Leo Hurwitz was an American documentary filmmaker.
16 Facts About Leo Hurwitz
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Leo Hurwitz was blacklisted during the McCarthy period for his strong left-wing political beliefs.
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Leo Hurwitz grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
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Leo Hurwitz had four sisters, including dancer Sophia Delza and psychoanalyst Marie Briehl.
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Highly gifted and hard working, Leo Hurwitz won the scholarship and attended Harvard University.
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Disregard for film aesthetics was something that Leo Hurwitz opposed; after studying the techniques employed by many of the Soviet filmmakers of the time, Leo Hurwitz recognized the importance of editing and the complex beauty of the juxtaposition of shots to convey an otherwise undecipherable message.
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Leo Hurwitz joined with a few other members of the League to create Nykino, an organization that strove to use artistic measures to appeal to audiences while still conveying a meaningful message.
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Nykino, in producing films that emphasized aesthetic beauty in the interest of affecting audiences, allowed Leo Hurwitz to create a new method of storytelling unlike that of conventional American films of the time.
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In 1936, Nykino transformed into Leo Hurwitz's co-founded company, Frontier Films, the first nonprofit documentary production company in the United States.
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Whilst at Frontier Films, Leo Hurwitz made Heart of Spain, a film on the Spanish Civil War and Native Land about American labor struggles of the 1930s.
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In World War II, Leo Hurwitz worked on films for the Office of War Information, the British Information Service and other Government agencies.
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In 1961, Leo Hurwitz directed the television coverage of the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem for producer Milton Fruchtman and Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation, including the summary documentary Verdict for Tomorrow.
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From 1969 to 1974, Leo Hurwitz was professor of film and chairman of the Graduate Institute of Film and Television at New York University.
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Leo Hurwitz's work has been the subject of several retrospectives showings, including ones at the Museum of Modern Art, the Public Theater and the Cinemathique Francaise in Paris.
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Leo Hurwitz married then later divorced choreographer Jane Dudley; their son, Tom Leo Hurwitz, is a documentary cinematographer.
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Leo Hurwitz died age 81 on January 18,1991, of colon cancer at his home in New York City.