Minor Threat 1983

Directed by Dan Graham

The function of both popular and underground music in contemporary culture has long been a point of inquiry for Graham in his analyses of the social implications of cultural phenomena. Here he documents Minor Threat, a "hardcore" band from Washington D.C., in a performance at CBGB in New York. Distinguished from punk music in that it developed in suburban areas, hardcore, as typified here by Minor Threat, is seen by Graham as a tribal rite, a catalyst for the violence and frustration of its predominantly male, teenage audience. The raw quality of Graham's documentary style mirrors the crude energy of his young subjects and the hardcore subculture of the 1980s.