Movie

Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere

20251h 11m

DocumentaryBiography

Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere documents the firsthand stories of photographer Steve Schapiro along with his vast archive of iconic images. Over six decades, Schapiro bore witness to some of the most significant social and cultural moments in modern American history. Schapiro began his photojournalism career by documenting addiction in East Harlem and then traveling on his own to Arkansas to photograph migrant workers in 1961. His photo series on migrants was published in the Catholic magazine Jubilee. The New York Times saw the article and used one of Schapiro's photos for the cover of their magazine. Schapiro then went on to work for Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, People, and Paris Match. Throughout his career, Schapiro photographed such notable people as Andy Warhol, Muhammed Ali, David Bowie, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Rosa Parks, Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand, Bill Evans, and Samuel Beckett among countless others. He documented Robert F. Kennedy's last Christmas with his family and captured key images of the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1970s, as picture magazines like Look folded, Schapiro shifted his attention to film. With major motion picture companies as his clients, Schapiro produced advertising materials, publicity stills, and posters for such notable films as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, Chinatown, and even Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Schapiro later returned to his primary interests: photojournalism and social justice. Shot shortly before his passing in 2022, Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere is a loving tribute to a man who was the quintessential "fly on the wall," waiting for moments to unfold and capturing them with a naturalism and skill that's nothing short of dazzling.

Directed by:

Maura Smith