Studio 54: The Documentary
Directed by Matt Tyrnauer
Starring Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell
I will always remember arriving in New York and ascending from the underground to discover another world. Planet NY.
Step into Studio 54, a nightclub in New York City. Opening in 1977 at the height of disco, it was set up by Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell. This documentary details the story of their lives and what drove them to create this vision. It explores how successful Studio 54 became and how its excessive highs brought about its downfall in just 3 years.
Studio 54 was a new world, a new freedom, the birth of the celebrity and the magic of disco. Schrager and Rubell created a theatrical escape, a place for people to come, an event for people to experience. For one New Year’s party, they had 4 tonnes of glitter on the dance floor
With a very strict entry policy – you had to be either very famous or very stunning to get in – it became world famous as the place to be and to be seen, and the paparazzi were created!
Of course, too many highs and something has to crash – an alienated crowd denied entry, lacking an actual liquor licence, not declaring taxes and huge amount of drugs and cash in their safe brought the cops calling.
As an interesting aside, the documentary also show the burning of disco records in baseball stadiums in middle America.
The freedom, the creativity, the idea of being able to be who you really are, or to escape into another world reminded me of my own somewhat small experience of this. When I was an art student in London a long time ago, Voguing was a thing for about a year. Having come over from America, these events were created at the Hippodrome, Leicester Square, where people would dress up in outrageous clothes and Vogue on the runway. I have a memory of dressing up in a black bin liner in an underground station on the Circle line. I have no idea what the theme could have been!
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Library members can watch Studio 54: A Documentary on Beamafilm.