Butler's Cinema Scene

Kansas Citian Phillip Bradley is one of the subjects of "Busking the System," a documentary about musicians playing in NYC's subways

“BUSKING THE SYSTEM” My rating: C+  (Opening Aug. 19 at the Screenland Crown Center)

80 minutes | No MPAA rating

An art form? An irritation? Begging with a fancy label? Or perhaps just a legitimate expression of personal thoughts and impulses?

However you view it, busking — performing in public places for contributions from the crowd — is a fact of life in NYC, especially down on the subway platforms.

Justin Morales’ documentary “Busking the System” follows several aspiring buskers (two with Kansas City connections) to the Big Apple where they try their hands at playing their music for crowds of commuters and tourists.

It’s not an easy gig, despite efforts in recent years by the subway authority to legitimize busking by holding auditions with the winning acts getting the most visible locations and time slots.

Among the subjects of this likable but unremarkable documentary are Phillip Bradley, a Kansas City singer/songwriter/guitarist, and Nathan Corsi, a native of Akron, Ohio, whose family has since relocated to KC.

I won’t cheat by telling you who makes it in the stressful, often demoralizing world of sidewalk serenading and who heads back home, sadder but wiser. Let’s just say it’s often as much about temperament as talent.

In addition to the performers themselves (among them Theo Eastman, a native of Vienna who’s been busking since 1995), filmmaker Morales talks to officials of City Lore, a cultural center in New York that works to legitimize free public performing, and of MUNY (Music Under New York), which coordinates the “official” subway bookings of selected buskers.

There are many performances, some of them extraordinarily good (I especially like the lady who plays the saw) and lots of anecdotes about life as a busker, especially the frequent run-ins with transit cops who seem  never to have heard of the Constitution.

| Robert W. Butler