Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, truth and artifice, Meet the People presents fourteen 'characters' who face the camera in talking head close-ups and speak about their lives and dreams. The intimacy and honesty of their fragmented, 'autobiographical' storytelling is illusory; the credits reveal that these people are professional actors, playing fictional roles, reading a script.
The work points to the complicity on the part of the viewer in his desire to believe and identify with the traditions of and characters on TV. The same television that mimics a perfected form of identity of the 'average person' is also in part responsible for creating this identity; it both researches, uses and manufactures this 'average person's' hopes and dreams. And so the question of the existence of a 'real' person becomes 'real' compared to what?
""The fictions of the self overtly concern Shelly Silver in her tour-de-force Meet The People. In video verite style, she swiftly intercuts what appear to be her interviews of 14 individuals representing contemporary New York types: a cabby, a waitress, a housewife, a stripper, an Italian construction worker, a black army officer. At the end the credits reveal that all 14 are actors and all were apparently reading Silver's script.... Silver wittily questions the very idea of the authentic - ultimately she implies, 'personal truth' is a momentary and collaborative invention, a triborough bridge between actor, author-director, and audience - on TV and on the street." Anne Hoy, Curator, International Center of Photography
written, directed & edited by
Shelly Silver
director of photography
John Kraus
starring
Carol Weinstein, Gahan Haskins, Lisa Wo, Peter Onorati, Leila Kenzle, Lloyd T. Williams, Jeremiah Bosgang, Camille Marshall, Kurt Ericksoon, Annie Rae Etheridge, Brenda Lynn Bynum, Elizabeth Rose, Maureen Curtin, Rita Perrault.
production manager
James Ovitt
assistant director
Deborah Bonner
makeup/hair/stylist
Laurie Aiello
production facility
Rough Cut Video
post-production facility
Rebo Associates