Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

bettycjung 11/20/17. There is, perhaps, no other photo of men at work, sitting and eating lunch on an iron girder, hanging mid-air, high up in front of the New York City skyline, that captures how immigrants to the U.S. built the America we know today. Interesting look at researching who these men were and the photographers who took the photos, mostly for newspapers, makes for an interesting watch.

justdedicate It's one of most recognisable pictures in the world and the documentary maker point out, everyone wants to see something of themselves in the photo. Everyone seems to know an uncle, a cousin, a grandfather who apparently sat on that famous girder. If they were all there, they probably could have filled at least 10 girders. The truth is we know very little about those men and as much as people like to believe they see their father in that picture, there are five other people who claim the same man as their relative.Does this documentary reveal anything we don't already know? Not really, the usual facts are repeated, but then the documentary maker plays his trump card: he knows the identity of two of the men! Exciting right? Two of the men come from the west of Ireland. How does he know? Their sons recognised their respective fathers. Wait, didn't the documentary maker not spent the first 30 minutes explaining everyone does this? That there is no basis for it and we all like to think we know someone who sat on that famous girder? What about the evidence? Well, he argues, they know their fathers so, you know, they just know. That's it, that's pretty much the whole basis of the documentary.It's a oddly flawed documentary. It tries to give us some background of the sort of men who risked their to earn a living as steel workers, but it's all too generic, we don't really learn anything new. The 'revelation' doesn't work as he has no evidence and he already explained himself that it's unlikely to be true. So what are left with? Not much to be honest.

beirne-2 I was disappointed in the film. I like the picture and I was hoping for a lot of research into the identities of the people in it, but a major portion of the movie was devoted to saying how good the photo is, something I already know and agree with. Meanwhile, the research is light. They know two of the names based on captions on a related picture, but let things drop. They don't try to track down the people at all. Genealogists can do this kind of research but apparently they weren't brought in. They did come up with possible identities for two of the others, and that was good, but then the movie went back to talking about how wonderful the photo was and adding some general historical background. I didn't expect a 65-minute film to be too long but this one was.

gavin6942 In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper," the iconic photograph taken during the construction of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.As shown in the film, people today still connected to the image, despite no one knowing who is in the photo and no one knowing who took the shot (it has been credited to Charles Clyde Ebbets since 2003). Many see their ancestors in it, though there is very little to corroborate this -- the men could be Irish, Scandinavian or anything else.Ultimately, the film is interesting but never really gets to the heart of the matter and because of that drags a bit at times. While seeing the archives at Corbis is quite interesting, a few more answers might have been nice.