And This Is Free

1964
Directed By Mike Shea


SYNOPSIS

A look at Chicago's Maxwell Street, the legendary open-air market, where you could find anything for sale.

MY THOUGHTS

A group of college students headed to the Maxwell Street Market over several Sundays in 1964 and were able to perfectly capture the feel of the place thanks to the Cinéma vérité style. The realistic style means there is no narrator telling you what is going on and no plot to follow. The camera is there as if it was just one of the crowd walking through the crowded melting pot, a sort-of fly-on-the-wall. It stops to hear several blues and gospel singers perform right on the street, hucksters, soap box preachers, kids begging parents for toys, and the famed Chicken Man, who performs with a chicken on his head.



Though the music is not professionally recorded with multiple mics, it still sounds great... and the performances are uniformly awe-inspiring.

The aimless way the vérité style is used in And This Is Free could easily get boring if it were feature film length, but it runs only 50 minutes.

I never went to the Maxwell Street, but I feel I have thanks to this excellent film.


BONUS:

Before it's demise in 1994, Maxwell Street's most famous appearance on film was in 1980's The Blues Brothers:



And This Is Free is included on this disc, which also includes other short films on the history and demise of the neighborhood.