Unseen Cinema: Picturing a Metropolis (Region 1 Import DVD)

UNSEEN CINEMA is a collection of 155 short films, lovingly curated by experts at the Anthology Film Archives, who use footage found in 60 of the world's most renowned archives. When the motion picture camera was invented, early practitioners were filled with a sense of the limitless possibilities of this amazing mechanism. With its ability to mimetically reproduce reality, as well as its potential for the manipulation of images as well as time and space, the movie camera was truly a tool of progress and hope. Those who produced some of the most inventive and experimental short films of the time went on to make it big in Hollywood, but their earliest work contains a rebellious spirit that is lacking in their later studio pictures. On this volume, PICTURING A METROPOLIS, some of the earliest cinematic documents of the bustling urban center of New York City are compiled. These include film scholar Jay Leyda's A BRONX STORY, documentarian Robert Flaherty's TWENTY-FOUR DOLLAR ISLAND, and Paul Strand's MANHATTA.