NFR Project: 'The City' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘The City’

Dir: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke

Scr: Pare Lorentz, Henwar Rodakiewicz, Lewis Mumford

Pho: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke

Ed: Theodore Lawrence

Premiere: 1939

43:43

This documentary is one that advocates for a new kind of living space – the suburbs.

This film was produced under the auspices of a coalition of urban planners. It seeks to outline the nature of American city structures, decries the negative aspects of urban life, and posits “planned communities” to take their place. It was firt shown at the New York World’s Fair in 1939.

The movie is simply one of visuals married to a voiceover narration. In the first third of the film, we are taken on a survey of the typical American small town, adjacent to the country’s rural roots. Then we move into an indictment of the big city, decrying its negative influence on its inhabitants. Then we are whisked away to admire the virtues of the suburbs – an integration of nature and the man-made landscape, single-family homes with lawns, all inhabited by white people. It’s a vision that would come to fruition after World War II, when Levittown and its descendants began to cover the landscape.

The film is impressively matched up with an Aaron Copland score (his first for film), and sonorous narration by Morris Carnovsky. The argument for a reconstruction of American living space is somewhat persuasive, but then this film is on a mission of advocacy, and the images and words are in the service of that vision. The suburbs, it turns out, came with their own drawbacks, economic and environmental. However, at the time this film was made, there was little thought given to a different way of life than the crowded, congested stresses of urban living.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther.