Morris Engel
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Morris Engel (April 8, 1918 – March 5, 2005) was an American photographer,
cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...
and filmmaker best known for making the first good-quality, internationally-recognized American film "independent" of Hollywood studios, '' Little Fugitive'' (1953), in collaboration with his wife, photographer Ruth Orkin, and their friend, writer
Raymond Abrashkin Raymond Abrashkin (March 9, 1911 – August 25, 1960) was an American writer and filmmaker. He is known for writing, co-producing, and co-directing '' Little Fugitive'' and for co-creating and co-writing with Jay Williams the ''Danny Dunn'' ser ...
. Engel was a pioneer in the use of hand-held cameras that he helped design throughout his features and in using nonprofessional actors in American films, following the example of Italian Neo-realism. His naturalistic films influenced future prominent independent and
French New Wave French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...
filmmakers.


Career

A lifelong New Yorker, Morris Engel was born in Brooklyn in 1918. After joining the Photo League in 1936, Engel had his first exhibition in 1939, at the
New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
.Film Buff Online: In Remembrance – Morris Engel
/ref> He worked briefly as a photographer for the
Leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
newspaper '' PM'' before joining the United States Navy as a combat photographer from 1941 to 1946 in World War II. After the war, he returned to New York where he again was an active Photo League member, teaching workshop classes and serving as co-chair of a project group focusing on postwar labor issues. He was also an active photo-journalist working for ''
Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'', ''
Collier's ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Collie ...
'' and ''
McCalls ''McCall's'' was a monthly American women's magazine, published by the McCall Corporation, that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-for ...
'', among others. In 1939 he was asked by his friend
Paul Strand Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. ...
to shoot some motion picture film for his film '' Native Land'' using the compact 35mm Bell and Howell Eyemo holding 100 foot rolls that could film about one minute of film. But he was disappointed that Strand put this camera designed for hand-holding on a heavy metal baseplate attached to a heavy wooden tripod. During the war he was a still photographer but he probably was familiar with a handheld 35 mm battery-operated camera developed during the war for combat photography, the Cunningham Combat Camera. The large square camera was mounted a rifle stock, held tightly to the cameraman’s chest by handles mounted on each side, and aimed in the general direction of the action, sighted by a top-mounted viewfinder. With a two hundred foot magazine, it could run for two minutes. The other primary motion picture camera used by the military was the Bell and Howell Eyemo, a spring-run camera held to the eye with a 20 second running time. After the war, Engel and an engineer he met it the service, Charles Woodruff, reconfigured the Cunningham camera into a much smaller camera for civilian purposes. Engel explained, "Designed for me, it was a compact 35mm, hand held, shoulder cradled, ithdouble registration pins and twin lens finder and optical system." It used the Cunningham 35mm 200 foot interchangeable magazines which met the camera at the film gate with the lens, motor, shutter, and viewfinder comprising the camera body. Twin lens geared together enabled the viewfinder lens and the camera to be focused together, as on Engel's preferred still camera, the Rolleiflex. Like the Rolleiflex, the viewfinder was viewed from above. Held against the waist, rather than in front of the face, the camera was both steadier and less conspicuous than the Eyemo. "With a simple shoulder belt support," Engel said, "I was armed with a camera which became the heart of the esthetic and mobile approach to the film Little Fugitive''">he '' Little Fugitive'' This camera was about the same size as the Eyemo, but looked like a giant
Ocarina The ocarina is a wind musical instrument; it is a type of vessel flute. Variations exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body. It is traditionally made from c ...
with the camera in the wide part at the top and the smaller curved part below. In 1950, Engel tried to sell a ''
March of Time ''The March of Time'' is an American newsreel series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945. The "voice" of both series was Westbrook Van Voorhis. Pr ...
'' imitation called ''How America Lives'' filmed with his new camera to distributors but found no takers. Since he couldn’t sell proposed
short subject A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
s, he decided to make a feature. In 1953, Engel, along with his girlfriend, fellow photographer Ruth Orkin, and his former colleague at ''PM'', Raymond Abrashkin, made the feature film '' Little Fugitive'' for $80,000, shooting the film on location in
Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, L ...
with the hand-held 35 millimeter camera Engel and his friend had designed. This camera was compact and lightweight so it would be unobtrusive shooting in public. As such, it did not allow simultaneous sound recording; the sound was dubbed later. The film, one of the first successful American " independent films", earned them an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story and a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The film told the story of a seven-year-old boy, played by Richie Andrusco, who runs away from home and spends the day at Coney Island. Andrusco never appeared in another film, and the other performers were mainly nonprofessionals. Though their first film was a critical success,Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin
at
Bright Lights Film Journal ''Bright Lights Film Journal'' is an online popular-academic film magazine, based in Oakland, California, United States. It is edited and published by Gary Morris. Originally a print publication established in 1974, it was discontinued in 1980 to ...
Engel and Orkin, who had since married, had a hard time finding funding for their next film, ''
Lovers and Lollipops ''Lovers and Lollipops'' is a 1956 film directed and written by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin. The film was photographed on location in and around New York City, and tells the story of the romance of a widowed fashion model and an engineer, and how ...
'', which was completed in 1956. The film was about a widowed mother dating an old friend, and how her young daughter complicates their budding relationship. Like the first one, ''Lovers and Lollipops'' was filmed with a hand-held compact 35 mm camera, with sound dubbed in post-production. This was followed two years later by the more adult-centered ''Weddings and Babies'', a film about an aspiring photographer than is often seen as autobiographical. This was Engel's first film to have live sound recorded at the time of filming, and is historically the first 35 mm fiction film made with a portable camera equipped for synchronized sound. In 1961, Engel directed three television commercials, including an award-winning one for Oreo cookies. The other two were for Ivory soap and Fab detergent.Morris Engel Bio from Engelphoto.com
A half-hour short film ''The Dog Lover'' was made the following year, a comedy about a shop merchant whose life is turned upside down by the stray dog his kid brings home. He made a fourth feature in 1968 called ''I Need a Ride to California'', which followed a group of young
hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
in Greenwich Village. Post-production was shelved until 1972 when it was finally completed, but for unknown reasons it was never released during his lifetime. It finally received its premiere in October 2019 at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); it was first released on home video in March 2021. In the 1980s, Engel began taking
panoramic photographs Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated field of view, fields of view. It is sometimes known as ''wide format photography''. The term has also ...
on the streets of New York City. Engel and Ruth Orkin remained married until Orkin's death in 1985. In the 1990s, he returned to filmmaking, this time working on video. He completed two feature-length documentaries: ''A Little Bit Pregnant'' in 1994 and ''Camellia'' in 1998, each revolving around a different child in the Hartman family. First, in ''A Little Bit Pregnant'' Engel focused on the 8-year-old Leon's reactions, anxiety and wonderment to the impending birth of his baby sister Camellia. For the second film, two years later Engel returned to the same family, who gave him a year of access to the now 2-year-old daughter Camellia, capturing her daily life and routines, and her relationships with her family and others. Both films were shown in private screenings, but never had a public release due likely to the Hartman family presumably holding the rights. Engel died of cancer in 2005.


