Filmmaker goes underground
Dark Days gives homelessness a face

Concord Monitor
December 13, 2007
By Victoria Shouldis

Dark Days are coming to Concord. At a time of year when a lot of us are overly focused on big-screen televisions and other forms of consumerism, Concord's Red River Theatres is hosting its second "Community Conversation" with three showings of Dark Days, a documentary about the lives of homeless men and women who lived - and created some semblance of community - in the train tunnels beneath New York's Penn Station.

The "Community Conversation" is sponsored by the private, non-profit Community Services Council of New Hampshire. The CSCNH operates the New Hampshire Homeless Management Information System, a program seeking to coordinate services and the availability of those services to the homeless.
Dark Days, being shown Dec. 18-20 at 7 p.m., was made in 2001 by British filmmaker Marc Singer, who spent two years living among the tunnel dwellers.
Each showing of the movie is followed by a discussion and forum featuring advocates and directors of outreach and homelessness programs, including the Salvation Army's McKenna House and the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness. No cash is required to attend any of the showings. Instead, patrons are asked to bring a new toy or article of clothing to benefit the homeless in the Concord region.

Dark Days garnered a slew of awards when it was released, including high honors at Sundance and the L.A. Film Critics Association. Critic Roger Ebert gave it 3½ stars, noting that the film does not allow the viewer to hold on to any "that couldn't be me" conceit. "It is a film about people who have fallen through the cracks, but still share most of the same ambitions and hopes as the rest of us," Ebert said in his review.

Filmmaker Marc Singer was not, in fact, a filmmaker when he set out to document the lives of a group of homeless individuals who lived in a section of abandoned tunnel. Singer literally lived among his subjects; in turn, they worked as his film crew. Initially, he was captivated at the invisibility of the homeless on New York's streets. As he discovered people living underground, he found a powerful metaphor in real life. It was a story he felt compelled to tell.
While his subjects struggled to get through days in the often mean streets of the city, they would retreat to the blacker-than-night tunnels in the evening. The men and women Singer profiled somehow created home. They built individual shelters from scrap metals and wood. Many found ways to tap into the city's electricity grid, allowing them to hook up lights, cooking equipment, even televisions.

Singer deliberately didn't set out to create larger-than-life figures - tragic or noble - with his camera. He captures what are sometimes the most banal elements of existence for people in any community. But he also captures the unflinching horror of the daily work of simply surviving.

During filming, the tunnel dwellers, who strongly objected to being labeled homeless, were evicted from the tunnels. Singer's tireless advocacy continued even as he ruined himself financially to finish post-production on his movie. Ultimately, most of his subjects were approved for assistance vouchers that helped them to find homes aboveground.

Chris Pitcher of the Community Services Council said that the showing of Dark Days meets several important criteria. "We want to get the work we do out there, and really help people understand what homelessness looks like here," said Pitcher. "And the movie itself - it's very stark, it stays with you. But it isn't just a downer. It ends with an upbeat note. And it compels. It isn't one of those 'I know I ought to watch this' films. It's truly a great movie."

Keith Kuenning, executive director of the Coalition to End Homelessness, said that the film and discussion are key in continuing to raise awareness.
"In the last few years in New Hampshire, there has been an awakening to this problem, and real movement forward," Kuenning said. Pitcher said that myths about the homeless persist, even as economic downturns continue to change the demographic of those who find themselves without a place to live.

"There's that idea - it's a single guy, and he doesn't work - we all see guys walking the streets of Concord each day, and that's who we think of as the homeless population," Pitcher said. "But there's families out there. There's a lot of single mothers, working a job or more than one, who don't have a permanent place to live."

Kuenning also works to debunk the myths about just who is homeless, and why.
"We see people from the Mother's Day floods. People who've survived those fires in Berlin. Women and their kids fleeing domestic violence," he said. "Only 10 to 15 percent of the homeless are chronically, long-term homeless. One in five people staying in shelters are kids."

The film also indicates that for many, the descent toward homelessness is a gradual and almost unnoticeable fall. "What becomes clear is this," said Pitcher. "For every homeless person, there's a thousand slow, very slow, ways they got there."

(Dark Days runs Dec. 18 -20 at Red River Theatres in Concord at 7 p.m. as part of the Community Conversations series. Admission is free, but patrons are asked to donate a new toy or item of clothing to benefit the homeless in the Concord region. For a full schedule and other information, check redrivertheatres.org.)

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