Weegee's New York: An Interview with Eric Weeks

Please tell us about the projects you worked on before making Weegee's New York. How did you start, and how did you learn to make films?

After working with still photography for thirty years, my first short film was a collaboration with my friend, the artist Joshua Reiman. In 2016, we made The Wind Dies The Sun Sets, which is a contemplative consideration of energy extraction and use in Pennsylvania (USA). The film follows three characters that are embedded within the business of fossil fuel. The Pennsylvania region has a long history of energy production, first associated with the industrial revolution, and presently with fracking. The film's emotional cadence shares the difficult realities of the altered landscape and the people who are involved.

I have always been interested in creating open-ended narratives in my still photography work, and I just fell in love with the process of making short films.

Since I completed my first film, I have made five other films: epistrophy (2020), from february through april (2021), Twentysix Wawa Stores (2022), The Great Basin! Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Desert (2023), and Weegee’s New York (2025).

Tell us about Weegee's New York. How do you describe it?

Weegee’s New York takes the mid-century photographer Weegee’s (Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968) experimental film, Weegee’s New York (1948) as a starting point. The original Weegee had moved away from still photography, most notably of crime scenes, and was interested in celebrating New York City and experimentations in process while using a 16mm motion camera. I want to make an homage to this film, while updating it to include New York City in the present and from a dog’s perspective. I include appropriated footage from the history of New York-based films and television, to imply that the understanding of a place is through collective memory. I also include an element of humor. I am learning that when I make a capture or edit that makes me smile and laugh to myself, I am on to something true and rich with layered meaning.

Please tell us about your favorite filmmakers.

My tastes in my filmmaking and filmmakers runs the gamut between established mainstream filmmakers Orson Welles, Terence Malik, Martin Scorcese and Stanley Kubrick to avant-garde appropriationists Bruce Connor, Dara Birnbaum and Christian Marclay. When I was a child, my parents didn’t watch films in the theater, so my early influences were vintage 1940-1950s film that were broadcast on television. There was a 4:30 Movie every weekday on Channel 7 ABC-TV in New York. It wasn’t until I was studying still photography as an undergraduate at the School of Visual Arts that I began learning and appreciating the history of cinema.

I love to watch great films over and over because they continue to unfold, and are like dear old friends. Here are a few: Citizen Kane, Chungking Express, Goodfellas, Dr. Strangelove, Five Easy Pieces, Roshomon, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Godfather trilogy… I have watched all of these over forty times each over the years.

If you were given a good budget, what would be your ideal project?

This is a great question, and I can come up with numerous answers! Today my answer is I would like to make a series of short films that show different eras of New York City, from the 1940’s until the present day. There would be vignettes, with actors and loose improvisational scripts. I would also continue appropriating film and television footage. If Robert Altman and his Raymond Carver-influenced film Short Cuts had a child with Bruce Connor’s A Movie, and that child was raised by Maya Deren and Christian Marclay, that would be a starting point. I can imagine ten short films that would provide a feature-length film watching experience.

Describe how you would ensure that production is on schedule. What steps would you take?

This is another excellent question. I would probably hire someone who has a lot of production experience, and I would rely on their knowledge. This would allow me to concentrate on story telling. If provided a good budget, I would scale up and collaborate with a few people who could help me reach my goals and vision. My first film was a collaboration. Several of my films, including this one, is a collaboration with the composer Alex C. Huddleston, and of course on this last film, my dog Weegee is my collaborator.

What was the hardest part of making Weegee's New York.

I wouldn’t say that there were any difficult aspects of making the film, other than finding the time to schedule long walks with Weegee around New York City. I love those walks, and my editing process, but my life responsibilities sometimes get in the way. To go back to having a good budget with which to work, financing would definitely allow me to prioritize my filmmaking.

If possible, tell us about your next work. What plans do you have for your future work?

I am currently incubating several ideas. One is the grand opus I describe above, if I had a good budget with which to work.

Another is a first person narrative film that takes Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; Or, Life in the Woods as a starting point. That film will contemporize Thoreau’s themes while questioning aspects of his philosophy. Ross McElwee’s film Sherman’s March might humorously collide with Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch Project.

Yet another idea is making a new film with Weegee. This one will reference John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America. In 1960, Steinbeck took to the road with his standard poodle named Charley in order to contemplate his own mortality (he had health conditions) as well as the state of America at the beginnings of a turbulent time in the history of the country.

All of these films will continue my investigations into story telling by smashing together original motion and still captures with appropriated footage, in order to question history, memory and the constructions of both.

Please stay tuned!