''The River'' is a 1938 short

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

which shows the importance of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and how farming and timber practices had caused

topsoil Topsoil is the upper layer of soil. It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earth's biological soil activity occurs. Description Topsoil is composed of mineral particles and organic matt ...

to be swept down the river and into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

, leading to catastrophic floods and impoverishing farmers. It ends by briefly describing how the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...

project was beginning to reverse these problems. It was written and directed by Pare Lorentz and, like Lorentz's earlier 1936 documentary ''

The Plow That Broke the Plains ''The Plow That Broke the Plains'' is a 1936 short documentary film that shows the cultivation of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada following the Civil War and leading up to the Dust Bowl as a result of farmers' exploitati ...

'', was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in 1990. The film won the "best documentary" category at the 1938

Venice International Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

. Both films have notable scores by

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...

that are still heard as concert suites, featuring an adaptation of the hymn " How Firm a Foundation". The film was narrated by the American baritone

Thomas Hardie Chalmers Thomas Hardie Chalmers (October 20, 1884 – June 11, 1966) was an American opera singer and actor. Biography Chalmers was born on October 20, 1884 in New York City, the son of Thomas Hardie and Sophia Amanda (De Bann) Chalmers. In 1909, he wen ...

. Thomson's score was heavily adapted from his own concert work '' Symphony on a Hymn Tune''. ''The River'' later served as the score for the 1983 TV movie ''

The Day After ''The Day After'' is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983 on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network. More than 100 million people, in nearly 39 million households, watched the film durin ...

''. The two films were sponsored by the U.S. government and specifically the

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm Se ...

(RA) to raise awareness about the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

. The RA was folded into the Farm Security Administration in 1937, so ''The River'' was officially an FSA production. There is also a companion book, ''The River''. no page numbers, text and photo stills, mostly from the film The text was nominated for the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

in poetry in that year.

Notes

External links

*''The River'' essa

by Dr. Robert J. Snyder at

* *
(part 2)
(missing part 3)

* posted by the FDR Presidential Library and Pare Lorentz center * , a better copy, posted by PublicResourceOrg * ''The River'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 266-26

United States National Film Registry films American black-and-white films 1930s short documentary films Films directed by Pare Lorentz Documentary films about agriculture in the United States Documentary films about disasters American short documentary films Black-and-white documentary films Works about the Dust Bowl 1938 documentary films 1938 films 1930s American films {{environment-documentary-film-stub

See also

Notes

External links