La Nouvelle Vague is the pride of French cinephilia. However, the myth of this band of young French people of the post-war period who breaks the shackles of the studios is too quickly forgotten that at the same time, other filmmakers were leading the same revolution from London to Tokyo. In New York, the pioneers are called Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin. From the beginning of the 1950s, the couple of photographers will shoot a series of films, more or less improvised, in complete freedom. The Carlotta editions have just brought together four feature films, as well as a small bouquet of short films and commercials in a beautifully titled “Outside” box.
Filmed in 1953, “Le Petit Fugitif” is the most recognized. He follows Joey, a kid who took to the chase in the amusement park of Coney Island. In one day, he will learn the work to pay himself a pony ride, meet the birth of love and the kiss of a young couple, motherhood with a nursing woman, then death and a drowned stranded on the beach. The whole of life is a fun fair.
Flower power
In “Lovers and Lollipops”, Peggy watches her mother, a young widow, fall in love with an old friend. “Weddings and Babies” (1958) tells the story of a photographer from Little Italy who specializes in images of weddings and children. He spends his time portraying families, but he himself is unable to found one. “I Need a Ride to California” will be shot ten years later in Greenwich Village. The color is there, the flower power too. Engel and Orkin follow a Californian hippie barefoot in Manhattan. There is folk music, flowers in the hair, but Lilly will find that New York is not just woven of love and peace.
This box set relates twenty years of a city. We recognize the Statue of Liberty, the Bronx Zoo, Central Park, the toy department of Macy’s, the MoMa … Engel and Orkin crunch there very little anecdotes on film, like currants in the immense forest of the city, stand out. silhouettes on the ocean of the American crowd. In “Lovers and Lollipops”, the camera thus catches the flight of a girl from Chinatown who is choking while trying to inflate a balloon. Three pretty seconds, evaporated with the twentieth century, and which still throb in the cinema.
Adrien Gombeaud
“Outside. Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, Complete Works ”. Box of 3 Blu-Ray. Editions Carlotta Films. 40 euros.
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