DD ARTS: It’s one of the most iconic photographs ever taken and there’s also a great story behind the image.
Everybody knows the photograph “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” taken during construction at the Rockefeller Centre in 1932.
But its background had remained a mystery: despite extensive research, neither the 11 ironworkers nor the photographer had been definitively identified.
The photographer and subjects have remained unknown for the past 80 years, but in 2007 a chance discovery of a special framed copy of the photograph in Whelan’s pub, Galway, led Connemara filmmaker Sean Ó Cualáin and his brother Eamon to tell the remarkable story of two of the men photographed on the girder.
The Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny is to show the documentary Men At Lunch on Thursday at 8pm as part of the 19th Annual Bealtaine Festival.
The description on the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) site says about the documentary: “Ever since the photograph was published anonymously in the New York Herald Tribune on October 2, 1932, the men’s identities have been a mystery.
“Many of those who have been fascinated by the photo throughout the years have shared the conviction that one of the workers is a distant relative; others, meanwhile, have questioned the photo’s authenticity outright.”
“Accessing the vast photography archives at Rockefeller Center and the Iron Mountain storage facility in Pennsylvania, Ó Cualáin follows the clues in an attempt to discover the photo’s long-held secrets.
“With the meticulous, painstaking precision of a detective, Ó Cualáin tracks down the original glass-plate negative, and then reconstructs the photograph as a digital projection with actors recreating the workers’ poses, allowing the minutiae of the image to be studied from every possible perspective. Interviews with archivists, photographers, and historians eventually uncover compelling evidence that a few of the photo’s subjects may have roots in the small village of Shanaglish, Ireland.”
Men At Lunch Thursday May 26th, 8pm, Regional Cultural Centre. Admission is free but advanced booking is advised.
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