Pare Lorentz
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Biography
Journalist and film critic who made two landmark documentaries while serving as film advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt's US Resettlement Administration: "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936), about soil erosion in the West, and "The River" (1937), about flooding on the Mississippi. Despite Hollywood's resistance to Lorentz's subsidized films (the studios claimed unfair competition), his socially progressive work received widespread critical and popular support. In 1938, Lorentz was appointed head of the newly-formed US Film Service, a unit responsible for producing some noteworthy documentaries--including his dramatized study of infant and maternal mortality in America, "The Fight for Life" (1940)--before Congress withdrew its support in 1940.
After a brief, unfruitful stint as a producer and director at RKO in Hollywood, Lorentz made over 200 short training films for the armed forces during WWII and oversaw the production of film, music and theater for re-education programs in the occupied countries after the war. He held two more government posts before setting up shop as a New York-based producer of commercial and industrial films in 1947, and lecturing on documentary filmmaking on the college circuit.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Editing (Feature Film)
Life Events
1924
Moved to New York
1924
Appointed editor of General Electric house magazine, the Edison Mazda Lamp Sales Builder (date approximate)
1930
Became film critic for New York American
1935
Hired by Rexford Tugwell, Undersecretary of Agriculture in the Resettlement Administration to advise on program of films to propagandize the department's policy; began work on "The Plow that Broke the Plains" as first of these films
1936
Directed, wrote and produced first short film, "The Plow that Broke the Plains" (on a $10,000 budget)
1937
Wrote first medium-length film, "The River" for the Farm Security Administration
1938
Play, "Ecce Homo"; play was also broadcast on BBC as "Job to Be Done"
1939
Appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as director of newly-created US Film Service, an information and distribution center, to co-ordinate the output of 25 other governnment agencies
1939
US Film Service moved into field of actual film production and placed under sponsorship of Office of Education; USFS disbanded in 1940
1941
Went to Hollywood; worked as a director and producer at RKO short film department
1945
Attached to Department of Interior after WWII
1946
Appointed chief of films, theater and musical branch of Civil Affairs Division of the War Department; was responsible for acquiring, adapting and producing films for use in re-education programs in occupied territories of Germany, Austria, Japan and Korea; resigned 1947
1947
Formed a film consultancy agency in New York; unsuccessfully attempted to produce a documentary about atomic-bomb testing
1947
Began lecturing on documentary film at colleges and universities
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