There have been several movies exploring graffiti and street art, such as Bomb It and Exit Through the Gift Shop. Director Max Good and producer Nathan Wollman decided to make their documentary from a different perspective – they focused on opponents of graffiti.
In Vigilante, Vigilante, opening at the Roxie in San Francisco on August 12, they profile three men who dedicate a big chunk of their time to getting rid of graffiti: Joe Connolly in Los Angeles, Fred Ratke, in New Orleans who is called the “Grey Ghost” and was named a Local Hero by Peoplemagazine), and Jim Sharp, known as the “Silver Buff” in Berkeley.
These men have similarities, Good says.
“They’re all in the same demographic,” he said. “They’re middle-aged, middle class white men, and they’re control freaks.”
A lot of the movie shows Wollman and Good tracking Sharp in Berkeley. They follow him as he weeds the sidewalks, rips down posters and covers graffiti with his silver mark. Wollman said a few years ago, he started noticing that silver paint everywhere.
“I saw how widespread it was,” Wollman said. “It seemed like something different just because there was so much of it. I personally shot 800 or 900 photos of his stuff. He’s really prolific – he’s been doing this every morning for a decade.”
Good says the circular nature of the anti-graffiti vigilantes doing graffiti to cover up graffiti fascinates him.
“It’s a double standard,” he said. “They’re allowed to break the law because they’re supposedly doing something good for society.”
Vigilante, Vigilante also includes interviews with people talking about why people are motivated to do graffiti and how it relates to the culture at large. The subjects include graffiti writers (mostly with their faces covered); Steve Rotman, a San Francisco photographer who released a book, Bay Area Graffiti; James Q. Wilson, the co-author of the well known “broken windows” theory, which states that keeping urban environments well ordered could prevent vandalism and crime; and urban theorist Stefano Bloch.
Good and Wollman believe that these vigilantes aren’t expressing themselves, but rather destroying the communication of others. For example, they say Sharp will scratch out a phone number on a flyer if he’s unable to tear it down.
Wollman said working on the film made him think a lot about what it means to do good works. An example of this, he thinks, is a man he knows who feeds homeless people every Sunday.
“That’s human, giving people food,” he said. “Community service is about the greater good. I said this before and I’ll say it again. What happens with a grain of sand has nothing to do with the entire beach. What these guys are doing doesn’t change anybody’s life.”
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