Author Nelson Algren wrote in 1951 about Chicago that, “once you’ve come to this particular patch, you’ll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.” That sentiment could also apply to the Brighton Beach neighborhood filmmakers Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg captured some 30 years later.
Their 60-minute documentary Brighton Beach, released in 1980 and screening this month in a 4K restoration at Anthology Film Archives, finds the community grappling with absentee slum lords, the first notes of housing insecurity, and a tidal wave of Russian immigrants encroaching on “natives.” That’s on top of the systemic struggles facing New York post-bankruptcy.
Stein and Wittenberg (and a small crew that included a young sound guy named Ken Burns) spent four years documenting this hinge moment through the experiences of indelible personalities: Lorraine and Pedro Colon, a married couple in a complex relationship existing on the most frayed fringes of the neighborhood; Asia Gamil, a Russian emigre trying to make sense of her present and future; the regulars and performers at Brighton Beach Baths, now a private condo-complex amenity but then a center of civic life; teenagers playing forgotten beach games; young people at pool halls; boardwalk denizens.
Through these eyes we see a challenged community burbling with the angst and racism that defined — and defines — how too many New Yorkers respond to change. But we also find, as Stein and Wittenberg describe, “a corner of gentleness and relief in a tough town.” People gather, mingle, party, gab, gossip, kvetch, boast, mourn, celebrate. It’s a coastal melting pot that could only exist in New York. As one boardwalk Algren says, “I’ve traveled all over the world, and I never found anything as nice as Brighton.”
The film, too, is beautiful. But it has remained mostly unseen for decades. It originally aired on PBS, played some festivals, and in the ‘80s had a TV run in Europe. In 1992, it played at Anthology, where it was praised for delving into place and unpeeling “layers of this bizarre neighborhood; its organized anarchy, its exquisite ugliness, its funny sadness.” And then it disappeared, prints, negatives, and soundtracks sitting in closets and film labs. It was almost lost a couple times. But after four years of work by IndieCollect, Brighton Beach has a new life — looking more lovely and real than ever.
Stein and Wittenberg spoke with the Star-Revue about making the film, the people and community, and why the documentary is maybe more relevant today than it was in 1980. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you come to Brighton Beach as a subject for a film?
Carol Stein: We both studied film in college — I went to Sarah Lawrence and MIT and Hampshire; Susan went to Hampshire and MIT. One of the photographers I worshiped was Helen Levitt. She did a film in 1948 called In the Street and I remember seeing it and thinking, “Oh, my God, I want to make films like that.” My mother was from Brooklyn. I didn’t go to Brighton Beach as a kid, but Brooklyn always held a lot of magic for me. And somehow this all came together and I thought I want to do a real film about this place.
Susan Wittenberg: Remember, in the late ‘70s, it was tough in New York. Manhattan was tough. Brighton Beach was frozen in time. It was like an oasis of calm, and it always felt nice to go there. It was a magnet. When we started the film, some of it was connected to both what was going on in the moment, what it felt like, and memories. My grandparents went to Brighton Beach Baths. I wanted to preserve that.
While we were there, after a year or so, the Russians started moving in, and all of a sudden it changed. So the film changed. And we kept staying. We filmed it over four years. That’s why it feels so complex. You don’t get the chance to do that very often and have the luxury of time. And it just seemed like the most special place. We got a chance to be with characters over the years. They got to know us, we got to know them. We were influenced by cinema verité, we were influenced by Helen, and we were influenced by… We love Fellini, and it had that Felliniesque feeling to us: the light, the colors, the sounds. We’re talking about it now, but then we were on our own trip.
How did people respond to you? Today, everyone is so aware of their appearance and being photographed or filmed that it seems unlikely you’d ever be able to make something as Levitt-like now.
Stein: We tried our best to be invisible, which is hard with a 16mm camera. Sometimes we’d stand in front of each other and we’d shoot around each other’s shoulders. A lot of people sort of thought it was great that they were being filmed. One old lady, though, did get so mad that I was filming that she hit me with a cane. We were also up on rooftops and running all over the place. But we just tried our best to be invisible.
How did you find your subjects, like the Colons, who really opened their lives and home to you?
Wittenberg: Lorraine Colon worked in that thrift store, which was on the street. You walk in and start talking to people and you just don’t know. You have a lot of attempts that don’t work out. But then you find people who have a story they want to share. That’s why they invite you in. Harry Molbert, who swam in the ocean in the winter; Asia, the Russian woman — it meant a lot to them to be able to talk about themselves. It was dignified, it elevated them. Most — especially people who were very poor — no one was listening to them. So together they brought in all these different perspectives. We loved all the characters in the film and tried so hard during this restoration process to find people. We haven’t been able to. I’d love to meet them again to see what they thought and to see what happened. I keep hoping that will occur.
New York today is not the city it was then. I imagine many of the places you captured are gone, but the people too, either because of housing affordability or gentrification or something else that gets called “progress.”
