In Stefan Nadelman’s 2002 “Terminal Bar” we are taken on a behind the scenes, raw, honest tour of a New York bar of the same name. Through 10 years worth of photography from the film maker’s father, who worked at the bar himself, we get a raw insight into what the bar looks, sounds and even smells like on a day to day basis. The photography is personal and close up and raw. We meet many of the regulars through the years at the Terminal Bar, and we also hear many stories about these people from Nadelman’s father who can be heard narrating the way through the story over the top of the images and the any news articles about the bar that appear on screen. These show how the bar changed across the years, at one stage adapting to become a gay bar when their customers grew into a mainly gay male community.

Nadelman here is making a record and a documentation of what the bar was like before it was gone and when Nadelman and his father visit the site where the bar once stood and we hear him say “Nothing’s changed; it’s New York Shitty”. The techniques used help tell the story of this bar and it’s customers really well, layering multiple pieces of corresponding information across each other really helped give us a real feel as to what it was like to be at that bar. I think if I were trying to document something myself I’d look again to this film for the way it utilises many forms of media and storytelling.