Dark Days

One of the most incredible documentaries I've ever seen was Dark Days (2000) directed by Marc Singer. In won three awards at Sundance in 2000, including the audience award. The film is a beautifully constructed portrait of a group of homeless people who reside permanently in the tunnels of New York's underground, which the residents had named The Freedom Tunnel. It's a really incredible journey, and you become attached to the people on screen as they describe how they ended up in such dire living situations. They are basically the forgotten "mole people" of New York, and America. Singer was not a filmmaker before the release of this, he was actually living underground when one of his friends made the suggestion that a film should be made about what was really an ignored aspect of this thriving city. Singer decided to go ahead and make the film, but his main aim was that it would draw attention to the situation, and that those who were a part of it would receive help. It's beautifully melancholy, and although the subject matter is disturbingly morose, you can't help but be drawn in and begin to enjoy it. The film is shot in black and white, which apparently was not an artistic preference, but Singer was told by a friend that if he didn't know how to shoot properly in colour he would "fuck it up and it would all come out green and red."

It's emotionally charged yet it has no dramatic romanticism.

Beside the beauty that is the film itself, it comes with an amazing soundtrack by none other than DJ Shadow. I wanted to write about the amazing story that comes with it, but it's long and I couldn't think of a more fascinating way to write it so I've just copied it directly from IMDb

The soundtrack for the film was provided by DJ Shadow (aka Josh Davis), who is a critically-acclaimed producer and DJ. He is notorious, however, for being very protective of licensing his music for other venues or projects, having declined many other scoring offers in the past. When a friend of Singer's saw the footage assembled to a rough cut, he suggested Shadow for the soundtrack. Singer got hold of a couple of Shadow's albums, and loved the music so much, he began to cut the music into his film without any contact with the DJ. When fellow producer Ben Freedman told him he would need the rights to the music, the duo concocted a scheme whereby they would write a note to him and give it to an attractive female friend who would go backstage after a show and personally hand-deliver it. It worked. Weeks later, the two scheduled a flight to LA to coincide with a last-minute meeting with Shadow and his agent. According to Shadow, he was prepared to turn down the men's offer to use his music. But when they showed him a rough edit of the film with his music that Singer had already cut-in, Shadow was taken aback and completely impressed. He not only let them use existing titles, but even remixed some older tracks intercut with new audio samples recorded by Singer in the tunnels as a special score done for the film.



You can find this film on documentaryheaven.com - seriously... watch this fucking film.

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