Manhatta

thumb|upright=1.15|thumbtime=5|Full film Manhatta (1921) is a short documentary film directed by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand.

==Production background== Manhatta documents the early 20th-century look of Manhattan. With the city as subject, the film consists of 65 shots sequenced in a loose non-narrative structure, beginning with the Staten Island ferry approaching Manhattan and concludes with a sunset view from a skyscraper. Often considered by some to be the first American avant-garde film, its primary objective is to explore the relationship between photography and film. Camera movement is kept to a minimum, as is incidental motion within each shot. Each frame provides a view of the city that has been carefully arranged into abstract compositions, capturing the rhythmic patterns of the emerging metropolis.Manhatta was a collaboration between painter/photographer Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand. The film features intertitles that include excerpts from the writings of Walt Whitman.