Polaris_DiB
Make no mistake--the Industrial Revolution's impact of cinema is so profound that it's hardly an impact, as cinema simply wouldn't exist without it. As such, many early films took their subject with the world that had spawned around them, skyscrapers and their creation, factories and their workers, trains and their operation, cars and machinery and smoke. It was as if the world built itself to be photographed in motion, then invented motion pictures.This film is one of those interstitial documents that exist between important texts. It is far removed from the early actualities, but focuses on many of the same subjects with a clearer image. By the time this film came out, editing had come to its own as an art form and this movie didn't particularly add anything to montage that wasn't already recognized. Intertitles were expected. However, this movie did come before Berlin: Symphony of a City and was very inspirational to various filmmakers in the idea of documenting the modern world with an eye towards frame-by-frame meaning and abstract structuralism, which directly links it to the great and famous Man with a Movie Camera.--PolarisDiB
PWNYCNY
This wonderful documentary offers a glimpse of New York City from a bygone era, when the city had factories, and steam ships we docked in the harbor and when steam and smoke was bellowing into the sky, a time of industry, of power, and economic might. The documentary suggests an industrious people, a mass of humanity inhabiting a great metropolis, uniquely American, bristling with unbounded energy. The great ocean liner entering the harbor, the impressive buildings, some of which still exist today but back then glistening structures, the epitome of modern design, all suggesting a society in which the sky's the limit. This is a great documentary.
Miguel Peres
This experimental movie of Paul Strand about Manhattan is extremely important to the future generations of directors. Paul Strand is like a bird in Manhattan, showing the daily life and the most characteristic points of it. Manhattan is shown in a Bird's eye shot(I think that it's the name in English, kind like the public was God himself. I never went to Manhattan, but in 10 minutes I visited, understood and felt Manhattan. It is amazing how in such a short time, he can illustrate, in a interesting and original way, this mediatic place. Paul Strand is like a magician that takes photos of Manhattan and give life to them. A great short that definitely is a mark on cinema's experimental history.
DaveLB-3
Instead of having a filmmaker attempting to be painterly, this poetic gem boasts both a major painter (Sheeler) and a major photographer (Strand) collaborating.This is the earliest view of Manhattan we have that is neither simple-minded documentation nor backdrop to melodrama. The visuals are striking, and stand up well to later, more gimmicky, film realizations of what makes Skyscraper National Park so special.The Walt Whitman title cards would probably have worked better as voiceover narration in the sound era, but offer a strong romantic framework for the powerful imagery. A classic, not to be missed.
AD
