The Crowd (1928) (with live score)

“I made pictures as a good employee and pictures that came out of my own insides. This is one that came out of my guts. There was a lot of hypocrisy in early films and I wanted to get away from it”

– Director King Vidor on The Crowd

Join Finch Community Cinema for King Vidor’s classic The Crowd (1928): a daring landmark of early social realist cinema, which captures the high drama of one ordinary life in NYC with expressionist visual flare.  

Ruffling feathers within the studio system at the time and offering a quietly subversive take on the American dream, the film follows lowly clerk John Sims (James Murray), “one of the seven million that believe New York depends on them”, and his love, Mary (Eleanor Boardman), as they try to find happiness in the merciless metropolis.

The feature will be paired with the short Manhatta (1921), a ‘city symphony’ docu-portrait of Manhattan co-directed by Modernist artists Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand - often cited as the first American avant-garde film.

Accompanied by live original music from silent film pianist Ashley Valentine. With an introduction by event curator Ellen Cleary.

Tickets are pay-what-you-can on a sliding scale starting at £5. 15% of all ticket sales go to MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians).