, shepherding him around the communities and welcoming the filmmaker to his rooftop garden to get a bird’s eye view of Roosevelt Ave, 74th Street, 34th street, that just 20 years ago, had been Little India. Rashid is also featured in the film. “Day after day I would take him to the mosque, the mandir, everywhere,” Rashid told Desi Talk. Wiseman said he had been welcomed with open arms by the community.
The documentary “is brilliant” says Rashid, but “The South Asian part was less than other parts,” he said. “But I understand that because 60 percent of people in Jackson Heights are now Hispanic and only 11 percent are South Asian,” he adds quickly.
That was something Councilman Daniel Dromm also noticed. Dromm is featured several times in the documentary as the most visible elected official at City Hall from that neighborhood. “Fred has really captured a lot of the diversity of Jackson Heights. It’s a difficult job. (But) there could have been a deeper conversation with the South Asian folks,” is his critique. The Councilman has seen the transformation of Jackson Heights over several decades.
“In regard to the Indian community – 25 years ago, 74th Street became an Indian street. Now some of those very same places have become Little Pakistan, like 37th Road just off Roosevelt Ave. And 73rd Street has become Little Bangladesh,” Dromm says. “You can see the immigrant faces change. And as Indians become more successful, they move to Richmond Hill and then Long Island. The same thing happened with my family.”
A New York Times report shows Wiseman’s decision to make “In Jackson Heights” just kind of happened when friends invited him to visit after he said he wanted to make a film on new immigrants. He walked around the neighborhood and decided this was his next project. “The colors of Jackson Heights are just extraordinary,” he told New York Times, adding, “Visually, it’s an absolute feast.”
“In Jackson Heights” is Wiseman’s 9th film on New York City. Some of his earlier works include 1975’s Welfare (167 minutes), 1989’s Central Park (176 minutes), 1994’s High School II (220 minutes); and the more recent ones like At Berkeley in 2013 (240 minutes), and National Gallery in 2014 (180 minutes).
This latest documentary has left Wiseman in a financial hole. The septuagenarian filmmaker’s films are partly financed by PBS. This time he ventured to fill the $75,000 shortfall for “In Jackson Heights” with a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign launched June 18, that garnered very little of what was needed. “Some people assume that because I’ve made a lot of films and they’ve been well received that it’s easy for me to get the money. That is not the case,” Wiseman wrote on the Kickstarter page. “For me, the cycle remains the same every time I start a project; I have to do what everyone else does and sing for my supper.”
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