More Than the Rainbow

Director Dan Wechsler aims the camera lens at prominent New York City photographer Matt Weber, a self-taught enthusiast who drove a taxi along the city's mean streets for years—capturing prostitutes, the homeless, porn parlors, subway travel, 9/11, Coney Island, and the upbeat delirium (sigh) of the first Obama inauguration on traditional 35mm film. Weber sits with designer Todd Oldham, working on a book of his snaps, and recalling the pre-gentrification sleazy Big Apple of the 1970s and ‘80s with a nostalgia that many do not share. A colorful figure, Weber talks about his vision, life, and times in wonderfully accessible working-class eloquence. Wechsler's real genius here is to also zoom out for a more wide-angle portrait of the "street shooter" aesthete, drawing on input from several other recognized photo mavericks (some judge Weber's work to be trite and obvious), who mostly came to photography from other career paths, and do not necessarily take pictures unrehearsed or out-of-doors. Pro or con, they all share an unconditional love for their art in this engaging documentary that also serves up a terrific composite portrait of New York, set to a Thelonious Monk soundtrack. Highly recommended. (C. Cassady)