Become Your Dream - James De La Vega from Cortlan McManus

Synopsis of Become Your Dream - De La Vega

Shot over a year's time, this experimental documentary examines both the art of New York's most famous urban artist as well as presents the ethics of documentary. De La Vega is known as a sidewalk provocateur, a mural master and a Cornell educated painter. Born in Spanish Harlem, De La Vega is personally familiar with living the life in the urban jungle: poverty, AIDS, and violence mixed with a side of ingenious wit, good natured humor and a propensity to produce massive amounts of work. "Become Your Dream: James De La Vega" also examines and reflects on the ethics that rule all documentaries: who's economic gain; political representation of self and the other; and most importantly, the differences in vision that can result between subject and object. Captured and presented for the first time so that a broader conversation can begin about the ethics of documentary.

Cineaste Statement

My first documentary started off as must do: an unflinching desire to find out about a person or subject, building a relationship and documenting and revealing that with others through a cinematic expose.

When I first moved to NYC, I first resided in a neighborhood called Spanish Harlem. Each day I walked to the bodega or metro, I would see a new mural or a sidewalk all written or painted by someone simply named, "De La Vega." Little by little I discovered about this identity culminating with spending two years with James De La Vega documenting his becoming his dream: the most successful urban artist in New York City.

Through these two years, the political implications of documentaries also bore its fruit. Many times docs are sold to the audience as "truth at 24 frames per second" and that no compensation was exchanged between subject and object. Clearly, the subject is the individual(s) that are being documented whereas the object is that of the camera.

In my experience, I generally don't like flies. I sure don't like flies on the wall. Whenever I see a fly on the wall, I always have the urge to squash it with whatever magazine I can find. I am not always successful in my haste, but sometimes little fly wings and squirted blood is left behind.

I do not attempt to be a fly on the wall. Instead, I document the building of the relationship between subject/object and inspire to meet my equal through honesty and integrity.

De La Vega is skeptical of others' intentions and rightfully so. Historically, the Latino community has been taken advantage of by elements of the system: judicial, economic, social, linguistic and educational. Although I have never practiced nor subscribed to these types of racist ideologies, De La Vega did not initially know him as an individual but more a reflection of my genetic baggage: a United Stater descended from what on the surface some would describe as a light-skinned dude. Breaking that barrier took time. Capturing that political divide was an indirect result and one accomplishment that I most relish.

Rarely, if ever, have I come across other docs that are so honest in their depiction of what occurs between every subject and the capturing camera: who benefits from the doc, both monetarily and its exhibition prestige; who controls the edit of the doc and the right to the depiction of one's life; who remembers when the camera is running and when it is off; who controls the destiny of the interaction; which of the two is the pawn?

Not only does Become Your Dream - De La Vega reveal the subject's pursuit of becoming the best known and respected NYC working urban artist on his own terms, but it also presents for the first time on cinema the relationships that are so deep seated to form the relationship between subject and object.