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Ralph Steiner (1899-1986)

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Birthplace:
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Born:
February 8, 1899

Died:
July 13, 1986

Biography from TheMovieDB

Ralph Steiner (February 8, 1899 – July 13, 1986) was an American photographer, pioneering documentarian, and a prominent figure in the avant-garde film movement of the 1930s. Known for his innovative approach to visual storytelling, Steiner's work in both still photography and film helped shape the development of American documentary filmmaking. He is perhaps best remembered for his groundbreaking films like H2O (1933) and The City (1939), which showcased his unique ability to merge aesthetics with social and environmental themes. His avant-garde style, blending abstract imagery with real-world subjects, pushed the boundaries of both documentary and experimental cinema. Throughout his career, Steiner was deeply committed to using film as a means to reflect the complexities of modern life and human experience.

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Film Performances

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Film Production

Camera Operator:
1941  Youth Gets a Break

Cinematography:
1937  People of the Cumberland
1941  Youth Gets a Break

Director:
1929  H₂O
1930  Mechanical Principles
1931  Panther Woman of the Needle Trades, or The Lovely Life of Little Lisa
1931  Surf and Seaweed
1934  Hands
1935  Pie in the Sky
1937  People of the Cumberland
1937  The World Today: The Black Legion - Shadow of Fascism Over America
1939  The City
1941  Youth Gets a Break
1974  Look Park
1975  Hurrah for Light
1975  Slowdown

Director of Photography:
1929  H₂O
1930  Mechanical Principles
1931  Panther Woman of the Needle Trades, or The Lovely Life of Little Lisa
1931  Surf and Seaweed
1934  Hands
1935  Pie in the Sky
1936  The Plow That Broke the Plains
1937  People of the Cumberland
1937  The World Today: The Black Legion - Shadow of Fascism Over America
1939  The City
1941  Youth Gets a Break
1974  Look Park
1975  Hurrah for Light
1975  Slowdown

Editor:
1929  H₂O
1930  Mechanical Principles
1931  Panther Woman of the Needle Trades, or The Lovely Life of Little Lisa
1931  Surf and Seaweed
1934  Hands
1935  Pie in the Sky
1936  The Plow That Broke the Plains
1937  People of the Cumberland
1937  The World Today: The Black Legion - Shadow of Fascism Over America
1939  The City
1941  Youth Gets a Break
1974  Look Park
1975  Hurrah for Light
1975  Slowdown

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While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

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Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).

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Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.