Screening // Exposing Muybridge

Screening // 19:00

Eadweard James Muybridge (1830-1904) is commonly known as the film medium’s photo-technical father figure – the one who photographed a riding horse in a sequence of fast glimpses and thereby subverted the image aesthetics of centuries, where the horse’s four legs were heaved up under the belly simultaneously. He proved hundreds of painters wrong. 

But he did much, much more than that. Muybridge was an extreme, talented and very possibly mad person. Muybridge spelled his name in 7-8 different ways and lived 7-8 lives. He photographed immigrant’s lives, Yosemite’s nature, Alaska, Central America, rich people’s houses, did odd railroad PR assignments. All with the aid of heavy mechanics, even heavier sheets of photo glass, and life-threatening routes.

He was also a cold-blooded killer driven by jealousy. Muybridge mysteriously escaped a prison sentence – by pleading insanity at the time of the murder. Even this feature-length documentary almost doesn’t feel adequate for the dramas his life contained!

In his later life, he became, due to the fame of his horse images, a cultural star who was invited on royal visits around Europe, where he was presented as both inventor and storyteller.

The film is a high-end classic portrait documentary: Here are wondrous historical photos, an agile cutting rhythm and not least a large-scale and sophisticated recreation of the shutter footage with the racehorse.

The final part is quite moving and interesting from both a gender and historical perspective: Muybridge traveled around with lectures about his so-called zoopraxiscope and a curious university project about movement among animals, people, the disabled, blacks and women.

Director: Marc Schaffer

USA 2021. DCP Farve. 88min. + 15min. Intro. English dialogue with Danish subtitles. Tilled over 15 år. With Gary Oldman, Marta Braun, Philip Brookman

Get you tickets here: https://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/biograf/filmserier/serie/copenhagen-photo-festival#all