Word: hine
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That the camera could achieve a distinctly poetic justice would be proved a few years later by Lewis Hine, a onetime photography teacher who worked with a reformer's sense of mission and an artist's eye. Riis' pictures were raw; Hine's were frank but tender, with none of Riis' occasional nose-holding attitude toward the poor. There is no pigeonholing in Hine's 1904 portraits of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, no cliches of nationality or occupation. He knew that people who might not yet speak the language of their new home could still state themselves plainly...
...Later Hine worked for nearly a decade taking pictures of child laborers, sometimes gulling suspicious mill owners into thinking he was there to photograph their machinery, all the while keeping one hand in his pocket for clandestine note taking. He saw his pictures as evidence, "photographic proof" that would move public opinion to demand laws to remove children from factories. His data would be the grime written upon their young faces; his evidence would be the weariness in their eyes...
...film's only other redeeming quality is its electric musical numbers. Gregory Hines is a excellent dancer, and prolonged choreographer Michael Sonian makes use of Hine's unusual talent and presence. Chorus members wearing another costumes, move effortlessly through complex dance pieces, while instrumentalists captivate the audience with their bleary tunes...