An immensely important development in the history of the documentary film took place here in New York between the years 1931 and 1942. During that period, through the work of a large group of radical filmmakers, the modern documentary was born. In the hands of the members of the Workers Film and Photo League, then Nykino, and later, Frontier Films, the social documentary grew to its first maturity. Among the members of that group of filmmakers, Leo Hurwitz stands out, both for his films and his leadership. His film Native Land, photographed by Paul Strand, is finally being recognized as the crowning work in the early period of the American documentary. Along with other important documentary makers, such as Strand, Willard Van Dyke, Ralph Steiner, Sidney Meyers, and even Elia Kazan, Hurwitz pioneered the creation of a new documentary narrative form. These filmmakers-along with those they trained-prepared the way first for the television documentary and then for the rebirth of American non-fiction filmmaking in the 1960s and 70s. Ironically, due to their left-wing politics and the Red-Scare persecutions of the 1950s, the work of these artists and their important place in film has been virtually written out of most academic histories of the documentary. Centering on the films of Leo Hurwitz, whose work was perhaps the most influential of this group of filmmakers, our retrospective will trace the production of the New York Documentary School from its beginnings in the early 1930s, through the flourishing of the political documentary in the early 1940s. It will continue with Hurwitz's films during the drought of the repressive 1950s, his influence on the beginnings of cinéma vérité, and his profound, masterful, and always original later work.

Featured Works:

A Bronx Morning (Jay Leyda, 1931); The National Hunger March (Leo Hurwitz, 1931); Workers Newsreel Unemployment Special (Leo Hurwitz, 1931); America Today and the World in Review (Leo Hurwitz, 1932-34); Bonus March (Leo Hurwitz, 1932); Detroit Workers News Special (Leo Hurwitz, 1932); Hunger: The National Hunger March to Washington (Leo Hurwitz, 1932); Pie in the Sky (Ralph Steiner, 1935); The Plow That Broke the Plains (Pare Lorentz, 1936); The Wave (Paul Strand & Fred Zinnemann, 1936); China Strikes Back (Harry Dunham, 1937); Heart of Spain (Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand, 1937); People of the Cumberland (Sidney Meyers & Jay Leyda, 1938); The City (Ralph Steiner & Willard Van Dyke, 1939); Valley Town (Willard Van Dyke, 1940); Native Land (Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand, 1942, pictured); The Bridge (Willard Van Dyke & Ben Maddow, 1944); Strange Victory (Leo Hurwitz, 1948); Emergency Ward (Leo Hurwitz & Fons Iannelli, 1952); The Young Fighter (Leo Hurwitz, 1953); Toby and the Tall Corn (Ricky Leacock, 1953); Jazz Dance (Roger Tilton, 1954); The Museum and the Fury (Leo Hurwitz, 1956); Here at the Water's Edge (Leo Hurwitz & Charles Pratt, 1962); An Essay on Death: A Memorial to John F. Kennedy (Leo Hurwitz, 1964); In Search of Hart Crane (Leo Hurwitz, 1966); The Sun and Richard Lippold (Leo Hurwitz, 1966); Journey into a Painting (Leo Hurwitz & Peggy Lawson, 1970); Light and the City (Leo Hurwitz & Peggy Lawson, 1970); The Island (Leo Hurwitz & Peggy Lawson, 1970); Dialogue with a Woman Departed (Leo Hurwitz, 1980)

Program information:

Leo Hurwitz and the New York School of Documentary Film