Maker: Ralph Steiner
Original format: 35mm silent film 1.33:1
New music: Donald Sosin
Courtesy Ralph Steiner

Steiner's "H2O" depicts water under a variety of forms, increasingly focusing on its ability to create a multileveled reality of surface and reflection. Ultimately, the film produces a phantasmagoria of light and shadow that renders its simple title almost ludicrous. -Scott MacDonald

Educated at Dartmouth, Ralph Steiner (1899-1986) became a successful commercial and much honored fine art photographer. He made perhaps the first American abstract film, H2O (1929), following it with other experiments, some political in nature, some in Hollywood. Steiner also photographed The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and co-directed and photographed The City (1939) with Willard Van Dyke. -Robert A. Haller