Paul Strand & Charles Sheeler (y Walt Whitman): Manhatta (1920)

MANHATTA[n

Véase en pantalla más grande en la página de Google videos)



Manhatta (escrito así) es un documental de corta duración del fotógrafo Paul Strand y del pintor y fotógrafo Charles Sheeler, que precede diez años la célebre película Berlín, sinfonía de una gran ciudad. Caído en el olvido, perdido, fue restaurado en 2009, si bien no es aún muy conocido.

El título deriva del poema Mannahatta, de Walt Whitman -varios de cuyos versos se citan (en particular del extenso poemario Leaves of Grass, iniciado en 1855). Formalmente inspirado en la pintura cubista, el cortometraje recrea un día en Nueva York, de la que los habitantes han quedado reducidos a sombras, o una multitud de puntos encasquetados que se mueven como los puntos de un anuncio luminoso.
Considerado el mejor documental sobre una ciudad jamás filmado.


Mannahatta (Walt Whitman)

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,
musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships, an
island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong,
light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining
islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the
ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model’d,
The down-town streets, the jobbers’ houses of business, the houses
of business of the ship-merchants and money-brokers, the river-streets,
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,
The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the
brown-faced sailors,
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft,
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river,
passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d,
beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,
Trottoirs throng’d, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows,
A million people–manners free and superb–open voices–hospitality–
the most courageous and friendly young men,
City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!
City nested in bays! my city!

Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City (Walt Whitman)

  Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future
      use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,
  Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met
      there who detain'd me for love of me,
  Day by day and night by night we were together—all else has long
      been forgotten by me,
  I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me,
  Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
  Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,
  I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.