Dark Days (2000) on Netflix
NR20001h 22mDocumentary
In the Freedom Tunnel beneath New York, homeless people have lived for years beside the Amtrak tracks in near darkness. A filmmaker moves in, and the residents learn to use the camera.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.7/107,551 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
North from Penn Station past Harlem, the Freedom Tunnel runs alongside the Amtrak tracks, and roughly a dozen men and one woman have lived in it for years. They scavenge what they need, build sturdy one-room shacks, keep pets, cook, argue and cut one another's hair. A bucket serves as their toilet, and water dripping from pipes overhead supplies their showers. They talk about childhood, prison, children they have lost and drug use. A filmmaker moved in among them on and off for months and decided to make a documentary, hoping it would earn the residents enough money to move into better housing. The residents themselves became the crew, rigging makeshift lighting and dollies and learning to use a 16mm camera loaded with black-and-white film.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dark Days (2000)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During filming, Amtrak moved to forcibly evict the Freedom Tunnel residents to reroute its trains, so director Marc Singer and photographer Margaret Morton turned to the Coalition for the Homeless and secured Department of Housing and Urban Development vouchers that let the film's subjects move into their own apartments.
- Dark Days was shot over two-and-a-half years with the tunnel residents themselves as the crew: they rigged makeshift lighting and dollies and learned to use a 16mm black-and-white camera.
- Marc Singer had never made a film when he lived in the Freedom Tunnel on and off for months and decided to make Dark Days, hoping it would earn enough for the residents to move into better housing.
- Post-production on Dark Days dragged on for years, delayed by financial difficulties and by director Marc Singer's insistence on creative control in order to protect the tunnel residents.
