Master Hands (4K)

Master Hands (4K)

Rejissyor: Jam Handy Organization. First 4K scan of Master Hands, made by Adrianne Finelli on March 5, 2019 at Internet Archive from a 35mm print. Classic "capitalist realist" drama showing the manufacture of Chevrolets from foundry to finished vehicles. Though ostensibly a tribute to the "master hands" of the assembly line workers, it seems more of a paean to the designers of this impressive mass production system. Filmed in Flint, Michigan, just months before the United Auto Workers won union recognition with their famous sitdown strikes. Released the same year as two other films with which it shares similarities: MODERN TIMES and TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. Selected for the 1999 National Film Registry of "artistically, culturally, and socially significant" films. Program notes written by Rick Prelinger in 1994 for his Our Secret Century CD-ROM set, published by Voyager Company: Molten metal flowing into a mold spells out the film's title in heat and light. A full symphony orchestra plays a score adapted from Wagner's Die Walkre. Negative and positive film sandwiched together (a rare effect in the 1930s) casts a surreal filter over workers filing into the factory. This is high drama, pretentious filmmaking and one of the most impressive records of mass production ever made. 1936, the year that Chaplin's Modern Times and Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will were produced, was also the year of Master Hands. Produced ostensibly as a tribute to the "master hands" of the Chevrolet craftsmen, Master Hands looks much more like management's own tribute to itself -- the designers of the system of mass production. Embodying a genre that might be called "capitalist realism," this featurette uses the representational methods of the Soviet and German cinemas to strengthen its vision of American enterprise. From Thirties Soviet socialist realism Master Hands borrows a concern for presenting masses of mobilized workers, a fascination with larger-than-life machines, and a sense of economic emergence through technology. From

https://archive.org/details/masterhandscomplete4kh264 · Public domain (Internet Archive)