Martha: A Picture Story (2019 | Australia | 82 minutes | Selina Miles)
Everyone’s a photographer now. And thanks to our cell phones it’s easier than ever to capture moments (though preserving them in any long-term way is another story). As such, it’s especially easy to undersell the visceral impact and artistry of someone with a distinctive eye, using a real camera to capture images for posterity.
That’s just one of several powerful emotional and philosophical threads that run through Martha: A Picture Story, Australian director Selina Miles’ fantastic documentary about American street photographer Martha Cooper. It premieres this week on VOD, and comes out on special-edition blu-ray in May).
Cooper’s a genuine pioneer who persevered in following her own path. She joined the Peace Corps at the age of 20 in 1963, serving in Thailand, then netted a job as a National Geographic intern on the strength of photos she took there. Cooper was the first woman to work in the magazine’s offices.
After unsuccessful attempts at pitching pieces to National Geographic, a stint as a small-town photojournalist in Rhode Island, and a confining marriage she ultimately left, Cooper made her way to New York City in the mid ‘70s. She eventually landed at The New York Post, becoming the first female on that periodical’s staff.
Cooper was toiling in the trenches, usually covering celebrities and arrested criminals, when she found her muse. She excelled at snapping the feature photos that The Post showcased on slow news days, capturing moments of New York life worlds away from the tawdry news shots she was taking. Cooper journeyed to all Five Boroughs, shooting in some of the city’s roughest neighborhoods. At the time, New York endured some of its most crime and poverty-wracked days. Instead of focusing on the city’s squalor, though, her camera captured people, most frequently kids using their creativity to make toys and games out of the rubble and detritus that surrounded them.
One day, she photographed a young boy drawing graffiti designs in a notebook. The boy then introduced her to Dondi, one of the most revered street artists in town. Cooper soon earned the trust and respect of the city’s entire graffiti underground, photographing the ragged, vibrant tagging and street art that festooned New York’s subways and trains for several years. Those shots were eventually compiled in Subway Art, a book she created in collaboration with fellow photog Henry Chalfant in 1984.
By the end of the ’80s New York cracked down on public graffiti, cleaning up the trains even as it kneecapped an entire subculture’s most significant form of expression. But by that time, Subway Art‘s German printing grew into a cultural phenomenon. Something initially derided as mere visual evidence of urban decay received serious appreciation as a vital art form. Two generations of artists drew—and continue to draw—inspiration from the work Cooper captured.
Miles’ movie hopscotches between the past and present, picking up Cooper’s current gig chronicling international street art. Several successful street artists weigh in on camera about the book, and the movie’s bookended by particularly moving encounters with Osgemeos, two Brazilian street artist twins who readily acknowledge the seismic impact of Martha Cooper’s photography on their work.
Subway Art, and Cooper’s other books chronicling 1970s and ‘80s New York, form the backbone of Martha: A Picture Story, and Miles’ directorial work expertly captures the frenetic energy of those photographs. The indefatigable Cooper is a white-haired bolt of energy in her own right. It’s surreal and genuinely exciting to see this charming 70-something senior citizen more than keeping up with a group of masked German graffiti artists as they tear through the Metro Station on a tagging spree. “I can see why you do this,” she says with a giggle en route to the Metro with the taggers. “It’s like an addiction!”
Martha: A Picture Story flies by at a tight 82 minutes, touching on the evolution of American feminism, the nature and ripple effect of art, the importance of valuing the past, and the inherent shallowness of a cell-phone-addicted society along the way. And if the movie doesn’t spend a lot of time getting under the skin of its subject, that surely suits this unpretentious, celebrity-averse woman just fine. For her, giving the world a permanent record of a city’s rough-hewn but vibrant past—and the world-changing art it inspired—is what matters. And Martha: A Picture Story ably makes the case that Martha Cooper and her artistry at capturing a bygone New York on film should never, ever be taken for granted.
Martha: A Picture Story premieres on Video on Demand this week, with a special-edition blu-ray release due in May. Photo credit: Artwork by Kobra, photo by Martha Cooper.