Narrative Journalism: Occupy Boston

All was still. In the shadows of the towering skyscrapers, the slick streets were empty. A recent storm had left puddles of standing water, but the storm had abated prior to our arrival. A white plastic bag rolled across the asphalt like a lonely tumbleweed. Everything was bathed in a muted gray save the orange accents of traffic cones and barricades. A makeshift chain link maze hung hastily fastened to a skeleton of posts and street signs. The whole thing was apocalyptic. We were expecting a symphony of activism, but were left with the vacant theater. We had traveled hundreds of miles to document a battle in a raging culture war, but whatever had transpired, we had missed it.

Disenchanted, we walked for coffee, unable to dismiss the tired malaise of the sparse population. I was certain that those sharing the sidewalks represented both sides of the polar divide. This was Wall Street, after all, where even on the best of days the evidence of wealth disparity was pulpy enough to choke on. The exhausted resignation on every face was a stark irony under the of the recently completed National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Honestly, it’s not that I had gone there hoping to see cultural carnage. But as a young filmmaker, I wanted to capture and bottle the gravity of the moment. I wanted to understand it on a personal level, rather than through a screen via a media moderator with potentially compromised professional investment.

“We could try Philadelphia. Or Boston.” Kristen mused as she sipped her coffee. She was a true partner; a patient adventurer who wasn’t ready to accept my disappointment. Even though she had first been less than ecstatic to spend yet another weekend following me in an aimless chase for more video fodder for my growing portfolio, she now tried to rekindle my enthusiasm, declaring that she wouldn’t accept a sacrificed weekend for nothing. It was mostly in jest. If I had been adamant about getting in the car to sulk all the way back home to Baltimore, she’d have just as adamantly found a way to justify that course. But her suggestion stoked the embers. We decided to trek four hours more up I-95 to see if there was any residual activity at the Occupy Boston movement.

We arrived to a bustling tent city built at the feet of Boston’s Federal Reserve. A strong autumn breeze whistled through the wind tunnel created by the tall towers of the city’s financial district. It carried streams of fragrant grill smoke and a cacophony of chatter and music that was reminiscent of a street festival or farmer’s market. Plywood planks were lain to designate crude streets. Marked with hand written signage, there was Music Row, Tin Pan Alley, the Student Village, Main Street, Weird Street, and Sacco and Vanzetti Ave. There was a library. There was a church. There was a school where young children were learning about government. There was a theater where patrons sat on the ground to watch a performer doing some sort of interpretive dance routine atop a provisional stage built from wooden palettes. There were people marching with protest signs and others locked in passionate discussion. There was a string quartet playing Haydn’s Emperor and an older gentleman with an accordion playing polka.

In terms of the aesthetic variety, it was a filmmaker’s dream. But in terms of the narrative, it was impossible to decipher the purpose of the lasting demonstration. A simple question was written on a large whiteboard outside one of the tents. Why do you occupy? But the answers were so diverse that they often ran contradictory. There was the ubiquitous, often vapid, bumper sticker slogan length condemnation of the 1%, but that seemed like little more than a foundation to cite other protests. A young man in camo feverishly waved a Don’t Tread On Me flag. A woman who seemed to be hiding her identity behind a beige trench coat, large dark glasses and a bandana over her face held a simple sign declaring that “Quality Teachers Deserve Quality Pay”. Another woman who was much more exposed marched with a piece of purple construction paper that stated “I am a healthcare worker with no insurance - I am the 99%”. A few others carried signs denouncing the never-ending oil wars. Someone gave me a pamphlet about the medicinal benefits of marijuana. At one point, there was a chant of “Fund Schools Not Wars”. One woman wore a sandwich board on which she had scrawled a detailed anecdote about how her friend’s license to sell produce had been unfairly revoked.

It was a dizzying collection if disconnected motifs, all blasting at full volume with no apparent cohesion. It was arrhythmic dissonance. As a tourist evaluating the community, the true purpose of the protest eluded me. On the surface, it was little more than a strange alchemy of antiestablishment catch phrases. This was a bastion for the generally disgruntled.

I considered that maybe the problem was my surface level examination. Surely, talking to a cross section of those who were deeply entrenched could shed some proper light on things.

A woman who resembled my second grade teacher took a drag on a cigarette. She stood alone against a large brick wall that made for an interesting visual background. Far off to her left, someone was playing a lonely saxophone. Somewhere to the right, someone was drumming on a syncopated rhythm on a plastic bucket.

