In the street

Harlem, one summer in the mid-1940s. There’s no choice, you have to go outside or otherwise you’d suffocate in the cramped apartments of this poor neighbourhood. Kids playing, water fights, chatting with neighbours on the porch and old people taking a stroll – American photographer Helen Levitt enjoys the bustling life on the streets of New York. Usually, she takes her Leica, but this time she experiments with 16mm for a film made with two fellow travellers, James Agee and Janice Loeb.  With their camera placed on a tripod in the heart of the action, full-screen shots of the faces of grinning kids or wider shots better to capture the scenes of urban life, the filmmakers weave their way through the hustle and bustle of the streets to portray, as candidly as possible, how the city is a world in itself.

Pauline David
Festival En Ville ! (Bruxelles - BEL)