Manfred Kirchheimer
Manfred Alexander Kirchheimer was an American documentary film maker and professor of film at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He previously taught at NYIT. He was born in Saarbrücken, Germany, and his family moved to New York City in 1936 to escape Nazi Germany. After receiving a B.A. from the City College of New York in 1952, he worked primarily as a film editor and he also began making his own films. A major theme in many of his documentaries is urban life. His most notable documentaries include: Stations of the Elevated, We Were So Beloved, Tall: [The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan], and Art Is... The Permanent Revolution.
Biography
Manfred Alexander Kirchheimer was born to a Jewish family in Saarbrücken in 1931. In 1936, his family fled to the United States from Nazi Germany, settling in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. After arriving, he attended the New York City Public Schools. Upon graduating high school, he began studying film production with Hans Richter at the Hans Richter Institute of Film Techniques at the City College of New York from 1948 to 1952, receiving a B.A.For the next 24 years, Kirchheimer worked as an editor, director, and camera operator in the New York film industry. He edited on over 300 films for ABC, CBS, NBC, and National Educational Television. The subjects of these films ranged from cultural to biographical. During these years, he also financed his own independent films while also working with Hans Richter and Jay Leyda on films. In 1963, he was a camera operator for Leo Hurwitz.
In the 1970s, Kirchheimer became a professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City where he taught film production; he was part of the faculty for the next four decades. However, after making the documentary We Were So Beloved, he stepped away from filmmaking until 2006, when he embraced digital film editing and returned with Tall: The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan. This began a new flurry of activity, which continued as late as 2022, as he made new projects and worked with old footage he had shot decades before.
Personal life and death
Kirchheimer was married to the former Gloria DeVidas, and had two children. He died from cancer at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on July 16, 2024, at the age of 93.Filmography
Style
Kirchheimer's films typically focus on aspects of urban life. His films have been described as "hopeful, yet they admonish for the future". He typically uses written commentary on screen rather than voice-over in his films. He often creates complex layerings of sound to create novel sound environments rather than the sound at the actual scene. About his audience he has saidKirchheimer did not typically collaborate with other filmmakers, saying: