Three Portraits of Chicago by Helen Balfour Morrison
In 2023, Chicago Film Archives board member Larry Shulman funded the photochemical preservation of three short 8mm films of Chicago city scenes made circa 1940 by photographer and filmmaker Helen Balfour Morrison. These films are the earliest known motion picture works created by Morrison, who would go on to become a prolific filmmaker through her creative partnership with choreographer and dancer Sybil Shearer.
Partially supported by the Morrison-Shearer Foundation, all of Morrison’s motion picture film elements now reside at Chicago Film Archives in the Morrison-Shearer Collection. The three films preserved by this project previously existed as unique 8mm reversal originals. Working with Colorlab, we have produced new 16mm preservation negatives and preservation prints of these reels on polyester film base as well as 4K digital scans, ensuring a long future life for these films.
About Helen Balfour Morrison
Helen Balfour Morrison (1901-1984) was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois. While in high school, Helen began working in a local photography studio. She learned portrait photography and how to develop and print photos in the lab. She eventually developed a thriving photography practice in Chicago’s North Shore with her younger brother. During this time, Helen fell ill on several occasions, spending months in a hospital. In 1926 she met and married Robert Morrison. After several more bouts of ill health, she left the business to her brother.
Nevertheless, Morrison’s interest in photography was not totally extinguished. In 1934, after hearing landscape architect Jens Jensen speak, she knew she had to photograph the man, and indeed got him to sit for her. This became the first in a series of photographic portraits called “Great Americans,” which grew to include portraits of over 200 people, including Amelia Earhart, Jane Addams, John Cage, and Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. These portraits were never published in book form, but hung in the Art Institute of Chicago in 1944, followed by exhibitions at galleries throughout the country.
During the mid-to-late 1930s, Morrison shot a series of photographic portraits of African American families in rural Kentucky. It was during this period she filmed the sequences in downtown Chicago on 8mm motion film.
In 1942 Helen Morrison met dancer and choreographer Sybil Shearer. They formed an enduring artistic partnership that continued until Morrison’s death in 1987. Morrison designed the lighting and filmed the dances performed by Sybil Shearer and her company.
The Films
The 8mm reels preserved as part of this project depict the random and accidental interactions between city dwellers who make their way through the teeming and chaotic urban landscape. A police officer blows his whistle and then pivots out of frame as an automobile speeds through the spot he just vacated. A well-dressed businessman pushes through a crowded sidewalk of pedestrians as the bright neon sign of Chicago’s famed Blackhawk Restaurant blinks in the background. The rapid exchange of nickels for newspapers that are quickly folded and jammed into the hands of people who rush to work. A large sign asks “Are You Buggy? Fumigate yourself!”. A fast-order chef attired in crisp whites in casual conversation with five fedoras in dark coats at his lunch counter. A couple navigates snowy boulevards in high heels and fancy hats, the man’s hands stuffed deep into his pockets as a trolley car slowly rolls through the frame just in front of them. One lucky man finds a belt in a downtown State Street gutter. He absently picks it up, considers it and straps it around his waist. A horse drawn Bowman Dairy truck shares the road with an electric trolley car as they swish past each other in opposite directions.
Much like her still photographs, Morrison’s 8mm films extract a map of human complexities via her composition and use of light. Her cinematography is subtle; almost undetectable, yet it quietly draws you into the unmistakable source of energy she finds in her subjects. Her compositions frame and express human dynamics that trigger an imagined life lived far beyond the few seconds we witness in her films.
Morrison’s work as a cinematographer ultimately settled into the controlled space of a dance studio filming the single subject with whom she shared a vision, choreographer/dancer Sybil Shearer. In 2022, with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation, CFA photochemically preserved four 16mm reels documenting sixteen solo dances choreographed and performed by Sybil Shearer and filmed by Morrison.
The three 8mm reels preserved by this year’s project predate her work with Shearer, and they anticipate her ability to instinctively design a way of seeing and capturing the chaotic, unpredictable human impulses found in public life.
If you are a programmer or curator interested in showing one of these films, please contact us at info@chicagofilmarchives.org