The River

The River blends poetic narration with artistic cinematography and an original score by composer Virgil Thomson and was named Best Documentary at the Venice Film Festival in 1938. The script for the film was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and was also described by author James Joyce as "the most beautiful prose I have heard in ten years". The River demonstrated the potential of documentary films as a powerful impetus for social change, prompting widespread discussion not only of the problems they presented but also of the documentary form itself.