In the Street

Photographer Helen Levitt spent most of the 1940s photographing children in New York’s Spanish Harlem. Her pictures are among the most beautiful portrayals of childhood in the history of photography. In 1944, critic James Agee and painter Janice Loeb suggested that Levitt do a short film on the subject. The result is In the Street, shot from 1945 to 1946 and released in 1952. Although Loeb and Agee signed as the film’s directors, it is Levitt who deserves credit for the result. The film is truly simple; an unaffected collage of scenes with children playing in the street. Vertov suggested that documentarians attempt to take life by surprise. That is what Levitt does in this short, modest, and extraordinary visual essay. ‘In the Street seems to be like life itself: funny, tender, without artifice yet emotionally condensed’, a critic wrote. Charles Chaplin never tired of watching the film and entertained himself by attempting to imitate the kids’ mime. Curiously, in 1960, nearly fifteen years after In the Street was made, American non-fiction cinema made a huge deal out of announcing the invention of the observational documentary. Helen Levitt was already making observational documentary in the mid-1940s, but since she was discreet, nobody noticed. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)