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Daybreak Express - D.A. Pennebaker (USA, 1958, 35mm, 6:00 min)
“A short film for those with a short attention span”.
A five-minute portrait of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated
subway in New York City set to Duke Ellington’s music. A simple composition of
city images in 1950s, the directorial debut of D.A. Pennebaker – one of the
fathers of American “direct cinema” – is an extraordinary experiment in using
the camera in travelling motion. “I wanted to make a film about this filthy,
noisy train and its packed-in passengers that would look beautiful, like the
New York City paintings of John Sloan, and I wanted it to go with one of my
Duke Ellington records, ‘Daybreak Express’.”
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