Rudy Burckhardt and Edwin Denby: The Climate of New York
In 1935, Rudy Burckhardt came to New York from Basel, Switzerland with Edwin Denby who had been a dancer in post World War I Germany. They lived and worked in a small loft in Chelsea and became life-long friends.

At first, Rudy was quite overwhelmed by the city's grandeur and ceaseless energy. The tremendous difference in scale between the soaring buildings and people in the street astonished him and it took a couple of years before he felt ready to take photographs; first of details of buildings at street level, of candy stores, barber shops, Coca Cola signs-straight on, at right angles-Mondrian had given him permission to do that.

Soon, with a small hand-held camera he also snapped moments of people in the anonymous space of midtown as they moved against each other, barely avoiding collision, on any day, doing their dance, in traffic, against storefronts, hydrants, signs.

Denby meanwhile was writing sonnets about the city, some of them to go with Burckhardt's photos. Here in this film, many years later the two come together as Denby reads his sonnets while Burckhardt's photos appear on the screen. Denby is also well known as a dance critic.

P R O D U C E R   &   D I R E C T O R : Edgar B. Howard
B & W ,  8   M I N U T E S
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