ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: ‘LITTLE FUGITIVE’
TUESDAY 4/18. Riverdale 10 Cinema. 7 p.m.
Produced in a period where the advent of affordable, portable cameras made it possible for anyone with an interest in film to produce one (not unlike the cellphone revolution of today), “Little Fugitive” (1953) — a black-and-white movie about a 7-year-old boy who goes on the run to Coney Island after mistakenly thinking he’s killed his older brother — was so influential that Francois Truffaut claimed in a New Yorker interview that “our [French] New Wave would never have come into being” if directors Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and Raymond Abrashkin hadn’t brought it into existence.
The Film Foundation describes the filming process as one that relied heavily on a 35mm camera that Engel “strapped on his body so he could follow the child around in an unobtrusive way, capturing the real rhythms of his Brooklyn neighborhood and residents, as well as the Coney Island summer crowds, all unwitting extras,” solidifying how “Little Fugitive” fits into the Arkansas Times Film Series’ recent interest in the blurring of lines between documentary and narrative techniques. Get your tickets here.