PICTURING MANHATTAN

Picturing Manhattan assembles rarely screened films by five renowned photographers who had a special connection with the New York peninsula throughout their career. The visual grandeur and unforgettably vibrant energy of the metropolis provide a plethora of challenging motifs. Manhatta, a collaboration between Paul Strand and the painter Charles Sheeler, which is expressive thanks to its unusual camera viewpoints, evokes a twenty-four hour period of city life. Helen Levitt, who paved the way for the new documentary style in American photography with her street scenes, documents the rough reality of Harlem with images of playing children. Rudolph Burckhardt, for whom the city was a lifelong muse, depicts the dynamics and chaotic beauty of the place. Unlike his photojournalistic approach, Raymond Depardon captures the city in a rather remote observation which is typified by the lateral travel movements. The rhythmically abstract Broadway by Light by William Klein has a pop sensibility and draws on the appearance of billboards, advertising iconography and the whole light spectacle on and around Times Square.

Paul Strand & Charles Sheeler - Manhatta
1921, 9 min., 16mm, B&W, silent
The painter Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) joined forces with the photographer Paul Strand (1890-1976) for Manhatta, a work that – despite its Romantic idealisation – is considered to be the first American avant-garde film. Partly inspired by Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman’s collection of poems about New York whose ‘organic’ structure was revolutionary at the time, this film records one day in Lower Manhattan. The makers emphasize the expressive, picturesque skyline of skyscrapers and the dynamism of the city – the hustle and bustle of the harbour, the economic activity – by positioning the camera very dramatically and its fluid editing of brief shots.

Helen Levitt – In the Street
1952, 16 min., 16mm, B&W, sound.
As from the 1930s, the recently deceased American photographer Helen Levitt (1913-2009) documented life on the streets of New York. She paid special attention to the dynamic and seemingly innocent world of children’s play. This is also true of In the Street, one of two rare films she shot at the end of the forties. Very simply structured, the work is a collage of children’s activities in the Upper East Side. The soberness and purity of the images – Levitt used her camera in a very distant, almost hidden way – make In the Street an important forerunner of the anthropological, observing documentary.

Rudolph Burckhardt - Under The Brooklyn Bridge
1953, 15 min., 16mm, B&W, sound.
At the heart of the oeuvre of the Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker Rudolph Burckhardt (1914-99) lies an amazement at the difference in scale between the people in the street and the grandeur of the architecture and infrastructure of New York. In Under The Brooklyn Bridge he uses the camera in a clear, businesslike and yet slightly detached way to document human activities around and under one of New York’s most famous landmarks. Apart from a detailed study of the bridge itself and the way it operates, today ‘Under The Brooklyn Bridge’ is a powerful period document full of surprises. The images of children swimming under the bridge are among the best material ever shot in or about New York.

Rudolph Burckhardt - Default Averted
1975, 20 min., 16mm, B&W, sound.
In this later work too, Burckhardt uses the architecture of New York as a metaphor for the comings and goings of city life – in this particular case the economic situation in the 1970s. In a period when the city was balancing on the verge of bankruptcy, Burckhardt recorded the destruction of a large factory building in the heart of Manhattan. Despite the critical state of the building, everyday activities – honourable or not – simply continue. The film was shot in drab black and white. Thelonius Monk and Edgar Varese were responsible for the neurotic, slightly paranoid soundtrack.

Raymond Depardon - New York, NY
1986, 10 min., 35mm, B&W, French spoken.
The work of the French photographer, journalist, filmmaker and activist Raymond Depardon (1942) is permeated with the human point of view. He often translates his involvement with his subjects into a retiring detachment. In the 1960s, Depardon helped to found the independent Gamma photographic agency, and has been a Magnum photographer since the seventies. In the short film New York, NY, he records the city and its inhabitants from a great distance, particularly by means of travelling shots (from the underground) and from a fixed camera position. With its almost minimal quality and sober structure the work proves – as Depardon explains in the first sequence – how impossible it is for him to capture New York in a documentary film.

William Klein - Broadway by Light
1957, 11 min., 35mm, colour , French spoken.
The filmmaker, artist and photographer William Klein (b. 1928) who lives in Paris and New York, published New York in the first half of the fifties. This book of photographs caused a great deal of controversy because of its raw, uncompromising, yet honest look at the daily round in the metropolis. Soon after this Klein made his debut as a filmmaker with Broadway by Light: a funky portrait of Manhattan by night that anticipates pop art motifs. With a certain measure of humour and irony, Klein tacks between rhythmic editing, abstraction and longer, more sustained shots. The nocturnal journey through the streets of this showbiz society dominated by a jumble of neon lights and trendy slogans goes together very well with the relatively hectic music of Maurice Le Roux.