Slideshow
WILD STYLE
U.S., 1983
Directed by Charlie Ahearn
With Lee Quiñones, Fab 5 Freddy, Lady Pink, Patti Astor
Approx. 82 mins. 35mm.
While Lee’s masked mystery tagger ZORRO tries to get back his main flame Rose (PINK), reporter Patti Astor goes way uptown to the South Bronx to blow up the whole scene as FAB 5 FREDDY tries to get rich. Joyous, raucous, explosive, premonitory and with not one single professional actor, WILD STYLE is the movie that had Hollywood see $$$$. From ZEPHYR’s animated graf titles rivaling Saul Bass, to the epic park jam climax at the Williamsburg Bridge amphitheater with Rammellzee in a trenchcoat waving around a sawed-off, there’s scene after indelible scene: Chief Rocker Busy Bee rocking the Dixie Club while white-gloved b-boys pop and lock, the Cold Crush Brothers and the Fantastic 5 battling on the b-ball court, Grandmaster Flash on the ones and twos in his kitchen, Double Trouble freestyling on a stoop as a turtlenecked kid looks on, and graf galore — whole-cars and murals by DONDI, DAZE and CRASH and a funky-ass soundtrack by FAB and Blondie leader Chris Stein, spun throughout.
Reviews
“Mixing early-’80s nostalgia with mild social anthropology, the film successfully crystallises the optimism and vivacity of the early New York hip hop scene.”
– David Jenkins, Time Out
“Nothing else comes close to capturing the atmosphere of the early days of hip-hop and spraycan art, of the burned-out and derelict Bronx.”
– The Guardian
“This unpolished but authentic film, a drama with the honesty of a documentary, shows hip-hop pure and unvarnished.”
– Wendy Ide, Times (UK)