Review of Eadweard (2015) by Byron B — 24 Nov 2015

I saw this at the 2015 Cleveland International Film Festival. The dialogue in this Canadian production by filmmaking partners Kyle Rideout and Josh Epstein is a little too spot on, the opposite of subtle, but the period details and actors' performances shine.

Michael Eklund is amazing in the role of Eadweard Muybridge, a lean grizzly of a man. Muybridge becomes obsessed with the study of movement using still photography. His outdoor studio is set up to take a succession of rapidly timed photos of humans and animals performing different activities.

Muybridge crosses paths with Thomas Edison, but does not see the value in Edison's idea to playback the series of still images to recreate the illusion of motion. Eadweard has trouble at home as a man who is very controlling of his work and wants to be equally controlling of his wife.

His assistants at the studio struggle to adjust to his eccentric commands with varying degrees of success. Muybridge really shocked Victorian society when he decided that to see the full movement of human bones and muscles he needed his models to work in the nude.

Beyond nudity, his scientific curiosity seems to become more and more gruesome as time goes by. After years of neglecting his wife he becomes paranoid that she is having an affair. The movie concludes with the chapter of his life when he killed the lover and was acquitted for justifiable homicide.

The whole cast is marvelous at bringing to life the story of this "godfather of cinema." The visual effects allow us to briefly get in Muybridge's head to see everyday movement broken down into frozen moments of time and space.

An indie period piece that is a window into an enigma of a man.