America

1968. USA. Directed by Philip Gittelman and Charles Harbutt. 6 min. Screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on July 1, 2017 as part of "Magnum Shorts: American Stories". Accompanies "Beyond the Frame: International Cinema by Magnum Photographers." Philip Gittelman and Charles Harbutt's America puts their photographs alongside selections by Magnum colleagues Eve Arnold, Bruce Davidson, Mary Ellen Mark, and others. Originally anthologized in the book America in Crisis, the project sought to capture the zeitgeist of a divided nation at the end of a tumultuous decade. The film furthers this consideration of an American Dream at an equivocal impasse by juxtaposing the images with a distorted version of "America the Beautiful."