Harry Alan Potamkin

Harry Alan Potamkin (April 10, 1900 – July 19, 1933) was an American film critic and poet.

Biography

Potamkin was born in Philadelphia, to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Russia.[1] His sister was the mother of composer Milton Babbitt.[2] Potamkin received a BS degree from New York University in 1921 and worked as a social worker at Smith Memorial Playground in Philadelphia.[3] On his 1925 honeymoon to France, Potamkin discovered film in Paris and was inspired to become a film critic.[4] Potamkin visited the Soviet Union in 1927,[5] where he met with Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov.[6] In 1930, Potamkin traveled to Kharkiv for the second Congress of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers, in the American delegation along with Joshua Kunitz, William Gropper, and other members of the John Reed Clubs.[7]

Career

His film criticism was published in a wide variety of publications, including The Daily Worker, American Cinematographer, and Hound & Horn. [8]In his writings, Potamkin compared Hollywood films unfavorably to Soviet cinema, though he distinguished between movies produced in Hollywood and ones made in New York.[9] Hollywood, for Potamkin, was "the pimple of the American process, just as America is the pimple of the capitalist process"[10] In several articles, he criticized Charlie Chaplin's films, arguing that they placed too much emphasis on Chaplin's fictional persona instead of class dynamics.[11] Due to his political viewpoint, Potamkin has been described as the first American film critic to recognize as a medium that "played an active role in shaping the society that produced it".[12] He proposed a plan for a Marxist film school and library, which was never realized due to his death in 1933.[13]

Potamkin was also active as a poet, though Kenneth Rexroth wrote that "the character of the Left press at that time prevented him from being widely published".[14] A collection of his poetry, titled In the Embryo of All Things: The Poems of Harry Alan Potamkin, was published in 2017.[15] He was the author of the operetta Strike Me Red, performed posthumously in 1934,[16] and directed by Will Lee.[17]

Death and legacy

After his death, his funeral was held at the New York Workers School, due to his "revolutionary activity in the workers' struggles".[18] Potamkin's writings inspired experimental filmmaker Stephen Broomer's 2017 feature film Potamkin, which uses footage from the films he reviewed (e.g. Battleship Potemkin, The Passion of Joan of Arc and Metropolis).[19][20][21][22]

See also

References

  1. ^ Brody, Richard (2018-02-08). "The Prescient, Essential Film Criticism of Harry Alan Potamkin". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
  2. ^ Kostelanetz, Richard (2013). A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes. Taylor & Francis. p. 489. ISBN 9781136806193.
  3. ^ Shook, John R., ed. (2005). Dictionary Of Modern American Philosophers. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 1955. ISBN 9781847144706.
  4. ^ Mathijs, Ernest; Mendik, Xavier, eds. (2008). The Cult Film Reader. Open University Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780335219230.
  5. ^ Andrew, Dudley; Jacobs, Lewis (1979). "The Compound Cinema: Film Writings of Harry Alan Potamkin". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 37 (3): 387. doi:10.2307/430811. JSTOR 430811.
  6. ^ Andrew, Dudley (April 1974). "Critics: Harry Alan Potamkin". Film Comment. 10 (2): 55.
  7. ^ Homberger, Eric (1986). American writers and radical politics, 1900-39 : Equivocal commitments. Macmillan. p. 132. ISBN 0333391764.
  8. ^ Roberts, Jerry (2010). The Complete History of American Film Criticism. Santa Monica Press. p. 45. ISBN 9781595809438.
  9. ^ Koszarski, Richard (2008). Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff. Rutgers University Press. p. 239. ISBN 9780813542935.
  10. ^ Van Schilt, Stephanie (November 22, 2011). "A Portrait of Harry Potamkin – Screening the Past". Retrieved 2025-02-17.
  11. ^ Mellen, Joan (2019). Modern Times. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 25. ISBN 9781838717193.
  12. ^ Schenker, Andrew (2010-11-01). "Marxism Goes to the Movies: On Pioneering Activist Film Critic Harry Alan Potamkin". Bright Lights Film Journal. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
  13. ^ Hagener, Malte; Zimmermann, Yvonne, eds. (2023-11-27). How Film Histories Were Made: Materials, Methods, Discourses. Amsterdam University Press. p. 182. doi:10.2307/jj.14170605. ISBN 978-90-485-5457-7.
  14. ^ Rexroth, Kenneth (1987). World Outside the Window: The Selected Essays of Kenneth Rexroth. New Directions. p. 2. ISBN 9780811210256.
  15. ^ Wojcik, Pamela Robertson; Massood, Paula J., eds. (2025). The Routledge Companion to American Film History. Taylor & Francis. p. 88. ISBN 9781040303979.
  16. ^ Gannes, Harry (June 25, 1934). "Y.C.L. Meet Maps Program to Win Workingclass Youth". The Daily Worker. p. 3.
  17. ^ Hodgson, Jack (2024). Young Reds in the Big Apple: The New York Young Pioneers of America, 1923-1934. Fordham University Press. ISBN 9781531508135.
  18. ^ Campbell, Russell (August 1978). "Potamkin's Film Criticism". Jump Cut (18): 23.
  19. ^ Nicholson, Ben (December 6, 2019). "Stephen Broomer discusses his first feature, 'Potamkin'". ALT/KINO. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
  20. ^ "Potamkin by Stephen Broomer | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center". artlitlab.org. 29 July 2022. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  21. ^ The Carriage Set Upright: Stephen Broomer on Potamkin - Film International
  22. ^ Canyon Cinema : Canyon Cinema 50 — February & March Events
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