Eadweard

How do you capture a moment? Kyle Rideout’s biopic EADWEARD shows how this question becomes an obsession of one of the forefathers of motion pictures, Eadweard Muybridge. In 1872, Muybridge reveals his first study of animal locomotion: a series of photos depicting the movements of a running horse that no human eye had ever seen. “This is life,” he explains to his admiring audience. But Muybridge wants to know more. His passion compels Flora, a sultry 21-year-old divorcée, to move with Muybridge from California to Pennsylvania, where he has secured $50,000 to take more pictures. Although Muybridge considers his work to be science, not art, the resulting photographic sequences—of a woman jumping over a stool, a man walking a goat, two men boxing, and so on—are undeniably beautiful. Still, as Muybridge amasses thousands of images depicting life, his own life with Flora begins to unravel. In this impressive first film, Rideout uses time-lapse photography, jump cuts, and slow motion to recreate the magic of Muybridge’s photography. – E.B.