Documenting the Face of America
It was a time when Americans saw each others faces for the first time and saw what life was like across the nation, north to south, east to west, rich and poor.
On Monday, August 18th at 10:00 pm (check local listings), PBS will present DOCUMENTING THE FACE OF AMERICA: Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers. [see preview here]
In 1935, during the Great Depression, USA President F.D. Roosevelt turned to some photographers for help in the fight of Depression by documenting the hard life of rural Americans and bring attention to the need for financial aid. These were the times when documentary photography solidified as a movement where the main objective was not to create beautiful images but to represent the reality as it was happening. The Resettlement Administration was created and headed by Rexford G. Tugwell, who appointed Roy E. Stryker as Chief of the Historical Section with the goal to direct a large photographic project, documenting not only the agency’s activities, but American rural life. The photographers included the remarkable Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Jack Delano and others. The outcome of this project was remarkable and constitutes one of the most important moments in the history of photography.
I had the opportunity to see the documentary in DVD [you can purchase it at PBS] and it is just extraordinary.
From the press release:
DOCUMENTING THE FACE OF AMERICA brings to life the remarkable stories behind the legendary group of New Deal-sponsored photographers who traversed the country in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, chronicling the lives of Americans — rich and poor, urban and rural, black and white – to create one of the most astonishing documentary portraits of America ever compiled.
The film features the personal vision and the struggles experienced by photographers Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Walker Evans, Marion Post Wolcott, and Jack Delano, who created some of the most iconic images in documentary history, and captured, for the first time, a complete picture of their countrymen in the context of a national identity. The immediacy and power of their photographs helped transform popular opinion in a way that words and speeches never could.
thanks for posting this - i just ordered the dvd — looks fantastic.
Thanks Bob!
Miguel
As someone who has devoted much of his life to studying Roy Stryker and the photographers of the RA/FSA/OWI, the Standard Oil Photographic Project, and the Pittsburgh Photographic Library project, I had high hopes for Documenting the Face of America.
My hopes were dashed almost from the outset. The documentary is filled with factual errors. I saw at least 2-3 photographs taken for the Standard Oil project–an altogether different project following the RA/FSA/OWI, presented as FSA images.
The music is innane. No, I didn’t expect to hear Woody Guthrie’s “Dustbowl Refugee” accompany Arthur Rothstein’s photographs of a dust storm in the Texas Panhandle, but after a while the soundtrack for “Documenting the Face…” reminded me of the electro-pop drivel heard on “How It’s Made” on Discovery.
I came away feeling that the directors and researchers don’t know their material. Far too much was made of Marion Post Wolcott’s being a “woman” photographer. No mention whatsoever was made of John Vachon, one of the truly great photographers of the FSA project, and almost none was made of Jack Delano. There were occasional glimpses of Vachon, but the only ones I saw were taken many years after the project ended. Also excluded were Carl Mydans, and Theo Jung. And Russell Lee, while mentioned, gets very little coverage despite truly being the backbone of the project.
On a lone positive note, I would say the inclusion of William Christenberry was quite good. His description of Walker Evans’s approach when he returned to Alabama many years after his work with James Agee, was excellent. But that is it.
I found the show really missed the point on so many levels. A huge waste of potential, time and money. Really pathetic. PBS should know better.