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To me, this movie is perfection.

Great Film overall

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Make no mistake--the Industrial Revolution's impact of cinema is so profound that it's hardly an impact, as cinema simply wouldn't exist without it. As such, many early films took their subject with the world that had spawned around them, skyscrapers and their creation, factories and their workers, trains and their operation, cars and machinery and smoke. It was as if the world built itself to be photographed in motion, then invented motion pictures.This film is one of those interstitial documents that exist between important texts. It is far removed from the early actualities, but focuses on many of the same subjects with a clearer image. By the time this film came out, editing had come to its own as an art form and this movie didn't particularly add anything to montage that wasn't already recognized. Intertitles were expected. However, this movie did come before Berlin: Symphony of a City and was very inspirational to various filmmakers in the idea of documenting the modern world with an eye towards frame-by-frame meaning and abstract structuralism, which directly links it to the great and famous Man with a Movie Camera.--PolarisDiB

Manhatta (1921) **** (out of 4) Cinematographer Paul Strand and painter Charles Sheeler teamed up to make this movie, which was their attempt to show their love for the city of Manhattan. The say they achieved in showing that love would be an understatement because this 11-minute movie is extremely well-made and contains some downright break taking visuals. The semi-documentary film has various images of the city put together in no real order nor do they try to tell a story out of the images. Instead we just see various items from the city, ranging from haze rising over buildings to various ships on the water. All of these images make for an incredible film because it really seems like you're watching a science-fiction film with a bunch of fake images. It's rather amazing at how well the cinematography is here because unlike many, or perhaps any film, this one here puts you so close to what you're looking at that it's nearly impossible to remember you're watching a movie. This is certainly one of the most beautiful looking films I've seen and perhaps the start of what would become avant-garde film and one has to wonder if Stanley Kubrick saw this and learned from it.

Preface: Due to the nature of such a short film, any valid review will contain some evidence of a "spoiler." This review is no exception.Paul Strand's "Manhatta" is more than just the simple, pioneering piece in early cinema. "Manhatta" is a representation of New York City through the eyes of a still photographer. Strand uses the format of motion picture to create a sense of life. Similar to his New York still photography, each moving image frames city life, angles, and other objects with semi-avant-garde detail. Strand's own "mentor," Alfred Stieglitz, greatly appreciated the new form of city photography, publishing it in "Camera Work" and in his gallery 291.In the movie, the blowing smoke, walking people, moving ships, and other objects in motion are what separate the motion picture from a photo album. Instead of portraying New York as an iconic, prosperous city, Strand has been able to portray New York City as an organism that contains a immigrant working class.In my opinion, "Manhatta" commands the respect of many early motion pictures, influencing many great, more popular films.

There's very little, if anything, memorable about "Manhatta." Besides being one of the original "city symphony" films, paving the way for better works like "Berlin: die sinfonie der Grobstadt" (which I think translates into "Berlin: Symphony of a City)" and Pennebaker's "Daybreak Express," to name two, all it really offers to modern audiences is a reason to fall asleep. Manhatta is mainly made up of static, or at best, phlegmatic shots, and has inter-titles quoting Walt Whitman. The camera has a strange obsession with smoke billowing from chimneys of boats and factories. It's a pioneer of a new land that was soon in the hands of more skillful developers.