Editing The River (1938 film)

{{short description|1938 documentary film directed by Pare Lorentz}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = The River
| image          = File:Film Poster for "The River" - NARA - 95115895.jpg
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[Pare Lorentz]]
| writer         = Pare Lorentz
| cinematography = [[Floyd Crosby]]<br>[[Willard Van Dyke]]<br>[[Stacy Woodard]]
| distributor    = [[Farm Security Administration]]
| released       = {{film date|1938|2|4}}
| runtime        = 31 minutes
| country        = United States
| language       = English
}}
'''''The River''''' is a 1938 short [[documentary film]] which shows the importance of the [[Mississippi River]] to the [[United States]], and how farming and timber practices had caused [[topsoil]] to be swept down the river and into the [[Gulf of Mexico]], leading to catastrophic floods and impoverishing farmers. It ends by briefly describing how the [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] project was beginning to reverse these problems.

It was written and directed by [[Pare Lorentz]] and, like Lorentz's earlier 1936 documentary ''[[The Plow That Broke the Plains]]'', was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in 1990.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Complete National Film Registry Listing |url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/|website=Library of Congress|access-date=2020-05-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last1=Gamarekian|first1=Barbara|last2=Times|first2=Special To the New York|date=1990-10-19|title=Library of Congress Adds 25 Titles to National Film Registry|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/19/movies/library-of-congress-adds-25-titles-to-national-film-registry.html|access-date=2020-08-06|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The film won the "best documentary" category at the 1938 [[Venice International Film Festival]].

Both films have notable scores by [[Virgil Thomson]] that are still heard as concert [[Suite (music)|suites]], featuring an adaptation of the hymn "[[How Firm a Foundation (hymn)|How Firm a Foundation]]". The film was narrated by the American baritone [[Thomas Hardie Chalmers]].  Thomson's score was heavily adapted from his own concert work ''[[Symphony on a Hymn Tune]]''.<ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=THOMSON, V.: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 / Symphony on a Hymn Tune |year=2000  |url=http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.559022&catNum=559022&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English |first1=Marina |last1=Ledin | last2=Ledin|first2=Victor |format=CD liner note |publisher=[[Naxos Records]]}}</ref>  ''The River'' later served as the score for the 1983 TV movie ''[[The Day After]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Stuever |first=Hank |author-link=Hank Stuever |title='Convincing catastrophe': What The Post's TV critic wrote about 'The Day After' in 1983 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=May 11, 2016 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/05/11/convincing-catastrophe-what-the-posts-tv-critic-wrote-about-the-day-after-in-1983/ |access-date=September 13, 2017}}</ref>

The two films were sponsored by the U.S. government and specifically the [[Resettlement Administration]] (RA) to raise awareness about the [[New Deal]]. The RA was folded into the [[Farm Security Administration]] in 1937, so ''The River'' was officially an FSA production.

There is also a companion book, ''The River''.<ref>{{Cite book
  | last = Lorentz
  | first = Pare
  | author-link = Pare Lorentz
  | title = The River
  | publisher = Stackpole Sons
  | year = 1938
  | location = New York
  }} no page numbers, text and photo stills, mostly from the film</ref> The text was nominated for the [[Pulitzer Prize]] in poetry in that year.

==See also==
* ''[[The Plow That Broke the Plains]]''
* [[Farm Security Administration]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*''The River'' essay [https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/river2.pdf] by Dr. Robert J. Snyder at [[National Film Registry]]
*{{IMDb title|id=0029490|title=The River}}
* {{Internet Archive short film|id=RiverThe1937|name=The River (part 1)}} [https://archive.org/details/RiverThe1937_2 (part 2)] (missing part 3)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/19990221132429/http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7E1930s/FILM/lorentz/front.html Pare Lorentz]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/19991007162139/http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7E1930s/FILM/lorentz/river.html The River]
* [http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/ThePlowTheRiver.htm The River review]
* {{YouTube|user=FDRLibrary|title=''The River''}} posted by the FDR Presidential Library and Pare Lorentz center
* {{YouTube|9MRCltkSZbw|''The River''}}, a better copy, posted by PublicResourceOrg
* ''The River'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 {{ISBN|0826429777}}, pages 266-268 [https://books.google.com/books?id=deq3xI8OmCkC]

{{DEFAULTSORT:River (1938 film), The}}
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:1938 short documentary films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Pare Lorentz]]
[[Category:Documentary films about agriculture in the United States]]
[[Category:Documentary films about disasters]]
[[Category:American short documentary films]]
[[Category:Black-and-white documentary films]]
[[Category:Works about the Dust Bowl]]
[[Category:1938 films]]
[[Category:1930s American films]]


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