Legacy

Engel and Orkin's work occupy a pivotal position in the independent and art film scene of the 1950s, and was influential on John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese,
Jim Jarmusch James Robert Jarmusch (; born January 22, 1953) is an American film director and screenwriter. He has been a major proponent of independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films including '' Stranger Than Paradise'' (1984), '' Down by Law'' ( ...
, Quentin Tarantino, and
François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more tha ...
, and was frequently cited as an example by the influential film theorist Siegfried Kracauer.Kracauer, Siegfried. ''Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality''. Writing in ''Cassavetes on Cassavetes'', biographer Raymond Carney says that Cassavetes was familiar with the work of the New York-based independent filmmakers who preceded him, and was "particularly fond" of Engel's three films from the 1950s. Carney writes that "Commentators who regard assavetesas the 'first independent' are only displaying their ignorance of the history of independent American film, which goes back to the early 1950s." Truffaut was inspired by ''Little Fugitive'' 's spontaneous production style when he created '' The 400 Blows'' (1959), saying long afterwards: “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with hisfine movie.”


Filmography (complete)

* ''The Farm They Won'' (1951 short documentary film) * '' The Little Fugitive'' (1953 feature film) * ''
Lovers and Lollipops ''Lovers and Lollipops'' is a 1956 film directed and written by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin. The film was photographed on location in and around New York City, and tells the story of the romance of a widowed fashion model and an engineer, and how ...
'' (1956 feature film) * ''
Weddings and Babies ''Weddings and Babies'' is a 1960 film directed, produced, and written by independent filmmaker Morris Engel. It stars Viveca Lindfors, John Myhers, Chiarina Barile, and Leonard Elliott. The last of Engel's feature films, it was shot in 1957 and ...
'' (1958 feature film) * ''One Chase Manhattan Plaza'' (1961 short documentary film) * ''The Dog Lover'' (1962 short film) * ''Little Girls Have Pretty Curls'' (1962 short documentary film) * ''I Need a Ride to California'' (1968 feature film) (released in 2019) * ''Peace Is'' (1968 short documentary film) * ''A Little Bit Pregnant'' (1994 feature documentary video) * ''Camellia'' (1998 feature documentary video) * ''Morris Engel Home Movies'' (various dates, short documentary) (released in 2021)


Exhibitions (selection)

*November 4, 2011 – March 25, 201
"The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936–1951"
at
The Jewish Museum The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along Museum Mile on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The first Jewish museum in the Unit ...
, New York * August 20 – August 29, 200
Morris Engel's Weddings and Babies: Newly Preserved
at Museum of Modern Art, New York


References


External links

*
Morris Engel official websiteCollected films of Morris Engel
on Blu-ray (Kino, 2021) {{DEFAULTSORT:Engel, Morris American film directors Photographers from New York City 1918 births 2005 deaths United States Navy personnel of World War II American war photographers World War II photographers