The River (1937)
1937 · Ephemeral film · 2 min · dir. Pare Lorentz
- Documentary
- Short
- History
Synopsis
Classic documentary history of the exploitation of the resources of the Mississippi River Valley and the work being done to rehabilitate and reclaim the area. Director and writer: Pare Lorentz. Narrator: Thomas Chalmers. Photography: Willard Van Dyke, Stacey Woodard and Floyd Crosby. Editor: Leo Zochling. Music: Virgil Thomson.
Uploader's description on archive.org
Details
- Director
- Pare Lorentz
- Running time
- 2 minutes
Cast & crew
Pare Lorentz Director
Thomas Chalmers
Reviews on the Internet Archive
★★★★★ · A classic and notable documentary · Erik Smith · 2007-07-02
This was one of the documentaries I remember studying in college as an early masterpiece of the form. Pare Lorenz, the filmmaker, became something of a celebrity with this film and his equally renowned "The Plow that Broke the Plains." Utilizing impressionistic photography and poetic narration, these two documentaries heightened awareness about the power of film. These are films a thousand times more stylized than the typical History Channel documentary of today. The fact that the federal government financed these two films is to me astonishing -- especially when you consider that "The Plow…
