A Look Into ‘Infamy’
By Zio Vitus
BallerStatus
November 27, 2006
This cutting edge documentary not only unmasks the faces of seven individuals addicted to graffiti, but it exposes their thoughts, feelings, faults and fears — an avenue unrivaled by any graff film to date.
A 6′4″ man with a shaved head holds up photo after photo to the camera, each one shows him as a child busting open piñatas, and he lightly jokes, “That’s where the violence started.” Fast-forward and the same man sits solemnly in front of a memorial mural for his lost friend, Over (RIP). “They just fired one shot to the chest. And I was trying to hold his chest,” he pauses, visibly trying to hold in the pain, “because that’s what I see in TV, you know, people trying to hold their wounds. But all his blood was coming out of his mouth and nose and sh–. I couldn’t help him. I screamed for help, but nobody would help us, you know? They just seen us as gang members or whatever. So why help gang members, right? We were using the payphone; we were using the f—ing payphone.”
This is a sample of the footage used in “Infamy,” a raw and revealing documentary about graffiti, recently released on DVD through QD3 Entertainment. Although this film includes plenty of artwork, this is not simply another graff doc that flashes melon-ball orange and guacamole green pieces onto the screen. Rather, this is a film that dissects the lives of seven individuals whom share one common denominator: an obsession with graffiti. Where “Style Wars” displayed the art of graff to people around the world, “Infamy” divulges the intriguing personal lives of the artists themselves.
Roger Gastman — creator of now defunct graff mag While You Were Sleeping, author of Enamelized, and current editor of Swindle — envisioned the idea for the film years ago. But, it was not until he hooked up with Doug Pray — critically acclaimed director of both “Hype!” and “Scratch” — that the vision began to take form. Pray stepped to the project with little to no knowledge on graffiti. “When I generally start the subject, I’m usually almost always an outsider and I don’t know that much about it,” he explains. “And the whole process is me figuring out why are people doing this? What’s cool about this? What’s stupid about this? What’s amazing about this? That journey is the film.”
While the subject of graffiti was unfamiliar territory to Pray, it was common ground for Gastman, who has been involved in graff for close-to fifteen years and has published eight books on related topics. So, when Pray decided that he wanted to focus on a handful of subjects rather than on a large group, it was Gastman’s inside knowledge and long-standing relationships with the artists that made the idea possible. “Luckily, through knowing so many of these people through the years, I had gained their trust,” Gastman says. “I had done projects with them and several other things, and they knew I wasn’t just out to make a cheap dollar off of them, or portray them in away that wasn’t them, or portray graffiti in a way that was untrue.”
One common misconception about the world of graffiti is that the artists are hoodie-wearing, backpack-carrying, carbon copies. Therefore, the cast of characters was carefully selected in order to dispel such pre-conceived notions. “We didn’t want to cast a bunch of white guys, we didn’t want to cast a bunch of Latinos, we didn’t want a movie about seven women,” Roger clarifies. “We wanted it to be what it was: graffiti is across the boards. It reaches all ages, all races, all cultures. So we wanted to take a group of characters that really portrayed that.”
The film follows seven individuals whom are as diverse and as colorful as the Montana spray paint palette: Toomer is the king of Los Angeles and founder of the notorious graffiti crew TKO that stretches from coast to coast, but has paid a price for his legendary status; Philly-based Enem, who used the streets as his mentor, writes with such a distinct handstyle that it will make you want to hit pause; Claw is one of the original female graffiti vandals who creates couture clothing by day (check ClawMoney.com), and bombs the streets of New York by night; San Francisco’s Jase has gotten up on more than 40,000 freights, but simultaneously struggles with alcoholism; Saber caught fame with his colossal piece in the LA river, which stands at 250 x 55 feet, but has faced numerous injuries; Earsnot, who moves like a phantom in the streets and haunts NY with his tags, is a self-professed kleptomaniac — “I will not pay for any type of like meats, like chicken cutlets…” — and is also openly gay; Finally, there is Joe Connolly, who is not a graffiti artist, but is as equally obsessed with the removal of graffiti as are the artists who put it up.
“There’s so many different types of graffiti writers,” maintains Toomer. “There’s vegan graffiti writers who will cringe at violence and stop every once in a while to hug a tree, then there’s graffiti writers who do massive amounts of drugs and slam heroin, and there’s straight edge graffiti writers, and there’s violent graffiti writers.” Don’t forget the female graff writers. “I want to let the girls know I’m out here in the trenches, doing dirty work,” Claw explains. “And not only that, but I’m out here with other girls… and we are not here as girls painting, we are killers, murdering the streets… Graffiti is like the United Nations. There is a representative from all corners of the earth. Black, white and the many shades in between, man or woman. There is no ‘typical’ graffiti writer… I think it is important to break stereotypes. And people would not think an upwardly mobile, JAP-py bitch, who wears Yves Saint Laurent boots bombing, would be out on the streets like a grimy soldier.”
The film separates each individual storyline, intricately sewing the edges together into a cinematic quilt. Although in reality, many of their lives are intertwined. “In the movie they separated us,” says Toomer. “But me and Claw are really good friends. And we come from totally different walks of life. But at the same time, it doesn’t matter. When she’s here, we get to business and we laugh and we have a good time and paint. I was brought up Catholic, she was brought up Jewish. So what? What the hell does that got to do with graffiti? That means nothing. I’m a man, she’s a woman. That means nothing. The only thing that counts is if you got the balls to do it.” And that is what essentially separates the toys from seasoned writers: commitment to a dangerous lifestyle.
When Director Doug Pray began filming, he grasped early on that graffiti was not to be taken lightly. “What other art form do you really need to consider all the angles? Like danger, and jail, and people hating you? Like Jase told me, like a few weeks ago, somebody just came up and just punched him… It was an amazing experience to be out in the world, in the alleys, in the train yard, and the billboards, with these writers. You really realize what kind of lonely, dangerous thing it is that they do.”
