Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer

One of the best essay films ever made on a cinematic subject, Thom Andersen’s remarkable and sadly neglected hour-long documentary (1974) adroitly combines biography, history, film theory, and philosophical reflection. Muybridge’s photographic studies of animal locomotion in the 1870s were a major forerunner of movies; even more interesting are his subsequent studies of diverse people, photographed against neutral backgrounds. Andersen’s perspectives on Muybridge are multifaceted and often surprising (characteristically, the film’s opening quotation is from Mao), and he presents Muybridge’s photographic sequences in various ways to spell out the many meanings of this fascinating precinematic work. Dean Stockwell narrates. On the same program, a 1927 Pathé documentary short in color, Hawaii. Univ. of Chicago Doc Films, 1212 E. 59th St., Monday, January 4, 7:00, 773-702-8575.

–Jonathan Rosenbaum

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): film still. Read more