After getting permission to film her, I asked her about the core motivation for the movement and her role in it. Her answer was terse and vague. “This whole movement is an emotional response,” she said. “As an emotional response, it’s not going to be rational.” She seemed annoyed by the question, and it proved impossible to mine her for much more. I moved on.

I found a young student activist who appeared to be more amenable to having a discussion. He was fumbling at the strings of a nylon string guitar. I asked him what changes could be enacted that would appease the movement. He fervently asserted, “I think Occupy Wall Street should absolutely not come up with a list of demands. They should wait and demand that somebody else come and propose a solution.” He seemed incredibly proud of the profundity of his answer.

It’s not that I found myself opposed to any of the causes or messages being championed, but I was becoming increasingly frustrated that I could not find the gravity well around which all the disconnected messages were orbiting. It wasn’t a sensible arrangement. It was brash noise with a rhythm that was impossible to follow.

After an hour or so, Kristen and I collapsed on a curb near Music Row. The string quartet was still playing, offering an ironic air of elite civility to the gruff scene. As I reviewed some of the textural footage in camera, she asked if I felt that I had enough to piece something together. My mind ran through all potential permutations of visuals and messaging, and no matter how I shuffled the content in my mind, I couldn’t align it into a sensible narrative.

As I was in the process of stumbling through a response, we were jarred by the explosive sound of a distorted megaphone. Three feet beyond the jagged boundary of the encampment was an angry old man waving around a paperback bible. The base of a lamp post was his pulpit as he seethed scripture. The shock of the percussive introduction was intentional, as those in the immediate vicinity reacted as if an explosive device had been detonated. The string quartet slipped in their performance, taking a moment to find their unity. After only a few moments, they realized it was a losing battle and packed up their instruments.

College students approached the man with the megaphone. They did not ask him to leave. They did not insult him. They not exhibit any hostility. They found gaps in the self-appointed preacher’s sermon to ask him his purpose. He disregarded them and continued his recitation.

The recitation gave way to pontificating about the evils of the world. The evils of socialism. The evils of homosexuality. It was comically cliché. Kristen, annoyed, tugged at my arm. The nasally timbre of the megaphone acted like a noxious gas, and the patrons of Music Row scattered. At the introduction of conflict, I dug in, instinctively grabbing my camera.

A few of the patrons consulted law enforcement officers posted around the camp. I couldn’t hear the dialog, but I imagine that the officers‘ apathetic shrugs accompanied verbiage about the double edged sword of civil unrest. “Don’t complain about someone’s disruption of your disruptive demonstration.”

Preacher’s voice echoed off the skyscrapers, ominously filling the entire space. He seemed less interested in true evangelism, and more interested in draping a dark, demotivational cowl over the mood. He was occupying Occupy. He was interrupting the interrupters. And while I hated every ignorant thing emitting from his mouth, he had become a point of focus. He had my attention. He had everyone’s attention. Civil appeals to his empathy did not prompt him to stop. Angry ad hominem attacks didn’t move him at all.

The young violinist from the disbanded quartet stepped in front of him. With a somber but determined expression, she put her instrument to her chin and began to draw on her bow. The lyrical sound was buried beneath his relentless aural attack, but she remained unphased. She was soon joined by her cellist. Still, the duo was completely drowned out.

Then the accordion player with the hipster mustache joined them, awkwardly dancing around the preacher’s urban pulpit. The mournful squeals gave strength to the cause, matching the harshness of the megaphone. Within three minutes, an entire brass ensemble had their horns blasting sarcastic melodies in his direction. The bucket drummer started a drum circle right at the man’s feet, joined by dozens of demonstrators. The bizarre and unlikely instrumentation congealed into the weirdest sort of consonant symphony. They subconsciously agreed upon a key and took turns riffing embellishments over a repetitive melody.

This wasn’t a structured, formal, symphonic orchestration. It was emotive, improvisational jazz. It was fluid. It was reactionary. It was complex and iterative. It was a series of voices with different tenor combining in solidarity to create something commanding. The realization of that parallel brought the entire Occupy movement into clear focus for me. This was the story that I needed to tell.

Within ten minutes, the sound of the megaphone disappeared beneath the impromptu ensemble. Ten minutes later, Preacher descended from his post and left the scene. Since this was triumph, I expected cheers. But there were none. In fact, I’m not sure anyone even noticed, and if anyone had noticed, they no longer cared. Those who had gathered to combat ignorance had become enveloped instead in the new constructive thing that had outshined and survived it.