Unseen cinema. 1, The mechanized eye. Episode 14, Pie in the sky

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THE MECHANIZED EYE is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. This satire on religious pretension was a collaboration between the Gro...

THE MECHANIZED EYE is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. This satire on religious pretension was a collaboration between the Group Theater and the newly formed NYKINO. Its creation of a self-reflexive illusion within an illusion distinguishes it not only from the commercial cinema but from various arenas of experimental and revolutionary film that had developed by 1934. -SCOTT MACDONALD. NYKINO (1934-1937) was a radical newsreel group centered around filmmakers Ralph Steiner, Irving Lerner, and Leo Hurwitz, each who split away from the Film and Photo League. They felt the League's newsreels were "formless and as poorly made as the commercial reel." NYKINO released "Pie in the Sky" (1934) and the two-part "The World Today" (1936). -BRUCE POSNER. Elia Kazan, a giant of American theatre and cinema, made his first steps at the New York based experimental collaborative Group Theater with Harold Clurman. Kazan went on to make several great Hollywood films including "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945) and "On the Waterfront" (1954) that reflect his earlier experiences with working class filmmaking. -BRUCE POSNER. Ralph Steiner, educated at Dartmouth, became a successful commercial and much honored fine art photographer. He made perhaps the first American abstract film, "H2O" (1929), following it with other experiments, some political in nature, some in Hollywood. Steiner also photographed with Paul Strand "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936) and co-directed and photographed "The City" (1939) with Willard Van Dyke and Henwar Rodakiewicz. -ROBERT A. HALLER. Irving Lerner was an accomplished, all-around filmmaker who could perform all aspects of production, camerawork, editing, sound recording, you-name-it. His '30s work for NYKINO, Frontier Films, and other independents and for the Office of War Information during World War II mark him as an influential member of classic American documentary film. -CECILE STARR / BRUCE POSNER. 16mm 1.37:1 black & white silent with music 18fps 21:15 minutes. Production: NYKINO.

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