Diary of a Times Square Thief
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Diary of a Times Square Thief documents the search for the writer of a mysterious diary. This manuscript describes the adventures of a young man who left the Midwest to go to New York and fulfil his dream of becoming a writer and his subsequent decline. The diary, which the filmmaker found on EBay, gives a frank and confronting account of the author’s downfall before ending abruptly, the last pages being cut out with a knife.
As director Bense attempts to track down the characters described in the diary, a picture emerges of a lost generation – the underbelly of New York’s flophouse underclass which is both grim and poetic. Diary of a Times Square Thief paints a vivid picture of the world famous Times Square area when it was still a dramatic and brutal urban jungle. Weaving intimate portraits of some of the colourful characters described in the diary, the fate of the talented but failed author emerges, as does the value of chasing dreams.