Rothstein’s First Assignment
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An artist/filmmaker goes to Shenandoah National Park to trace the route of photographer Arthur Rothstein’s first assignment in 1935 to explore notions of documentary truth. The project starts as an experiment, investigating the aspects of surveillance and representation in documentary photography. The initial goal is to demonstrate how documentaries work.
Rothstein’s assignment is chosen because it marked the beginning of what would become the FSA Photographic Archive, where Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and others, would produce the most important photographic record of the American Depression. The FSA photographers were the first to be called “Documentary Photographers.”
The official story behind the assignment is that Arthur Rothstein in 1935 photographed residents of what is now Shenandoah National Park, before they were to be moved to new government homes in the Shenandoah Valley. A Washington Post article, with Rothstein’s photographs, writes that mountain residents were being moved from the 19th to the 20th century.
But there are problems with Rothstein’s account of his assignment. Why did he photograph an apple vendor, yet not photograph an eviction nearby? His assignment was to photograph residents being moved from the Park. Why did he not label his photograph of a social worker, who was well known for having worked with his subjects for years? Why does he create a myth around the assignment that couldn’t possibly be true?
When it’s discovered that an obscure film in the National Archives documented Rothstein’s subjects before his arrival, another story emerges. We come to find that Rothstein’s subjects had been documented by other photographers and filmmakers for years before his arrival. Eventually it’s revealed that the true fate of Rothstein’s subjects is connected to an institution in Virginia once called “The Colony.” An institution with a dark secret that would later inspire Hitler.
With archival footage, an oral interview with Arthur Rothstein, archival documents and photographs combined with original interviews of former park residents and descendants of Rothstein’s subjects; Rothstein’s First Assignment takes us on a journey to reveal what happened to the people Rothstein photographed. Along the way it questions our belief in the nature of documentary truth. 72min
