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Muybridge's Strings

Can time be made to stand still? Can it be reversed? Koji Yamamura’s Muybridge's Strings is a meditation on this theme, contrasting the worlds of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge—who in 1878 successfully photographed consecutive phases in the movement of a galloping horse—and a mother who, watching her daughter grow up, realizes she is slipping away from her. Moving between California and Tokyo, between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first, the film focuses on some of the highpoints in Muybridge’s troubled life and intercuts them with the mother’s surrealistic daydreams—a poetic clash that explores the irrepressible human desire to seize life’s …
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Can time be made to stand still? Can it be reversed? Koji Yamamura’s Muybridge's
Strings is a meditation on this theme, contrasting the worlds of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge—who in 1878 successfully photographed consecutive phases in the movement of a galloping horse—and a mother who, watching her daughter grow up, realizes she is slipping away from her. Moving between California and Tokyo, between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first, the film focuses on some of the highpoints in Muybridge’s troubled life and intercuts them with the mother’s surrealistic daydreams—a poetic clash that explores the irrepressible human desire to seize life’s fleeting moments, to freeze the instants of happiness. Enriched by Koji Yamamura’s refined artistry and Normand Roger’s soundtrack, Muybridge's
Strings observes the ties that cease to bind, fixes its gaze on the course of life, and presents a moment in time suspended on the crystalline notes of a canon by J.S. Bach.

Film and Video Arts All subjects
  • director
    Koji Yamamura
  • script
    Koji Yamamura
  • edit
    Koji Yamamura
  • design
    Koji Yamamura
  • animation
    Koji Yamamura
  • animation assistant
    Sanae Yamamura
  • original music
    Normand Roger
    Pierre Yves Drapeau
    Denis Chartrand
  • sound design
    Normand Roger
    Pierre Yves Drapeau
    Denis Chartrand
  • musician
    Denis Chartrand
    Pierre-Yves Martel
    Terri Hron
  • arrangements
    Normand Roger
  • foley
    Lise Wedlock
  • technical coordinator
    Julie Laperrière
  • on-line
    Denis Pilon
  • re-recording
    Shelley Craig
  • recording
    Luc Léger
    Geoffrey Mitchell
  • marketing manager
    Christine Noël
  • administration
    Gisèle Guilbault
    Rosalina Di Sario
  • executive producer
    David Verrall
    Kenji Saito
    Shuzo John Shiota
  • producer
    Michael Fukushima
    Keisuke Tsuchihashi
    Shuzo John Shiota

Education

Ages 15 to 17

Notes

Pre-viewing: Research the life of Eadweard James Muybridge, noting his many inventions and contributions to photographic studies of motion and motion-picture projection. Post-viewing: In what ways does the film adequately detail Muybridge’s life? Comment on the many examples of symbolism in the film. Was Muybridge a genius? Do some of his actions also suggest that he was emotionally unstable? Is there a link between genius and mental illness? 

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Muybridge's Strings
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