The River is a 1938 short documentary film which shows the importance of the Mississippi River to the United States, and how farming and timber practices had caused topsoil to be swept down the river and into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to catastrophic floods and impoverishing farmers. It ends by briefly describing how the Tennessee Valley Authority project was beginning to reverse these problems.
The two films were sponsored by the U.S. government and specifically the Resettlement Administration (RA) to raise awareness about the New Deal. The RA was folded into the Farm Security Administration in 1937, so The River was officially an FSA production.
There is also a companion book, The River.[5] The text was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in that year.
The River on YouTube, a better copy, posted by PublicResourceOrg
The River essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN0826429777, pages 266-268
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A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries".
Louisiana Story is a 1948 American black-and-white drama film directed and produced by Robert J. Flaherty. Its script was written by Frances H. Flaherty and Robert J. Flaherty. Although it has historically been represented as a documentary film, the events and characters depicted are fictional. There is not enough factual or educational material in the film to warrant classifying it as docufiction. The film was commissioned by the Standard Oil Company to promote its drilling ventures in the Louisiana bayous.
The Plow That Broke the Plains is a 1936 short documentary film that shows the cultivation of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada following the Civil War and leading up to the Dust Bowl as a result of farmers' exploitation of the Great Plains' natural resources.The Plow That Broke the Plains was the first film created by the US government for commercial release and distribution through the Resettlement Administration as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. The Resettlement Administration recruited Pare Lorentz to produce The Plow That Broke the Plains to support its campaign of showing the public that the search for profits in the West resulted in the displacement of settlers, misuse of the land, and ultimately resulted in the dust storms that affected the Great Plains regions in the 1930s. The film was one of the most widely publicized attempts by the U.S. federal government to communicate to its citizens through motion pictures.
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassicist, and a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment" whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera Lord Byron which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion".
All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story is a 1953 educational film written, directed and produced by George C. Stoney which was used to educate midwives in the Southern United States and promote greater cooperation between midwifery and the modern health system. It was produced by the Georgia Department of Public Health. The film follows Mary Francis Hill Coley (1900–66) an African American midwife from Albany, Georgia who helped deliver over 3,000 babies in the middle part of the 20th century. On December 17, 2002, it was announced by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington that "All My Babies, George Stoney's landmark educational film used to educate midwives in Georgia and throughout the South" was among the annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry.
Merrie Melodies is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was part of the Looney Tunes franchise and featured many of the same characters. It originally ran from August 2, 1931, to September 20, 1969, during the golden age of American animation, though it was revived in 1979, with new shorts sporadically released until June 13, 1997. Originally, Merrie Melodies placed emphasis on one-shot color films in comparison to the black-and-white Looney Tunes films. After Bugs Bunny became the breakout character of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes transitioned to color production in the early 1940s, the two series gradually lost their distinctions and shorts were assigned to each series randomly.
The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937).
The City is a pioneering short documentary film from 1939 that contrasts the problems of the contemporary urban environment with the superior social and physical conditions that can be provided in a planned community. It was directed and photographed by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke based on a treatment by Lewis Mumford, which was in turn based on an outline by Pare Lorentz. Aaron Copland wrote the musical score, and Morris Carnovsky provided the narration.
Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman is a 1974 documentary about symphony conductor Antonia Brico, including her struggle against gender bias in her profession. The film was directed by Judy Collins and Jill Godmilow. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Pare Lorentz was an American filmmaker known for his film work about the New Deal. Born Leonard MacTaggart Lorentz in Clarksburg, West Virginia he was educated at Buckhannon High School, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and West Virginia University. As a young film critic in both New York City and Hollywood, Lorentz spoke out against censorship in the film industry.
The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm Security Administration.
Ralph Steiner was an American photographer, pioneer documentarian and a key figure among avant-garde filmmakers in the 1930s.
In the Street is a 16-minute documentary film released in 1948 and again in 1952. The black and white, silent film was shot in the mid-1940s in the Spanish Harlem section of New York City. Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee were the cinematographers; they used small, hidden 16 mm film cameras to record street life, especially of children. Levitt edited the film and, subsequent to its first release, added a piano soundtrack composed and performed by Arthur Kleiner. In 2020 Ben Model composed for a special Museum of Modern Art screening a new music score. This version plays about 18 minutes.
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB's inception in 1988.
Thomas Hardie Chalmers was an American opera singer and actor.
"How Firm a Foundation" is a Christian hymn, published in 1787 by John Rippon in A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, Intended to be an Appendix to Dr. Watts's Psalms and Hymns, known as "Rippon's Selection." How Firm a Foundation is number 128 in the 1787 first printing. It is attributed only to "K", which probably refers to Robert Keen(e), precentor at Rippon's church, though other names suggested include Richard or John Keene, Kirkham, John Keith or Words by G. Keith and Music by J. Reading as cited in the 1884 publication of Asa Hull's Jewels of Praise. It is most often sung to the tune "Foundation" which first appeared in A Compilation of Genuine Church Music (1832) edited by Joseph Funk, though the original tune may be Keen(e)'s "Geard".
The Dust Bowl is a 2012 American television documentary miniseries directed by Ken Burns which aired on PBS on November 18 and 19, 2012. The two-part miniseries recounts the impact of the Dust Bowl on the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Symphony on a Hymn Tune is a four-movement orchestral composition by the American composer Virgil Thomson. The work was Thomson's first symphony and was composed between 1926 and 1928 while Thomson studied with the composer Nadia Boulanger in Paris. However, the work was not premiered until February 22, 1945, with Thomson leading the Philharmonic Symphony Society in New York City.
Pilgrims and Pioneers is a symphonic poem written by the American composer Virgil Thomson. The music was originally composed as a score to the one-reel immigration film Journey to America, which was made for the 1964 New York World's Fair by Thomson's frequent collaborator John Houseman. However, Thomas later adapted the music for concert performances under the title Pilgrims and Pioneers. This version was first performed by the Mozart Festival Orchestra conducted by Baird Hastings on February 27, 1971.
Name, Age and Occupation is an unfinished 1942 American feature film from Pare Lorentz, and would have been, if completed, his first "entertainment feature." Lorentz started filming in 1939 under contract to RKO Pictures, but RKO stopped production in 1942 for various reasons. The film was itself based on two other unfinished projects of Lorentz - a novel and a documentary. Although the story was fictional, the film "was to document popular participation in the war effort".
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