Chameleon Street

The way Harris plays it, handsome, well-read, debonair Doug Street can be anyone he wants to be – so he is. The fact that he is a black man makes his story all the more seductive and bitterly ironic. Harris bases his story on the true story of William Douglas Street, who made headlines impersonating a baseball player, a writer for Time magazine and a practicing surgeon. Another filmmaker from Flint, Michigan, like Michael Moore, Harris more successfully straddles the line between documentary and fiction. After all, that's exactly the kind of game Street is playing, but are the rules different for a black man? For a black man to make money, does he have to be extraordinary, as all of Doug's characters are? (When he passes himself off as a student at Yale, he's not content to pose as just another buppie, he claims to be a foreign exchange student from Martinique though he can't speak a word of French). Or, to shine the light another way, is Doug just acting out of inculcated black self-hatred? Much of Street's success is a result of his ability to satisfy the expectations of people in power, usually white people. Harris is so fascinated by the subtext of Doug's actions, that he sometimes loses the narrative thread. But he never loses his hold on his protean character -- this is a showcase piece for Harris' acting ability and he shines. He also creates a striking cinematic style to accommodate Street's dangerous walks in the cracks of reality. Scenes flash back, forward, are accompanied by voiceovers, or sometimes, switch to a shaky cinema vérité style which reflects Doug's disintegrating ability to control his reality. A winner at the Sundance Festival in 1990, Harris is not content to follow in the paths blazed in the urban jungles by modern black directors. He's headed into the African-American psyche, and it's a fascinating trip.