It’s A Living
A video documentary inspired by Studs Terkel’s book “Working,” featuring six different workers talking about their lives and their jobs, in addition to Studs himself.
A video documentary inspired by Studs Terkel’s book “Working,” featuring six different workers talking about their lives and their jobs, in addition to Studs himself.
In 1975, the Chicago video collective Videopolis produced a documentary called “It’s a Living.” The tape was loosely based on Studs Terkel’s book, “Working,” which was a collection of interviews with ordinary people talking about their jobs. This hour-long program was shown on Channel 11 (WTTW) in Chicago. After the success of this tape, the videomakers were commissioned to make six half-hour shows that had the same type of mission. “Paper Roses” featured residents of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Clark-Irving Apartments, which provided low-rent housing for senior citizens. The tape is not a traditional documentary with formal interviews, rather, it is a simple collection of real people talking about themselves. The subjects seem very comfortable talking to the camera and speak honestly about aging and retirement.
Interviews with three women of different social status about their lives and the role of women.
Labor/work-focused compilation episode of Image Union, hosted by Studs Terkel. It features several segments from the Illinois Labor History Society, “It’s a Living: When I Was a Worker Like LaVerne” by Skip Blumberg and Jane Aaron, “Uno Mas” by Mike Torro, Iris Bruno, and Jose Claudio, “Packingtown U.S.A. by William Adelman,” and “Winnie Wright, Age 11” and “Trick Bag” by Kartemquin Films.
Hour long compilation episode of Image Union featuring “TV Magic Ballots” by Nate Herman and Warren Leming, “Assassins” with Joe Mantegna and Jack Wallace, “Chicago Blues” by Jim Passin and Nancy Grosse, work from Jane Veeder, excerpts from “Now We Live On Clifton” by Kartemquin Films, stopmotion animation, an interview by “My Sister’s Cutting Room” during a dog’s birthday party, and “The Bums” by Scott Jacobs and Valjean McLenighan 1976.
The second half of the episode features “Electronic Masks” by Barbara Sykes, an excerpt from “Paper Roses” by Maxi Cohen and Joel Gold, and “Television Delivers People” by Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman.
Part of a series called It’s a Living, based loosely on Studs Terkel’s book Working. This tape follows a sanitation worker named Barney as he does his work.