Review: 'Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags'
Reason to watch: A sprawling portrait of the rag trade
When/Where: 9 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19 on HBO
'Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags' on HBO
Photo credit: Kheel Center/ HBO /Kheel Center/ HBO | "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags" documents the rise and fall of New York's garment industry.
Produced by HBO veterans Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson, this is an almost-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink portrait of an industry that once dominated Manhattan and now merely defines a certain aspect of it - as exemplified by all those runway shows ("Project Runway," "Rate the Runway").
This doc goes back, way back, to the days of cold-water tenements and crowded sweatshops and the Triangle Shirt Factory fire of 1911 - a cataclysm of the early part of the 20th century that galvanized a labor movement and, in time, a great industry.
There are many interviews here representing a broad spectrum - from grit-under-their nails workers like Joe Raico, who spent 40 years in this eight-block universe bound by 42nd and 34th streets, to Irving L. Rousso, who founded Russ Togs with his brother, Eli.
Russ Togs?
Not so long ago, a near-household name when it sold (unsuccessfully) a clothing line by Christie Brinkley, among many other brands before folding in the early '90s.
A pall hangs over these densely packed 76 minutes: An industry that once almost defined New York City and which made 80 percent of the clothing sold in U.S. as recently as 1975 has now diminished to the near-vanishing point. Many fingers are pointed in blame, but villains are elusive.
BOTTOM LINE
"Schmatta" - a pejorative Yiddish expression meaning "rag" - could have turned into an obituary and very nearly does at times, except that the filmmakers have enough heart and passion to salvage their enterprise. "Schmatta" is part cautionary tale, part love letter, and sometimes can't make up its mind which. Yet enjoyable and engaging as "Schmatta" often is, the story also feels thin and incomplete. There's no mention, for example, of mob infiltration, which was a huge story in itself. The craft union piece of this tale is woefully shortchanged - a whole other hour could have gone to this - and one is left wondering how complicit the unions were in forcing the industry overseas. In "Schmatta," they are largely the heroes. That may be true, but is there another side to the story?
GRADE
B+
