Film Review: EXPOSING MUYBRIDGE (2021) DIR. MARC SCHAFFER

Actor Gary Oldman discussing his mammoth plate portrait of Edward Muybridge (circa 1872) as seen in Marc Shaffer’s documentary Exposing Muybridge. Photo credit: Chris Patterson

The photographer best known for his photographs of animals and people in motion and

considered the forerunner of motion pictures is given the expansive picture of his accomplishments as well as personal and professional triumphs and tribulations.

Born in 1830 in rural Kingston upon Thames to working class parents, he left home at age 20 determined to make a name for himself. He landed in New York and worked at various trades, ending up in California in the book printing and selling business. When he discovered the camera, which he successfully mastered and began to support himself, his course was set. He was hired by various government agencies to romance the wild beauty of the American west, as well as to counter some of the more controversial policies, like the oppression of indigenous people by the military. It could be argued as propaganda.

Using the professional name Helios, his landscapes of the wilderness were captivatingly beautiful in an intimate way which often included a random human figure in the distance.

The difficulties of creating these images using the bulky and heavy equipment that was available cannot be overstated. The glass negatives and the chemicals all had to be in situ and processed in portable darkrooms. His eye was unique and the quality of the prints is quite amazing. Simultaneously, while arguably paying the piper with the commissions, he made sensitive and beautiful pictures of the indigenous people in their own environment.

These were his personal work. His Alaska project images from 1868 after the Russians had just sold it to the US are historically significant to the displaced tribal people of Tongass Island. He portrayed them with their dignity intact. He later travelled to central America and produced a large impressive body of work based on the indigenous people there.

EXPOSING MUYBRIDGE POSTER(2021)

He got a huge break with a commission from Leland Stanford, the former governor of California and a wealthy businessman who owned racehorses. It began in 1872 and continued until 1879. The mandate was to prove that for a moment in time a running horse had all four feet off the ground. The groundbreaking inventiveness that was generated by this project caught the popular imagination in positive and negative ways. Artists for decades had been painting running horses incorrectly. They were chagrined and pushed back. The veracity of photography was being called into question. Muybridge worked in an extremely scientific manner in an effort prove that the camera cannot lie. The results were electrifying and gained Muybridge international accolades. He began travelling and lecturing and the British Royal Academy was set to fund his stop-motion studies when he was betrayed by his former patron Leland Stanford, who discredited Muybridge as the creator of the work. There was no truth to it. But Stanford had the power and the money to briefly derail Muybridge’s reputation.

It was a humiliating setback but Muybridge was resilient and he landed a sponsorship in the 1880s the from the University of Pennsylvania to continue to develop his experimental techniques for photographing animals and humans in motion. He was largely unhindered and worked obsessively producing more than 100,000 images of animals and mostly humans in sequences which began to feel like stories. Did Muybridge go from being a scientist to being a director? Surely the camera can at least have a point of view. 

Marc Shaffer, director of Exposing Muybridge. Photo credit: Joe Christofori

Muybridge was certainly not an unambiguous person. He followed his instincts and opportunities and brought extraordinary creativity to his endeavors. The leaps forward which he made cannot be overstated. The film gives a lot of fascinating insight into the

processes, which I particularly appreciated, as a photographer. Most revealing is the discovery that he did manipulate and enhance his images. 

Among the scholarly talking heads, the most engaging is the actor Gary Oldman, a collector and devotee of Muybridge. (Oddly, they are all filmed on a set that resembles an empty wooden attic and sitting on an uncomfortable-looking chair with bad lighting.) Muybridge may not have been an exemplary human being, having murdered his wife’s lover. What is undeniable and impressive is the volume and virtuosity of the work. There is a lot to take away from this fascinating portrayal of a trailblazer in the progress of photography.