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| Starring: Francis Guinan Directed by: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke |
Theatrical release: 1939
DVD release: 2009
Released by: Naxos Dolby Digital
5.1, DTS 5.1
Fullscreen |
This historically important documentary was
produced to be shown at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which coincided with the end
of the Great Depression. The fair was designed to provide visitors with a glimpse of the
future, so it was subtitled "The World of Tomorrow." Lewis Mumford, the script
writer for The City, was an idealist who believed that cities were intrinsically
evil and stifled the human spirit. His ideal planned city was to embody the balanced
principles found in the New England village of the Revolutionary War period in America.
The filmmakers filmed most of their footage in Greenbelt,
Maryland, adjacent to Washington, D.C. Greenbelt was not only supposed to offer cleaner,
better living but provide employment to thousands of workers who had been laid off during
the Depression. It’s sometimes amazing how much like today yesterday can be. What
happened back then is that the Second World War came along, prosperity returned, and
builders made fortunes selling suburban homes to GIs returning from deployment.
Mumford’s suburbs, originally in his vision a planned Utopia, became a hotbed for
capitalism.
The City might be America’s boldest documented
nod to socialism. It is not racially diverse; all of the planned city’s residents
look like typical Caucasians. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians were apparently denied escape
from the stifling air of the metropolis. The film is not liberating as to gender, either.
Women were supposed to have better methods for doing the laundry, for instance, but it was
still "women’s work."
There are dramatic visual comparisons in this short film
that load the dice as far as city-country comparisons go. The squalor of a bad section of
the city is documented graphically. There seems to be smoke everywhere, and if
there’s no smoke there’s dirt and grime. Children play in dangerous streets.
These images are contrasted with those of children joyfully bicycling through a peaceful
wooded town that holds absolutely no menace.
Aaron Copland wrote his first film score for this movie,
and this is really the reason for its re-release by Naxos. Because (like The River
and The Plow That Broke the Plains) the film contained no dialogue, only music and
minimal narration, it was possible to record the score again in modern sound. This was
done at the University of Maryland with the Post-Classical Ensemble, conducted by Angel
Gil-Ordonez. The original was conducted by Max Goberman, and it is also available on this
DVD so you can compare. The new recording comes off very well, and it certainly sounds
fantastic. Naxos also opted to replace the narration, which was originally done by Morris
Caranovsky. I believe his narration has more bite than the new one by Francis Guinan, but
thanks to Naxos again the viewer has a choice between the original and the new.
The film has not been completely restored so its
presentation is a bit inconsistent. It never looks awful, and 90 percent of it is sharply
contrasted black-and-white done from a good, relatively blemish-free source. There are a
few scenes, though, which are not up to the overall standard. But in comparing it to the
clips shown inserted in the supplemental film Which Playground for Your Child:
Greenbelt or Gutter?, one can see how miserable it must have looked before this
release set most things right. A second supplement features an interview with
documentarian Joseph Horowitz, who is the artistic director of Post-Classical Ensemble.
All told, this is a well-produced, very interesting slice
of Americana that offers in modern sound what many feel to be Aaron Copland’s
greatest film score. |
