Stations of the Elevated

Critics Consensus

No consensus yet.

Rate And Review

Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

Awesome!

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)
You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.
Super Reviewer
Step 2 of 2

How did you get your ticket?
By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.
You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.
Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

Awesome!

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)
How did you get your ticket?
- Fandango
- AMC (Coming Soon)
  
  We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.
- Cinemark (Coming Soon)
  
  We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.
- Regal (Coming Soon)
  
  We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.
- Bought somewhere else
By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.
You haven’t finished your review yet, want to submit as-is?

You can always edit your review after.
Are you sure?

Verified reviews are considered more trustworthy by fellow moviegoers.
Want to submit changes to your review before closing?

Stations of the Elevated Photos

View All Photos (3)

Movie Info

STATIONS OF THE ELEVATED (1981) is a 45-minute city symphony directed, produced and edited by Manfred Kirchheimer. Shot on lush 16mm color reversal stock, the film weaves together vivid images of graffiti-covered elevated subway trains crisscrossing the gritty urban landscape of 1970s New York, to a commentary-free soundtrack that combines ambient city noise with jazz and gospel by Charles Mingus and Aretha Franklin. Gliding through the South Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan - making a rural detour past a correctional facility upstate - STATIONS OF THE ELEVATED is an impressionistic portrait of and tribute to a New York that has long since disappeared. STATIONS captures the exuberant height of the 1970's graffiti movement in New York, featuring the work of early legends including Lee, Fabulous 5, Shadow, Daze, Kase, Butch, Blade, Slave, 12 T2B, Ree, and Pusher. At a time when graffiti was largely dismissed as vandalism and a symbol of urban decay, Kirchheimer explores it as a form of self-expression and a reaction to New York's social and economic conditions, an artistic counterpoint to the "legalized vandalism" dominating the city's visual landscape in the form of corporate advertising. Juxtaposing the colorful imagery of 'tagged' cars with shots of hand-painted billboards depicting hamburgers and bikini-clad women, STATIONS forces audiences to ask: "What is urban art, and what role does it play in the daily life of a city?" (C) Artist Public Domain

Rating:

NR
Genre:

Documentary, Musical & Performing Arts, Special Interest
Directed By:

Manfred Kirchheimer
In Theaters:

Oct 17, 2014 limited
On Disc/Streaming:

Nov 17, 2015
Runtime:

45 minutes
Studio:

Artist Public Domain

Cast

Aretha Franklin

Charles Mingus

Critic Reviews for Stations of the Elevated

All Critics (8) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (8)

Stations of the Elevated plays like a time capsule, particularly for having no dialogue or plot. It swings to Charles Mingus's hardest bop and evokes a long-gone city, somehow more adult and confrontational even in silence.

October 14, 2014 | Rating: 4/5

Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out
Top Critic
The film's range of subjects and ideas quickly expands to probe the exhilaration of city life itself.

October 13, 2014 | Full Review…

Richard Brody
New Yorker
Top Critic
Lumbering, skronking, and wondrously paint-bombed, Manfred Kirchheimer's Stations of the Elevated (1981) is a 45-minute proto-hip-hop bliss-out, a masterpiece of train- and tag-spotting ...

June 24, 2014 | Full Review…

Alan Scherstuhl
Village Voice
Top Critic
All that we see in this beautiful, poetic documentary is nothing less than the birthplace of hip-hop.

September 6, 2018 | Full Review…

Charles Mudede
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
New York can be a chaotic city, and [Charles] Mingus' music (and personality) a volatile match, but there are tender moments to both the city and the music.

August 31, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Pat Padua
Spectrum Culture
Kirchheimer appears more interested in the way the subway interacts with urban life, cutting through neighbourhoods like a scalpel through flesh and how people have taken to the individual subway cars as canvases to educate, provoke, and infuriate.

October 17, 2014 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…

Glenn Dunks
Glenn Dunks
Kirchheimer relies on formal compositions of New York's subway rail yards, elevated platforms, and surrounding locations to tell a complex tale of environmental and urban dislocation where pop art billboards inform ghetto children..

June 28, 2014 | Rating: A+ | Full Review…

Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com
Director Manfred Kirchheimer brings the graffiti-tagged trains, enormous billboards and quirky architecture of 1970s New York City to life with a fabulous kinetic energy.

June 24, 2014 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Daniel Walber
Nonfics