Manhatta

MANHATTA is an unusual short film. It's like the merging of a travelogue with a poem. So, as the camera moves artistically about the city of New York, the scenes are punctuated with intertitle cards that have poetic verse on them that make it all seem grand and majestic.

While much of this won't appeal to most viewers, the film is still worth seeing for two important reasons. First, the short is a wonderful historical record of the city. In other films of the era, New York is incidental, in a way. You might see bits and pieces of the city, but the city is not the star. Here, however, you see so much of the town that you wouldn't see otherwise--and much of it is gone today. Second, the film is very artistic in its cinematography--with wonderful aerial shots as well as nicely frames shots of the Brooklyn Bridge and the like.

Perhaps not exciting, but a rather important document. And, despite the original negatives being missing and only one print in existence until it was restored, the print looks great!

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.

One of the earliest "city symphonies", and arguably one of the most groundbreaking avant garde films of the 1920's, 'Manhatta' is a lyrical, slow, and moving tribute to a great American city based loosely off of a Walt Whitman poem. The imagery isn't as intense and vibrant as that in many other films of a similar nature, whether they be other city symphonies or just other avant garde/experimental films in general, but there are several shots in here that definitely widened my eyes. The very specific positioning of the camera for certain angles helped give much of the short film a very epic feel. At some points, it even felt extremely futuristic and, to me, evoked some shots from Fritz Lang's legendary classic 'Metropolis'. It's only about twelve minutes, so any fan of experimental film might as well check it out as it is highly revolutionary and visually pleasing.

Manhatta (1921)

**** (out of 4)

Cinematographer Paul Strand and painter Charles Sheeler teamed up to make this movie, which was their attempt to show their love for the city of Manhattan. The say they achieved in showing that love would be an understatement because this 11-minute movie is extremely well-made and contains some downright break taking visuals. The semi-documentary film has various images of the city put together in no real order nor do they try to tell a story out of the images. Instead we just see various items from the city, ranging from haze rising over buildings to various ships on the water. All of these images make for an incredible film because it really seems like you're watching a science-fiction film with a bunch of fake images. It's rather amazing at how well the cinematography is here because unlike many, or perhaps any film, this one here puts you so close to what you're looking at that it's nearly impossible to remember you're watching a movie. This is certainly one of the most beautiful looking films I've seen and perhaps the start of what would become avant-garde film and one has to wonder if Stanley Kubrick saw this and learned from it.

This groundbreaking silent documentary captures the beauty and majesty of the New York City in its streets, skyscrapers, bridges, rail yards and harbors.

Is this film groundbreaking? I would have to agree with that. But unfortunately, it doesn't break nearly as much ground as it could. The film reminds me of "Berlin", the documentary made by Karl Freund and Carl Mayer, among others. The big difference being that "Manhatta" is not particularly long.

And that is why I can only give it so much love, because I wish more of 1920s New York was captured on film, an era that is still remembered fondly today (2017). Any document would be somewhat priceless to the right people.