Guest
I made my first documentary in 1963. I was provoked in part by the documentary filmmakers who had come a generation or two before me and whose films made me feel that documentary was the way for me to go. I wasn't really Hollywood focused. I didn't like doing commercials/advertising. So I made the decision that personal documentaries was what I was going to do. One of the great documentary me was Willard van Dyck. I met him when I worked in New York City as a young filmmaker and he taught at New York University. We didn't talk much about filmmaking but more about how to use film to express powerful ideas that mix just turning the camera on (cinéma vérité), which was not something I appreciated, as opposed to creating poetry with reality and mixing the two together, which in my view and his, was more honest and truthful. This clip is a portion of his documentary, Valley Town (1940) which was made in association with New York University and was intended to draw attention to the plight of unemployed workers in a Pennsylvania steel town caught by the rising tide of automation. I added the music to this scene. The faces are dramatic. The moment is dramatic. In a way, I see it as hyperreal. Essential truth incredibly powerfully told. It is a classic documentary from the Depression/ Pre-WW2 era. Workers Unemployed by a Crippled US Economy and Mechanization which was replacing man power with machines. Valley Town struck a chord with me when I saw it, and it remains vivid today. Rich in cinematic technique, the film has served as a quiet personal reminder that it is the creative aspects of documentaries that give them their lasting meaning. Van Dyke brought sensitive direction to a cast of real workers, and an active concern for human problems.
