Pare Lorentz (December 11, 1905 – March 4, 1992) was an American filmmaker known for his movies about the New Deal. Born Leonard MacTaggart Lorentz in Clarksburg, West Virginia, he was educated at Wesleyan College and West Virginia University. As a young film critic in New York and Hollywood, Lorentz spoke out against censorship in the film industry.
As the most influential documentary filmmaker of the Great Depression, Lorentz was the leading US advocate for government-sponsored documentary films. His service as a filmmaker for US Army Air Corps in WWII was formidable, including technical films, documentation of bombing raids, and synthesizing raw footage of Nazi atrocities for an educational film on the Nuremberg Trials. Nonetheless, Lorentz will always be known best as "FDR's filmmaker."
Read more about Pare Lorentz: New Deal Documentary Films, US Army Air Corps WWII Films, Later Life and Legacy, Selected Filmography, Works