Jay Leyda

Quote:
A Bronx morning is a portrait of a place and time, simultaneously a documentary, an avant-garde experiment, and an amateur film–although its compositional beauty and complex editing disguise that it is a 21-year old’s first attempt at moviemaking. Architectural abstractions are only part of Leyda’s portrait. The film soon naturalizes its abstractions into a vibrant vision of children’s games and adult commerce on the summer streets of the Bronx, the New York borough northeast of Manhattan.Read More »

Quote:
In 1954, Upton Sinclair donated 100,000 feet of film shot by Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico to the Museum of Modern Art. From this footage, Jay Leyda, assisted by Manfred Kirchheimer, created an almost four hour long assemblage titled “Eisenstein’s Mexican Film: Episodes for Study.” The film is silent with explanatory titles. The MOMA footage was later re-edited by Grigori Aleksandrov to create the 1979 version of “Que Viva Mexico”.Read More »