Talk:The Pottery Maker

"The Pottery Maker (1926) film by Robert J. Flaherty
Unfortunately, this article with its charming tale of a Laotian potter is almost entirely false.

Flaherty did indeed make a short film titled "The Pottery Maker," but it was completed in 1926.

In “The Pottery Maker” (1926), an elderly woman brings her granddaughter to a pottery studio in search of a new pitcher—but the mischievous youngster has other plans. This enchanting short film, among the earliest made by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is directed by the renowned filmmaker Robert Flaherty, famous for his feature-length documentaries “Nanook of the North” (1922) and “Moana” (1926).

Origins: While in New York waiting for his second feature, "Moana," to be released (it premiered in New York in February, 1926), Flaherty made a short film for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "The Pottery Maker: An American Episode of the XIX Century." (1)

Filming Filming began in 1925 or '26, at the Greenwich House Pottery, then located at 27 Barrow Street, in New York City's Greenwich Village. The potter was Victor Raffo, the Pottery's first student and a long-term instructor there. His daughter, Ruth, played the young girl. The older woman was Elizabeth "Libbie" Bacon Custer, widow of General George Custer. (2) According to a New York Times article dated May 28, 1926, (3) the film was in production. By September of that year, the film had been completed. (4)

Release and critic response: Initially screened for the Metropolitan Museum's Board of Trustees, for many years "The Pottery Maker" was distributed to libraries and educational facilities as part of the Museum's film rental program. In May, 2020, The Met posted a new digital file of the film to its own website and to YouTube. The film is accompanied by a new musical score, composed and performed by Ben Model. To learn more, please visit: https://www.silentfilmmusic.com

External links https://www.metmuseum.org/150/from-the-vaults?v=the-pottery-maker-1926-from-the-vaults

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8sm0S13wD8 1. “In 1926, Flaherty made two short sponsored films. The first, financed by the actress Maude Adams, a great admirer of Flaherty, for the Metropolitan Museum, was The Pottery Maker. A humble experiment using the new Mazda incandescent lamps instead of mercury vapour lights, it was shot in the Museum basement in collaboration with the Arts and Crafts Department. It proved to be important only as a preliminary study for the pottery-making sequence in Industrial Britain [1931 or ’33 or ‘34], and also perhaps in the humiliating discipline of the sponsored film, which Flaherty never accepted.” Arthur Calder-Marshall, The Innocent Eye: The Life of Robert Flaherty (London: W.H. Allen, 1963)

2. https://www.facebook.com/greenwichhousepottery/posts/the-pottery-maker-a-film-made-by-robert-j-flaherty-of-nanook-of-the-north-fame-a/10153733290973962

3. www.nytimes.com/1926/05/28/archives/maude-adams-aids-in-art-museum-film-lighting-systems-devised-by-the.html. Please note that the assistant in charge of cinema work was named Grace O. Clarke. Also please note that the Museum did not have a 'department of arts and crafts.'

4. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin" Vol. 21, No. 9 (September 1926)

2604:2000:12C0:85A2:79CF:4549:5DB9:FC99 (talk) 18:23, 15 May 2020 (UTC)Robin Schwalb, Robin.schwalb@metmuseum.org
 * it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. For your next edit request do replace your Facebook and YouTube sources, they are unreliable and are not used on Wikipedia. Donna Spencer talk-to-me ⛅ 19:46, 24 May 2020 (UTC)