“Exposure of Muybridgeis a documentary about the arts and sciences of pioneering photographer Edward Muybridge, two weeks after Jordan Peele’s “Nope” put a new spotlight on Muybridge’s proto-cinematic image of the horse in motion. It will be released in no time.
Written and directed by Marc Shaffer, the documentary is, in some ways, your standard PBS-ready biographical survey, in which a controversial figure recounts the highlights of Muybridge’s career. By comparison, Tom Andersen’s 1975 Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer makes more innovative use of Muybridge photography for visual and storytelling purposes. Still, Shaffer devotes time to aspects of Muybridge’s legacy that don’t make a canonical summary of everything.
The film states that Muybridge shot western landscapes before turning his attention to movement. Shaffer follows photographers Byron Wolfe and Mark Krett to Tenaya Lake in California’s Yosemite National Park in an attempt to find Muybridge’s original vantage point.They also analyze photos of the same location 20th century photographers Edward Weston and Ansel Adams shed light on Muybridge’s unique perspective as an artist.
Others share their opinion of Muybridge’s quirkiness. Actor Gary Oldman is a collector of Muybridge works, Trying to make a Muybridge biopicbiographer Marta Brown and art historian Amy Warbell note that Muybridge’s kinetic studies at the University of Pennsylvania did not meet the university’s ostensible expectations. , challenges the notion that it should be considered scientific. Film historian Tom Gunning suggests that Muybridge was an unwitting progenitor of Surrealism.
Although clichéd, “Exposed Muybridge” makes it clear that the image of its subject still has a lot to show us.
Exposure of Muybridge
Unrated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes.rent or buy apple tv, google play and other streaming platforms and pay-TV operators.
