About making “Asburied.” Interview with Steve Herold and Stan Parratt.

As a community Asbury Park has been talking online, in print, and at meetings. A lot has been said, and we love it. With each interview we film, we also want to make sure that we’re adding something new and different to the conversation.

Director Steve Herold and narrator of his short documentary “Asburied,” Stan Parratt arrived on July 3rd at the Art 629 Gallery on Cookman Avenue, and sat down in front of our cameras for the interview. Their film “Asburied” deals with an uneasy portion of the past of Asbury Park and it was released in 2002 but even though their project is not fresh out of the “oven” it is very current in its attempt to underline why Asbury Park is the most exceptional seaside resort on the Jersey Shore.

In the hyper-competitive summer shore economy Asbury Park for a long time assumed the position of a ghost town. Place was empty and quiet, seemingly crying telling us what happened with its slowly deteriorating boardwalk and surrounding architecture. This infuriated many, especially those that have lived through the glory days of Asbury Park. For many years during the 1950s and early 1960s, this city was known as the ''Gem of the Jersey Shore,'' and tourists from all over the state rambled along the busy boardwalk. Asbury Park had hit hard economic times with expansion of the Garden State Parkway, that’s when many travelers began driving past Asbury Park for more emergent towns along the coast, and later due to the riots that devastated big part of the city.

Stan Parratt who narrates “Asburied” gives us a visual tour of Asbury Park. What I love about this film is how it tells us a history and does not debate it. It is all just memories. No proclamations are made. And even though the narrator says things like “it is a shame” or “it is gone forever” no actual judgments about individuals involved, or events responsible for what had happened are passed. And the sad images of decaying city are not being furiously pounded out in righteous indignation… They are accompanied by light, often humorous anecdotes or memories.

On the foundation that a picture’s worth a thousand words, we asked Steve and Stan to explain what has inspired them to make “Asburied.” Steve said that initially he wanted to involve several different voices talking over the images and sharing their memories but at that time he was dating Stan’s daughter and knew that Stan would be interested in narrating. As a quiet and unobtrusive visitor Steve wondered many times why isn’t this place used more often in big block buster Hollywood films. For a filmmaker and artist who might be intuitively drawn to subjects that are beautiful and disturbing Asbury Park was the place to create. With the ocean and empty, abandoned town you didn’t have to ask for anything else.

Steve’s “Asburied” is a tenderly crafted and fastidious takeover of mise-en-scène—narrative is subsumed by a prevailing yearning to retreat to a definite time and place- the time when Stan Parratt was growing up in a thriving and booming seaside resort. All the images in the film are presented in black-and-white and they are a compelling portrait of dilapidated place- as appropriately titled “Asburied”- Steve defined it as a history buried under the ruins.

Film has screened in numerous festivals since it premiered at the Georgetown Film Festival in Washington, DC in 2002. Critics and audiences alike have loved the film even though Steve wasn’t sure how the audience will respond to his portrayal of Asbury Park. The film has a timeless quality but is also acutely political, even if indirectly. When making documentaries it is sometimes expected to be a journalist like artist to make a hassle about social issues but I believe sometimes these kind of social problems are better left to journalists, art is better off when dealing with something profounder, the central world of the people and places who form this political status quo. Steve’s documentary does just that, for anyone who has any sentiment towards Asbury Park it is a genuinely beautiful, visually impressive, and deeply moving document.

Watch Steve Herold’s film on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIRbLJxqvKQ.