In the 1953 film, Little Fugitive, a seven year old boy named Joey flees to Coney Island after he mi

In the 1953 film, Little Fugitive, a seven year old boy named Joey flees to Coney Island after he mistakenly thinks he shot and killed his older brother. The production was written, directed and edited by Morris Engel, Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin and stemmed from Engel’s association with the New York Photo League, rather than a knowledge of Hollywood motifs. Orkin, who grew up and worked in Hollywood, edited the film and provided insider knowledge at a time when underground filmmaking was rare and the challenges prohibitive.The film features Joey spending a weekend enjoying the sights and snacks of Coney Island as his older brother anxiously searches for him. Little Fugitive depicts Coney Island as a welcome space for a little boy, Joey blends into the faceless crowds and easily survives on soda bottle deposits. Both Engel and Orkin’s photographic rigor is on demonstrated in the production still on view in Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland which renders the sand below the boardwalk as a both an abstraction of the sea and the American flag, similar to Frank Stella’s painting Coney Island (1958) on the opposite wall in the exhibition.Little Fugitive is notable for its naturalistic style which used mostly non-professional actors and an innovative chest-mounted camera that allowed Engel to film the Coney Island crowds unnoticed. The technique—and its impressive results—proved hugely influential for avant-garde film, particularly for the French New Wave. The acclaimed director Francois Truffaut praised Little Fugitive stating: “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with [this] fine movie.” In a laid-back manner, Coney Island is presented as both a home-away-from-home and an open frontier welcoming exploration for the young and adventurous.Posted by Robert SohmerImage: Little Fugitive, production still, 1953. A Morris Engel Production. Photo: Joseph Burstyn/Photofest; © Joseph Burstyn, Inc.; © Morris Engel -- source link
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