Pare Lorentz

Pare Lorentz (December 11, 1905 – March 4, 1992) was an American filmmaker. Born Leonard MacTaggart Lorentz in Clarksburg, West Virginia, he was educated at Wesleyan College and West Virginia University.

In 1936, after working as a critic in Hollywood, he was asked by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to make a film about the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. While in Hollywood, Lorentz had written several articles on censorship and a work on the first year of Roosevelt's presidency (The Roosevelt Year: 1933), both of which had impressed Roosevelt. Despite not having any film credits, Lorentz was appointed to the Resettlement Administration as a film consultant. He was given US$6,000 to make a film, which became The Plow That Broke the Plains, a film that showed the natural and man-made devastation caused by the Dust Bowl. Though the tight budget and his inexperience occasionally showed through in the film, Lorentz's script, combined with Thomas Chalmers's narration and Virgil Thomson's score, made the 30-minute movie powerful and moving. Roosevelt was impressed and, after his re-election in 1936, gave Lorentz the opportunity to make a film about one of the President's favorite subjects--conservation. Lorentz made The River, a film celebrating the exploits of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA mitigated flooding but, more importantly to Lorentz and to Roosevelt, it put a stop to the prodigious pillaging of the forests by providing cheap, readily-available hydro-electric power to a wide area. This film won the "best documentary" category at the Venice International Film Festival and, somewhat incongruously, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry the same year. It is generally considered his most masterful work. When Republicans gained seats in Congress in 1938, and the Congressional balance of power shifted in a more conservative direction, the pipeline of Federal commissions for projects like Lorentz's was abruptly halted. He made one more movie before the 1939-1945 War, The Fight for Life (1940)), a semi-documentary on the struggle to provide adequate natal care at the Chicago Maternity Center, based on a book by Paul de Kruif. John Steinbeck worked on the project with Lorentz.

Lorentz went on to serve in the US Army Air Corps during World War II, eventually being promoted to the rank of colonel. While serving, he made 275 navigational films and minor documentaries for the Office of War Information and the US Information Agency. In 1946, Lorentz made Nuremberg about the Nuremberg Trials with Federal money, but, in the prosperity of the post-War period, there was no revival of partnerships with the Federal government. He had ambitious plans to make documentaries about the New Deal and the United Nations, but funding was not available from government or private sources. His final film was Rural Co-op, which he wrote and directed in 1947.

Lorentz seems to have lived a quiet life after this period, working as a film consultant and living 60km north of New York City in the quiet town of Armonk until his death in 1992.

Filmography

• The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)
• The River (1938)

References

• Meyer, Michael J. "Pare Lorentz." A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia. Eds. Brian Railsback and Michael J. Meyer. Westport: Greenwood, 2005. 216–17.
• Renshaw, Patrick. "Pare Lorentz." The Independent. March 20, 1992.

External links

• Pare Lorentz at the Internet Movie Database
• Pare Lorentz Papers at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University

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