Beach and farm in Palestine, 1934
Creator(s)
- Mr. Peter Gessner
- Robert J. Gessner (Camera Operator)
Biographical History
Robert Gessner was born on October 21, 1907 in Escanaba, MI. He obtained a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1929 and a M.A. from Columbia University in 1930. He started teaching at New York University in 1930. He married Doris Lindeman on May 27, 1938 and had two children, Peter and Stephen. Mr. Gessner was a screen playwright and the author of several books, including "Massacre" (1931); "Broken Arrow" (1933); "Some of My Best Friends are Jews" (1936); "Treason" (1944); "Youth is the Time" (1945). He was a pioneer educator in motion pictures as an art form. Gessner founded the Motion Picture Department (now Cinema Studies) at NYU in 1941, the first four-year film curriculum leading to a B.A. degree in motion picture studies in the United States. He finished his book "The Moving Image, A Guide to Cinematic Literacy" before he died in June 1968.
Scope and Content
Low quality view of waterfront houses shot from a boat. Other ships in the water. On the shore, men and a young boy stare at the camera. 01:00:28 A man in a striped shirt jogs along the beach. Tel Aviv? Beach chairs and a beach shack that says the words “JUDAN AMITEL BEER”. A man wears a traditional Middle Eastern headdress on the beach and looks at the camera. 01:00:42 The man in the stripes walks behind him waves at the camera. Another man (Gessner?) asks a man on the beach for directions, indicated by their hand gestures. People lay in the sand. A fully-clothed man sits in a beach chair with a basket at his feet while another man clothed in just shorts bends over to look through the basket. He picks something out and hands the man money. The front sign of the beach shack is now visible, “BLACK and WHITE...” Three people in headdresses walk across the beach, past two other men having a conversation. A man stands knee-deep in the ocean holding a fishing rod. 01:01:16 Rectangular building and landscape beyond. Houses in rows. A woman turns a faucet on next to a cow pen. INT a woman holds a young boy and an older woman leans over the table of what appears to be a restaurant host. 01:01:51 EXT a woman holding a bucket with her arm extended while a flock of chickens eats the feed she has given them. A man stands next to her. 01:02:07 Another man use a hoe to dig away at the base of a plant growing in a vineyard. Water flows through to the base of the plant. Two men stand talking in the field, the one on the right holds a book of some kind. Water rushes out of a pipe and a man fills a cup up with it. Man pumps water through while two other men watch. WS of the men around the pipe.
Note(s)
Robert Gessner published a book in 1936 about his overseas travels called "Some of my Best Friends Are Jews"
Subjects
- BEACHES
- PALESTINE
- FARMERS/FARMING
- CIVILIANS
- TOURISM/SIGHTSEEING
Places
- , Palestine
- Tel Aviv, Israel
Genre
- Film
- Amateur.