Men at Lunch

It's well worth taking the time to recognize the salt of the earth that was within the men in this photograph, and the many others who were not photographed.

What a crucible this time period and this profession was! It was sink or swim or spend all day walking on a four-inch wide steel girder. Their courage and perseverance represented more than just American culture, but the modern era itself.

This documentary film doesn't allow the viewer to miss the "every man" aspect of not just the men who did the construction work, but the photographers who put themselves in harms way in order to give record to those feats of construction.

How many of those men on the girder were hired off the back of a truck that same week? None of them including the photographer who took the photo were ever kept in any company record.

In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper," the iconic photograph taken during the construction of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

As shown in the film, people today still connected to the image, despite no one knowing who is in the photo and no one knowing who took the shot (it has been credited to Charles Clyde Ebbets since 2003). Many see their ancestors in it, though there is very little to corroborate this -- the men could be Irish, Scandinavian or anything else.

Ultimately, the film is interesting but never really gets to the heart of the matter and because of that drags a bit at times. While seeing the archives at Corbis is quite interesting, a few more answers might have been nice.

This is a documentary about an iconic photograph picture taken on Sept 20, 1963 of 11 ironworkers sitting on a beam high above at 30 Rock having lunch.

The movie examines the aesthetics which was interesting but gets repetitive. Then we find the negatives in Pennsylvania's Iron Mountain underground vaults which proves it's authenticity but also cool to see the collection.

Finally we get to the heart of the documentary. We go find the identities of the workers on the beam and the photographer. In that, it was rather disappointing. Other than 2 workers, we aren't given much and there isn't a definitive ID on the photographer either. But it drags on and on after that. It's a interesting look at an iconic image. But the film doesn't have the material to fill 75 minutes. It's probably good for 40 minutes.

11/20/17. There is, perhaps, no other photo of men at work, sitting and eating lunch on an iron girder, hanging mid-air, high up in front of the New York City skyline, that captures how immigrants to the U.S. built the America we know today. Interesting look at researching who these men were and the photographers who took the photos, mostly for newspapers, makes for an interesting watch.