Graffiti is dangerous by nature because of its illegality, and it is this fact that actually motivates many artists to write. “I would feel more accomplished because I did it on a freeway wall, then if I did it on a f—ing canvas,” confesses Toomer. “Even if that canvas would sell for a lot of money, it’s not worth the feeling I get if I did it on a train or on a freeway. Everybody can sugar coat it all they want, but graffiti is vandalism.”
While Toomer, and the rest of the cast, readily accept that graffiti is illegal and continue to get up, there is one person in the film who refuses to accept graffiti: Joe Connolly, the “Graffiti Guerilla.” Joe has been buffing out graffiti in L.A. for thirteen years and has no plan to stop. Although Joe does not accept graffiti, he respects it and the artists who do it. “These guys are beautiful artists, beautiful. And I know they’re gonna say ‘Oh, the beauty of it is I have to get high, and I have to break my leg, and I have to put my own stitches in, and my mom’s got to throw me out of the house, and that’s all a part of the learning curve.’ That’s bullsh–! You think Saber wants to sit there with only eight more miles left on his body, because his whole body is gonna start collapsing from all the injuries that he’s had? Hell no! A guy like Saber should be doing this stuff ’til the day he drops dead, when he’s 114.” Connolly wants to establish alternative programs for artists like Saber where they can display their art legally, and he believes that if given financial support from the city, that he could clean up L.A.’s graffiti problem within two years.
Others are skeptical of Joe’s utopian plans. “If he could have a program where all of us could get together and hold hands and sing coom-by-ya, he thinks that that would work,” Toomer says jokingly, and continues on a more somber note, “and I just looked at him like he was a moron. Are you serious? This is an antisocial event. This is an antisocial thing…. I’ve already been to jail… LAPD has f—ed me up in the street, the Sheriff’s Department has raided my house…and then the gangs. I’ve been stabbed, I’ve been shot at numerous times, my friend died in my arms. So, I’ve gotten the worst of what writers will get and survived it, and still painting graffiti. So there’s no law, or idiot, that’s gonna come up to me today and say knock it off.”
While including the unlikely character of Joe Connolly in the film, “Infamy” leaves out one character, which has played a prominent role in other graff films: hip-hop. This was a deliberate move made by Gastman who, like many other graff artists, feels that graffiti is its own subculture. “So people who say graffiti is hip-hop, I don’t believe it,” Gastman discloses. “I honestly don’t feel that hip-hop has supported the graffiti community anymore then any other form of music. The marriage between the two was really made with ‘Style Wars’ and ‘Wild Style.’ Graffiti is graffiti. It’s its own thing. It’s not attached to music. And I think that really comes through in this film.”
Even Enem, who is an emcee (of the up-and-coming duo BNG), admits that graffiti is not hip-hop. “I just think it’s ridiculous for people to say that graffiti is this missing element of hip-hop… Breakin’ is definitely a part of hip-hop music. Spinnin’ is definitely a part of hip-hop music… Graffiti is not a part of that. It’s a great backdrop, but then again, so is an abandoned building. Is homelessness now, or abandoned buildings now, a part of hip-hop? People would hit the f—ing roof if you started saying that! They’d jump out their skin!”
But like hip-hop, graffiti has become a commodity that companies use for their graphics, labels, and logos. Some companies have attempted to “give back” by paying artists to paint walls using their brand name. Enem agreed to do a wall for a major corporation, but halfway through felt that they were using him. “I feel like I was on a minstrel show,” he says. “What is this? Am I the urban clown? I have more respect now for guys like Earsnot who are just about the raw essence of graffiti…because truth be told, that’s what’s gonna keep it goin’. And that’s the only way that you’re gonna see artists come out that are gonna think outside the box. They’re not gonna try and fall into institutionalized art.”
No matter how much the mainstream tries to market it, or how many task forces are set up to fight it, graffiti will continue to thrive. “In the future, when we colonize Mars and we have a base on the moon, some motherf—er will scribe his name on a moon rock or scribe his name on Mars,” advises Toomer. “He will. No matter what happens in the future and how smart we become, and how humanly correct and all that sh– happens, some motherf—er will tag his name on another planet that we colonize. And then another motherf—er will walk by and say ‘F—, that’s cool as sh–!’ And then that motherf—er’s gonna catch a tag next to him, and so on and so forth, until the end of time. It’s graffiti, it’s leaving a mark!”
Graffiti is not only leaving a mark on walls, but as demonstrated throughout “Infamy,” it is leaving a mark on the lives of the artists themselves. “Graffiti, like life, is not always easy going and effortless, there are peaks and valleys,” says Claw. “This is my life, I am happy and working really hard, and I must say thank you to graffiti for teaching me my work ethic, respect, and giving me fame.” Likewise for Enem, he believes that “graff is one of the greatest things that ever happened to me in my lifetime because it taught me a lot about people, it taught me about myself.”
Gastman hopes that the film will leave a mark on movie-goers as well: “I want them to take away from it that it is a lot deeper then a 14-year-old kid with a spray can. I want them to take away from it that it is a real art, a real culture, that really does run people’s lives in a way.” Similarly, Pray says that, “I’d like them to get a large dose of humanity…I’d like them to understand that people take huge risks to do graffiti, and that doesn’t make it right, but it makes you appreciate it. I’m not trying to get people to like graffiti; I’m trying to get them to understand it a little bit better. You can’t escape it, it’s everywhere.”
“Infamy” is a powerful film that will affect you whether you believe graff is an art, a crime, or something in between, and it will force you to think more deeply about graffiti the next time you come face to defacement with it.
Source: ballerstatus.net