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Watch One Hour Of Never-Before-Seen Footage Of NYers Relaxing In The 1950s & '60s
By
Jen Carlson
Published Sep 19, 2019
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Still from Film
By
Jen Carlson
Published Sep 19, 2019
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Want to see 62 minutes of never-before-seen footage of New York and New Yorkers in the 1950s and '60s? It's coming to the big screen this month, as a part of the New York Film Festival. Free Time will feature 16mm black-and-white footage shot by Manfred Kirchheimer and Walter Hess, capturing the city between 1958 and 1960, and largely showing New Yorkers at ease and relaxing.
Kirchheimer, now 88, told Gothamist a little bit about the origin story of the footage. Back in 1957 (and through 1960), he and Walter Hess set out to make a different film (that one was never completed) which would capture the changing skyline. It was meant to be a critical look at "the new, glassy, box buildings that were going up in the city," he told us. "The shooting incorporated many scenes of street life," however, and he ended up making several other films instead. A 30-minute film called Claw in 1968 was made out of the material, and another, Bridge High, in 1975.
"But there was still much footage left," he says, "which I drew on for use in two more films. And finally I went back to the material for Dream of a City, last year’s entry in the New York Film Festival. But I felt there was still more material to be mined and that resulted in Free Time."
Free Time was edited between December 2018 and June 2019, Kirchheimer says—"I needed to find a structure for this diverse material, which wasn’t easy. But I considered it new material and didn’t linger over its nostalgic value. It was simply an editing challenge." By the end, there was still a bit left on the cutting room floor—"There were 45,000 feet (of film) originally," he told us, "Now there are still about 10,000 feet left."
Here's the trailer for the film, which was shot in several neighborhoods, including Washington Heights, the Upper West Side, Inwood, and Hell’s Kitchen, amongst others.
It's been around 60 years since Kirchheimer shot the footage, and when asked how New York City and New Yorkers have changed since, he told us, "I think the main difference is that kids don’t play on the street anymore. The film shows them playing stickball, skully, building with streamers, balancing on a large log, combing the hair of a doll, eating ice cream, dueling with sticks for swords, improvising a game with a ball... I think the reasons the kids are off the street now are an increase in car traffic, but mostly the advent of the cell phone. Children stay home after school and play with their cell phones. I wasn’t conscious of this when I was editing the film, but after completing it, I am able to see that."
You can catch Free Time (and Kirchheimer, who will be on hand for Q&As) at the NYFF on September 28th and 29th; more details here.
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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