The River (1938 film)

{{short description|1938 documentary film directed by Pare Lorentz}}

{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}

{{Infobox film

| name = The River

| image = File:Film Poster for "The River" - NARA - 95115895.jpg

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Pare Lorentz

| writer = Pare Lorentz

| cinematography = Floyd Crosby
Willard Van Dyke
Stacy Woodard

| distributor = Farm Security Administration

| released = {{film date|1938|2|4}}

| runtime = 31 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

}}

The River is a 1938 short documentary film which shows the importance of the Mississippi River to the United States, and how farming and timber practices had caused topsoil to be swept down the river and into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to catastrophic floods and impoverishing farmers. It ends by briefly describing how the Tennessee Valley Authority project was beginning to reverse these problems.

It was written and directed by Pare Lorentz and, like Lorentz's earlier 1936 documentary The Plow That Broke the Plains, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in 1990.{{Cite web|title=Complete National Film Registry Listing |url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/|website=Library of Congress|access-date=2020-05-08}}{{Cite news|last1=Gamarekian|first1=Barbara|last2=Times|first2=Special To the New York|date=1990-10-19|title=Library of Congress Adds 25 Titles to National Film Registry|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/19/movies/library-of-congress-adds-25-titles-to-national-film-registry.html|access-date=2020-08-06|issn=0362-4331}} The film won the "best documentary" category at the 1938 Venice International Film Festival.

Both films have notable scores by Virgil Thomson that are still heard as concert suites, featuring an adaptation of the hymn "How Firm a Foundation". The film was narrated by the American baritone Thomas Hardie Chalmers. Thomson's score was heavily adapted from his own concert work Symphony on a Hymn Tune.{{cite AV media notes |title=THOMSON, V.: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 / Symphony on a Hymn Tune |year=2000 |url=http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.559022&catNum=559022&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English |first1=Marina |last1=Ledin | last2=Ledin|first2=Victor |format=CD liner note |publisher=Naxos Records}} The River later served as the score for the 1983 TV movie The Day After.{{cite news |last=Stuever |first=Hank |author-link=Hank Stuever |title='Convincing catastrophe': What The Post's TV critic wrote about 'The Day After' in 1983 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=May 11, 2016 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/05/11/convincing-catastrophe-what-the-posts-tv-critic-wrote-about-the-day-after-in-1983/ |access-date=September 13, 2017}}

The two films were sponsored by the U.S. government and specifically the Resettlement Administration (RA) to raise awareness about the New Deal. The RA was folded into the Farm Security Administration in 1937, so The River was officially an FSA production.

There is also a companion book, The River.{{Cite book

| last = Lorentz

| first = Pare

| author-link = Pare Lorentz

| title = The River

| publisher = Stackpole Sons

| year = 1938

| location = New York

}} no page numbers, text and photo stills, mostly from the film The text was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in that year.