[1] Made on an ultra-low budget in a jazzy, impressionistic style reminiscent of the films of Robert Frank and poetry of the Beat Generation, BookWars is the only first-person documentary made during then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's controversial "Quality of Life" campaign, which sought to limit and control individuals engaged in informal economic activities on the streets of New York City.
[2] Despite its minuscule budget (estimated at $10,000, prerelease) BookWars enjoyed numerous domestic and international TV sales and has to date generated revenue of several hundred thousand dollars.
"BookWars is: The gritty, untamed world of street booksellers, exposed in a remarkable feature film that chronicles their lives and loves and their unique perspectives on life.
Shot entirely on location by fellow street bookseller and filmmaker Jason Rosette, and produced by James and John Montoya, Alan Fulford and filmmaker Michel Negroponte, BookWars explores the other side of the book tables that line the streets of New York City’s Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, 6th avenue, and elsewhere in New York City."
Among them: “Slick” Rick Sherman, a semi-professional magician; Al Mappo, so named because he only sells maps and atlases; Emil, who says only he "escaped”, though we do not know from where; and Pete Whitney: King of the booksellers, toad collector, and collage artist.
Mainly black and minority individuals, they ply books and magazines in parallel fashion to the nearby West 4th street booksellers, who are primarily white.
Some of the significant personalities that are introduced on 6th Avenue include: Marvin, always wearing his trademark black hat; and Ron, from Jamaica – charismatic, streetwise and outspoken.
“Slick” Rick performs card and magic tricks at parties; Pete Whitney grooms cats for old ladies; and the narrator heads out to New Mexico to work on a Western (which was actually The Desperate Trail).
He sells the last of his books off to his fellow street booksellers, and heads out West, on a cross-country road trip, with the audience in the passenger seat sharing the ride.
The Street Booksellers of New York City: Everett Shapiro, James Curran, Zachary Aptekar, Allen Eisenberg, David Schoenberger, David Manso, Paul Rickert, Steve Wilson The concept for BookWars was developed after a chance meeting between filmmaker Jason Rosette—who had been selling used and out of print books at a streetside bookstand to generate cash between film production and editing jobs—and Emmy Award-winning New York-based documentary filmmaker Michel Negroponte, at Mr. Rosette's sidewalk bookstand in 1995.
With a documentary concept in place, he began to bring a video camera daily to document the sights and sounds of the city of New York as seen from the perspective of a sidewalk bookseller.
Because this initial phase of shooting was funded completely out of pocket, BookWars was produced in a variety of film and video formats depending on whatever camera was available at the time.
S.A.I.D Communications provided a camera on loan, and the director headed back to New York to spend time once again with his fellow booksellers to continue documenting their lives.
had already commenced postproduction on another documentary called Live Nude Girls Unite, and the BookWars team had to defer to their stripper-activist production colleagues.
At the same time, Beat writer and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Bookstore viewed the cut of BookWars, and applauded it as being “Anarchistic”.
Finally, co-producer Michel Negroponte contacted the filmmaker regarding an editing station that had become available in New York City; payment to the machine's owners at Copacetic Pictures could be deferred until the movie was completed and sold.
Primary influences in the making of the movie were the Beat classic film, Pull My Daisy and other street-level compositions by filmmaker Robert Frank and various works from the New American Cinema.
The narration style was adopted from 1930-40’s American gangster and film noir movies, and some Western genre elements were included as well – particularly in the conceptual story component of a “man heading out West to start anew”.