Film
LEO HURWITZ
THE YOUNG FIGHTER 1953
Who Does Ray Drake Belong To?
The Young Fighter (Watch film) begins with a tough Brooklyn narrator’s voice. Tough as the boxing world is tough, tough as Ray Drake’s manager and trainer are tough; tough as the decision Ray Drake had to make. Would he become the Champ his manager and trainer were bent on making or the family man he…
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LEO HURWITZ
STRANGE VICTORY 1948
Hate: Its Tenacity and Its Purpose
Leo Hurwitz’s powerful 1948 WWII documentary, with its ironic title Strange Victory (Watch Here), is just as timely today as it was then. Because the film explores the inescapable question: “If we won, why do we look as if we lost? And, if Hitler died, why does his voice still pursue us through the spaces…
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FLORIDA PROJECT
How A (Seemingly)
Happy Life Can Shatter
Life doesn’t shatter in an instant, but it can seem like it when you live in a delusionally “happy,” thumbing your nose at all kinds of rules, sort of “fun.” This is the stuff of mania and mania teeters on a very delicate balance; it can easily come crashing down. Plus manic defiance is no…
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LEO HURWITZ
NATIVE LAND 1943
Forces Against Labor Rights
The Making of Native Land Leo Hurwitz’s Native Land (Watch Film) is a 1942 expose of repressive forces against labor organizing. The film is based on the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee’s (1936-1941) 65 volumes of testimony to the Senate on their investigation. And, the investigation’s results couldn’t be more troubling. The Committee found that…
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LION
Where is Home?
A Lost Boy & Adoption
Two Mothers & Jalebi Clues
Where is home? That’s the complicated question at the heart of Garth Davis’ film Lion, for a lost, bewildered, illiterate, scared, traumatized, stoically brave, and lovingly gentle 5-year-old boy, Saroo (Sunny Pawar). This little boy accidentally finds himself on a train taking him far, far from home, where he can’t speak the language and has…
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LEO HURWITZ
HEART OF SPAIN 1937
In A Dictatorship Human Hearts Don’t Matter
In a dictatorship, human hearts don’t matter. Leo Hurwitz shows this frightening reality in his powerful film, Heart of Spain 1937. America is now in a fight similar to that of Spain’s democratically elected republic against fascist General Francisco Franco. We need a conduit of empathy similar to Dr. Norman Bethane’s blood transfusions to soldiers in…
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