Steel is an enrapturing short subject, mercifully rescued from obscurity and restored to its original 3-strip Technicolor glory by the BFI.
It documents the process and production of steel from the mining of the minerals to the molding of the final product. Shot in steel mills, foundries, furnaces and the like, it's incredibly fascinating to see the level of detail that goes into something we all take for granted.
As a film, it's very well shot and very cleverly edited, with attention to rhythm in sequences of industrial pounding and mechanics. I bet David Lynch would have loved this if he's seen it. The colours are something else, evoking their own drama with each stage of the process like the best conventional Techinicolor films of the time did.
The narrator does his job in that typical 40s received pronunciation stoic style, making one long for a return for these sorts of standards to modern TV and film instead of the crudity and commonness we get nowadays.
A fascinating gem.
It documents the process and production of steel from the mining of the minerals to the molding of the final product. Shot in steel mills, foundries, furnaces and the like, it's incredibly fascinating to see the level of detail that goes into something we all take for granted.
As a film, it's very well shot and very cleverly edited, with attention to rhythm in sequences of industrial pounding and mechanics. I bet David Lynch would have loved this if he's seen it. The colours are something else, evoking their own drama with each stage of the process like the best conventional Techinicolor films of the time did.
The narrator does his job in that typical 40s received pronunciation stoic style, making one long for a return for these sorts of standards to modern TV and film instead of the crudity and commonness we get nowadays.
A fascinating gem.
