Paul Strand video on Netflix

[D. Bryant]

If you are a Netflix streaming customer this documentary on Paul Strand is available for streaming; it's worth a watch:

Strand:Under the Dark Cloth

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Strand_Under_the_Dark_Cloth/60026545?trkid=2361637

[MIke Sherck]

I have the DVD; it is worth watching. The score though, to me, is more than annoying. I guess I'm just not modern enough! ;)

Mike

[awldune]

The music is terrible!

I enjoyed seeing all the photos, and getting a sense of Strand the person.

As a historical documentary, I think this film is very dated, coming out the year before Ken Burns' The Civil War which popularized a lot of techniques that would have improved it.

[Curt]

That dammm music on the film just sucks. Otherwise it's a treasure like two done on the Westons.

[paulr]

How cool! Thanks for posting. I've never seen any video of him. Based on recommendations I'll leave the volume low.

[paulr]

I'm halfway through it and want to say 1) it's an extremely well done film. Amazing to see footage of the man, and of O'Keefe. Everyone is speaks candidly ... there's no sugar-coating or hagiography. So the perspectives on the people and the time are especially interesting.
2) It' making me crazy that they don't clearly identify many of the people who are speaking. Either I'm being dense or this is an annoying flaw.
3) I like the music! It's perfect. Bold modernism, from the period we're looking at.
4) I want to kiss the director for not doing the "Ken Burns style" Of zooming and panning around the images. Ken burns is an enemy of still photography and should be run out of town with his clothes on fire.

[awldune]

2) It' making me crazy that they don't clearly identify many of the people who are speaking.
This is actually specifically what I had in mind from Ken Burns' style.

In his documentaries, he gets a unique voice actor for each quoted person and attributes each quote. In this film I absolutely could not tell who the quotes were from.


4) I want to kiss the director for not doing the "Ken Burns style" Of zooming and panning around the images.

I had forgotten this aspect of Burns' work. I think it can work well when you are talking about a baseball player from the 1920s and all you have are 3 still photos of him. Would have been horribly misused when the photo itself is the documentary subject.

[Brian Ellis]

I used to have this on video tape. I thought it was worth watching once but I never wanted to see it a second time.

[Kirk Gittings]

What the hell is hagiography Paul?

[Arne Croell]

What the hell is hagiography Paul?
Kirk, I am not Paul, but it means the description (biography) of Saints, comes from old Greek: "Hagios" is a Saint and "graphein"" means to write, as we write with light in "photography" . So "no hagiography" means he is not given sainthood status.

[Kirk Gittings]

Thanks, a new word for my vocabulary.