Popular reviews

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  Review by Dan Abel ★★★

  Saturday Night Shorts: Film 105

  "City of the world, for all races are here. City of tall facades of marble and iron. Proud an passionate city."

  Manhatta is a 1921 documentary silent-short about Manhattan, New York City. Directed by Paul Strand, it's basically a montage of various places in Manhattan displayed with a musical score in the background. It's a time when steam and smoke billowed from the tops of buildings and brave man built skyscrapers, standing on beams with little to no equipment. Absolute insanity for someone who is afraid of heights like myself. We get awesome views of buildings, many of which still exist, as well as New York Harbor and the steamships of the time. Cool stuff.…

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  Review by Rachel Henrie ✨ ★★★★

  I visual ode to the city that never sleeps. In Manhatta, the vertical landscapes framed by the countless buildings, the machinery and the electrical wires create a poetic and thoughtful look at one of the biggest creations of mankind. The industrialisation is captured by the way the people look lost in this world of concrete and metal they have created themselves. Humans and machines are tightly intertwined, but the immensity of the city swallows its habitants, devouring every touch of individuality. The emphasis on the textures of water, steam, rust and dirt reminds us of the humanity peaking through this sea of modernity. This "city film" is a visual poem dedicated to the colossal and mesmerizing New York, while commenting on the questionnable impact modernity has had on humanity.

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  Review by Sally Jane Black

  A city-poem (the poem by Walt Whitman, the city by, uh, America) told in mostly static shots, this film gives a fascinating glimpse into New York nearly 100 years ago. Apparently, it instilled a fervent love even then in artists and experimenters, in poets and masses of people (swarming off a ferry to open the film) even then, being the front door of an America not yet ready to admit to its own horrors. This romantic vision is capped off by, perhaps, the ultimate romantic visual: a sunrise over the city from high above it. Between these moments, we see it from many angles, including laid bare in construction phases (growing pains). It almost tells a story, almost shows a complete picture of this stolen jewel.

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  Review by Jay D 's Watching ★★★½

  Not sure it needed both the booming soundtrack and the Whitman poetry, but looking at that massive skyline, it's easy to understand why Strand and Sheeler would try to squeeze as much as possible into their film, a time capsule of New York City almost a hundred years ago that feels weirdly remote in the 21st century--like a vision of the city that was real at one point, but hasn't been, maybe for a while now.

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  Review by Jackson ★★★½ 2

  i only watched this because "Manhatta" is such a good title. It's like Manhattan, but without an N. Genius.

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  Review by Mattie Lucas ★★★★½

  Two photographers, Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, set out to make a document of Manhattan in 1920, set to the poem "Manhatta" by Walt Whitman. The result is one of the earliest surviving works of American avant-garde cinema. And while it doesn't really experiment or push the boundaries of the medium beyond early silent documentaries the way later films would, it captures the city in an indelible way. It's fascinating from a historical perspective watching the Cunard liner, Aquitania, docking in New York harbor, or seeing life in 1920 carried out in a way that's so different yet so similar to how it is today. Early silent films were made up of scenes of every day life, and while MANHATTA doesn't really change much in that regard, it's a poetic ode to a city its filmmakers clearly loved.

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  Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★

  Terrifying.

  "I had not thought death had undone so many."

  The Whitman-y stuff in the intertitles forces a "glories of progress" interpretation onto the images, but an alternative reading is lying right beneath the surface, don't have to strain at all to tease it out.

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  Review by Nick Zieminski ★★★½

  Another recommendation from the Fun City Cinema book about NYC. A winter day in the city, lots of steam, only a few buildings recognizable a century later. You can glimpse at least one horse on Broadway still in 1921.

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  Review by Lucy Alice 🌿 ★★★★

  "Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live long day" 

  The beauty of capturing through a lens and the power of simple collections of words on a monochrome backdrop. 

  It's still astonishing to realize sky high, vast, towering skyscrapers and crushing, weighty ferry boats not just inhabited space all those years ago, but were built even further back. 

  What a hugely fascinating 9-minute documentary portraying New York city in all it's (very much original) glory!

  
  >Watch it<

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  Review by evilbjork ★★★½

  I love these kinds of early documentaries that are just shots of a city, and this one is particularly beautiful. It's so amazing to see how things to be so vividly and I cherish that these films were able to survive until today.

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  Review by Lukas Fryer ★★★★½

  I’ve still never been to New York but I imagine it’s exactly like this very old movie depicts it and nothing has changed

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  Review by Evan “Kaizō Haya-shill” Pincus ★★★★

  A beautiful study of urban geometry. Astonishing wide shots, crowd shots, etcetera. I mean... It's a "your mileage may vary" type of thing, but for me, a sucker for urban beauty and industrial systems... Well, I liked it.