There is not very much that is cool or hip about Yonkers it is not a financial capital or an arts haven or a manufacturing powerhouse. In some ways, that is the miniseries’ greatest alchemy.
Academy Award-winner Paul Haggis-who told me that as soon as he heard David Simon was looking for a director, he signed up to the project sight-unseen*-also does some of his best directing work on “Show Me a Hero,” opting for intimate angles and slightly obscured shots that make the viewer feel as if they are just another resident of Yonkers. Zorzi, who last worked with Simon on “The Wire,” the results are explosive. Simon’s background as a journalist with the Baltimore Sun makes him highly attuned to details, authenticity and scene-setting combined with fellow former Sun reporter William F. It’s quietly brilliant, as we have come to expect from Simon, who in addition to this miniseries created “The Wire” and “Treme” for HBO. And through six episodes of interlocking stories-which all attempt to re-create real people and real events-“Show Me a Hero” builds the story of a community divided against itself, dogged by racism, poverty and fear. True to the trademark of co-writer and producer David Simon, the miniseries’ emotional depth draws from the little things: the specific accent of a Yonkers city councilor who grew up in an Italian family the way a white woman would scrutinize the coffee-and-tea manners of a black neighbor that a single mother would buy a set of “good” pots and pans that she keeps in a box until they move somewhere nicer. The stories are human and the characters are textured. It is about the relationship people have to their homes the investment people have in their communities.īut the takeaway as a whole is not about American civic life-that sounds musty and academic, and “Show Me a Hero” is anything but. It is more broadly about American race relations, and how the life of a city hinges completely on its citizens’ willingness to respect and acknowledge their neighbors.
It is specifically about Yonkers Mayor Nick Wasicsko, the youngest mayor in America, who-through a mix of opportunism and luck-became the figurehead of that debate. The HBO miniseries debuting this Sunday is technically about the controversy over a federal affordable housing policy being enacted in Yonkers, New York, in the late 1980s. It’s hard to explain what “Show Me a Hero” is about.
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