ABSTRACT
Robert Florey arrived in the United States in 1921 as a correspondent for Cinemagazine. He made several experimental shorts before Skyscraper Symphony, of which Life and Death Of 9413: A Hollywood Extra with Slavko Vorkapich and Gregg Toland, and The Loves of Zero survive. Skyscraper Symphony is also heir to the emerging tradition of the New York City symphony films of both Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's Manhatta and Robert Flaherty's Twenty-Four Dollar Island. Skyscraper Symphony ends at a point of origin with the gaping hole of a construction site—or, rather, a nascent building—which was a common sight in 1920s Manhattan, which imbues the film with a circular logic and interminability. In the final sequence, which resembles a segment of Strand and Sheeler's Manhatta, Florey juxtaposes the stalwart, vertical stability of the skyscraper with the diagonal motion of an elevated train, a ballet of movement and stasis.