Stein: It’s very different now in New York, in almost every conceivable way. I remember when Michael Bloomberg was mayor and he said [in 2003] New York is a luxury product. At that time, New York was not a luxury product. It was New York. It was a gritty city. So that is definitely gone. But I also see a lot of continuity, like the theme of everybody wanting to close the door behind them to new immigrants. It’s so today, that sort of inherent, I guess, racism or, you know, just stay away from me. It’s just human nature. So, yes, it’s different — it’s now really a Russian neighborhood; all the old Jews who we were like our grandparents at the time are all gone — but also still somehow the same.
Wittenberg: Except for Brighton Beach Baths being privatized and the condo complex, it does feel the same. It’s a little rough around the edges, so it’s not like Rockaway, for example, which has been so transformed or redeveloped that you couldn’t go back to some places. Maybe because it’s so removed from Manhattan, you get to these places like Coney Island, Rockaway, the last stop on a train line that it has its own aesthetic. We know they’re different people now; 40 years went by. But somehow there they are. They have the white plastic thing on their nose so they don’t get sunburned. They’re still wearing it. I think that’s amazing.
You mentioned that inherent racism, the way people like Lorraine talk in the film about the incoming Russians pushing “locals” out. It’s impossible to watch the film and not think about how New Yorkers are treating arriving migrants right now — or the way people talked about Italians in the 1920s or the Irish and Germans even farther back.
Wittenberg: It’s timely. We hadn’t seen it for ages, then in the past two years we’ve seen it 1,000 times because of the restoration, and that’s something I realized right away. People are saying the same things. That is both fascinating and disturbing. That’s our reality. It’s ugly. Back then, even though they all felt that way, it was a live and let live neighborhood. They were all mixing up and saying bad things about each other. But now it’s just so deadly and vicious
Can the film help guide us to a more “live and let live” mindset? I mean, immigration and changing demographics — these are going to happen.
Stein: Absolutely. To me, that’s the main theme of the film. Stop all this. Stop it. Everybody’s the same. They came here for the same reason you came here, and why should you have it and not them? The first few lines of the film are a woman saying, “Brighton is lovely. I’ve traveled all over the world, and I never found anything as nice as Brighton.” And then someone interrupts her and says, “But it’s a different element altogether.” And then the first woman says, “Yes, it’s different. Naturally, it changes, but it’s still very lovely.” That’s the attitude I wish most people had.
You write that the film is about a “corner of gentleness and relief in a tough town.” How so?
Stein: The fact that people with very little money could go there and have such a great time. The ocean and the ocean air and the strolling down the boardwalk — it kind of calms people down, you know? It’s a corner of pleasure. And even though it’s poor, it’s very nurturing. I don’t know so much now, but then… It’s a gentleness that was there for everyone, not just wealthy people, to come and enjoy the ocean, rest, relax, play.
Wittenberg: When you walk around in a bathing suit and not a leather jacket and heavy shoes, you make yourself more open to people. And that’s something that draws people from all over the city. That’s what they share with that place, and that’s something that has not changed. That’s why I love going there. I mean, it’s the same ocean down the boardwalk at Coney Island, which is not a corner of gentleness. So there’s something about Brighton Beach that is just fundamentally different. It’s just its own little universe somehow.
Right. This is an urban beach, the backyard for apartment buildings, not some resort in Florida or California. Normal people go to hang out in bathing suits that aren’t necessarily meant to be lusted over. It’s an experience in empathy. Yes, they’re open, but you have to be open, too. It’s democratizing.
Stein: That’s the word exactly. Some of these characters are so funny. That’s the other aspect to it that we’ve found. We were making this film right out of college and going there on the weekends, and we found it so hysterically funny all the time. There was so much humor there. It’s so kooky and nutty.
Wittenberg: Another thing is that documentaries from that era were very much issue-driven films. That was a big category. Another big one, particularly for women, was personal films, where filmmakers put themselves in the film telling a story. We didn’t want to do that. And it gave women like Lorraine and Asia the voice to tell their stories. That was important then, and the stories resonate today. That’s why I love — and still love — those characters.
Stein: It’s a film with a very feminine sensibility. And feminist. In a gentle, not kind of diatribey kind of way, it’s a very feminist film.
In revisiting the film, has it changed? Does anything hit differently 40 years later?
Stein: This isn’t directly answering your question, but the fact that young people dig it makes me very happy and makes me feel like it’s alive today. I still see tremendous humor in it. It just cracks me up. I think it’s entertaining, which is not a word I would have applied to it in the past. I’ve seen images 1,000 times and still think, “Oh, wow, that’s pretty beautiful.” That place, these people, that face, whatever it might be. It stimulates my eyes still.
Wittenberg: I love Lorraine and I love Asia. I’m so happy that we filmed them and that their story lives. And I love little tiny things, like on the beach, there are people on a blanket and one of them has a shopping bag that says “Herman Badillo.” So it has the big things, like the characters, and those little touches that if you love New York… I feel like it’s just such a New York Film — not just a Brooklyn film, but a New York Film, and that’s important to me.
Stein: I’m having a blast with it coming back and people enjoying it and talking about it. It’s very gratifying. It’s just a wonderful moment for me.
Wittenberg: And having it at Anthology now is just so extra meaningful. It feels like it belongs there. And that’s perfect.
Brighton Beach screens at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave in Manhattan, February 9-15, with filmmakers Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg in attendance at select screenings. Visit anthologyfilmarchives.org for showtimes.
