Anthology Film Archives–Weegee's Camera Magic
Arthur Fellig (1899-1968), known to the world as "Weegee", was among the most unusual of American photographers and artists. Notorious for his crime photography, Weegee spent the 1930s and 40s depicting the seedy underbelly of New York City, generating vivid, gut-wrenching, and frankly sensational images of crime scenes, police activity, and the down-and-out. Exposed to a wide audience through his legendary photo book, Naked City, these images flew in the face of the comparatively staid "art photography" of the time. As Weegee's fame grew, he increasingly turned his attention on Hollywood, documenting the celebrities, premiere events, and larger ecology of the movie industry, while also indulging his interest in developing expressionistically surreal camera techniques to create bizarrely manipulated images of reality. By the 1950s he had begun utilizing these techniques within his burgeoning interest in 16mm cinematography. While Weegee's body of photographic work has long been celebrated, his 16mm experimental films of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s are virtually unknown.
That is poised to change now that Anthology – in collaboration with the International Center of Photography – has preserved five of Weegee's short films. To celebrate these new preservations, and on the occasion of the ICP's exhibition, Weegee: Society of the Spectacle, Anthology presents a series that brings together the newly-preserved films, WEEGEE'S NEW YORK, and a selection of other films that Weegee participated in, as actor, consultant, special effects designer, or set photographer.
