Streetwise Revisited: Rat

A short 15 minute documentary film produced and directed by Martin Bell (a U. S. filmmaker, not the much better known British television news reporter), with his wife Mary Ellen Mark as co-producer. It's a follow up to their 1984 documentary feature film 'Streetwise', and features one of the main youths in that celebrated documentary, namely 'Rat' (real name Richard). 'Rat' is filmed (in 2015) back in his hometown of Sacramento, California (married, with children and grandchildren, and now in the tow truck business) looking at footage of himself as a teenager from the 1984 documentary. What emerges most clearly from the things said by 'Rat' in 1984 and his comments in 2015 is the egotism and fantasy of the teenage 'Rat' (flights of fantasy - occasionally literally - including talk of joining the U. S. Air Force, going to Florida and Alaska, and busting his best friend Mike out of 'prison'), compared with the more level headed (and much larger) 'Rat' of 2015, who seems to have lost the slow, deliberate, almost Clint Eastwoodish style of speaking he had as a teenager. A fascinating (albeit brief) then and now portrait of youth, age and wisdom, featuring the most intriguing and mysterious of the kids featured in the 1984 documentary (despite a certain amount of 'street' posing and posturing). And he survived.