All language subtitles for Exposing.Muybridge.2021.eng

[faint crackling]

[ebbing tone]

[shimmering tone]

[mysterious folk music]

[rattling]

[liquid bubbling]

♪

[birds chirping]

[squeaking]

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[film reel whirring]

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[liquid splashing]

[eerie music]

[overlapping
chatter]

[interviewer] When you think
of Muybridge, is there a--

What single word
comes to mind for you,

when you think
of Edward Muybridge?

Tricky. Um...

and certainly daring.

I almost said "crazy."

Eccentric.

Duplicitous.

He's temperamental,
volatile.

I don't
have to like him.

I like his work,
I like what he did.

Ego.

He wanted
to be seen as...

I don't know
if it was the God or the Devil.

Probably both.

My one word
for Muybridge is "survivor."

Mischievous,

and out of
that mischievousness,

we have
this wonderful work.

He's sharp.

Uh, talented.

Just a wonderful cocktail.

[portentous music]

[Byron]
Edward Muybridge is best known

for his breakthrough
motion study photographs.

Early in his career,

Muybridge was largely
a landscape photographer,

and he was traveling
throughout the West--

California, Utah, Alaska--

making photographs
that he was hoping to sell

to a buying public.

He's photographing
destinations, like Yosemite,

that have a sense
of drama, a mystique,

perhaps a degree
of exoticism.

His vision was singular.

[mysterious folk music]

♪

[Mark] When you stand

in the same place
a photographer stood,

and you look at
what they saw,

you see with your body,

not just your eyes.

You feel the place.

You see not only
what's in the picture,

but what's on the side of
the picture, what's behind it.

And then we can say, "Well,
look what Muybridge did."

[Byron] Re-photography
of Muybridge...

gives us some insight
into how he saw the world

and how he recreated
the world

within the borders
of his photographs.

The place is never
like the photograph.

It never matches.

I mean, sure,
you can make details,

but the experience is not the
same thing as the photograph.

I mean, landscape photography
is often thought

of as pictures
of rocks and trees,

and they may be
the subject of the pictures

in a place
like Yosemite,

but there is no such thing
as a neutral photograph.

You're making a picture.

It's made from the position
of the-- the maker,

and their opinion,

their thinking about
how to make the picture,

pushes their own vision

and decides what to see,
and how to see it.

♪

Pictures, in the end,
are stories, you know?

So, who was Muybridge?

He was a character
in his own story.

[Byron]
He's a mysterious figure.

He was always engaged
in some sort of decision

about what to reveal
and what to hide.

-[Mark] Ooh, yeah.
-[Byron] Yeah, this is it.

[Mark] This is it.

-That's great.
-There's a rock right there.

-There, there.
-[Mark] Here we go.

Oh, no, no.
Too far.

That covers it up.
I got to go this way.

There, there.
There we go. See that?

Does that look
about right?

[Byron] Let me look
at the, uh, one you had.

[clicking]

[playful music]

[Mark]
One of the things

that makes Lake Tenaya
a special place for us

is that there were several
different photographers

who made pictures here.

These photographers
didn't know

where the other one made
their picture necessarily,

but they chose
vantage points

that were within
20 feet of one another.

[Byron]
The Weston and Adams pictures

really depict
a very similar scene,

looking out
across Tenaya Lake.

And in fact,
their two photographs

overlap a little bit

with the way
that they frame the scene.

They're these highly graphic,

incredibly simplified
representations of a place.

Big granite faces,
and deep, dark shadows.

Very simplified and bold,

and kind of
modern-looking pictures.

Muybridge photographs
are not that.

[Mark] I think
Muybridge was telling

a more
complicated story.

He's looking
at stuff that--

that's dead.

There's a lot of debris.

[Byron] Foreground
spaces are often confusing.

He uses details
like rocks and trees

in ways
that feel chaotic and jumbled.

It's often hard to tell where
you are standing, as a viewer.

He uses space and planes

in ways
that are highly disorienting.

[eerie music]

Lovely.

Uh, my wife and I are
fortunate to have found this.

It's got
a little fading,

I think maybe a little
watermark, and some foxing,

but-- but o-- overall,
it's in pretty good condition.

And this is-- is--
it was taken in Yosemite.

And of course,
there is Mr. Muybridge.

Now,
what you see here...

is...

there's a determination

and a real sort of...

f-- fixity of purpose
in the eyes.

Even though
the body language is relaxed,

the eyes
are intense and focused.

I mean, for an actor,

if I were to play Muybridge,
or an actor were to play him,

um...

I mean,
that's-- that's gold dust.

♪

[Marta]
Muybridge was born in 1830,

in a small town
called Kingston-upon-Thames.

He's given the name
Edward James Muggeridge.

Time was measured by the
rising and setting of the sun.

There was no
electrical illumination.

Transportation
is by horse and carriage,

or by barge and boat.

And he's still
in a-- a society

in which ancient
traditions are followed,

traditions of--
of family, of class.

[Philip] Muybridge's
family ran the barges

between London and Kingston
that would bring coal and corn

between the outlying
areas and the city.

Muybridge,
he certainly was

an incredibly creative
individual.

Right from the start,

even as a young person,

he sought out
a life for himself

that was separate
from the generations

of his family
that he was born into.

[Marta] He leaves England
when he's 20 years old,

for a completely
unknown country.

[Philip] In 1855,

Edward Muybridge
arrives in San Francisco.

He's a-- a bookseller,
a publisher,

an inventor,

a banker, an investor...

a photographer.

Muybridge's photography
takes place

in a period
of just 20 years of his life.

He goes
from learning photography

to becoming one
of the-- the best known

and most important
photographers in the world.

[Marta] But as a photographer,
he calls himself "Helios."

Helios was the name

of the Greek God of the sun.

So, he certainly took on
this idea of the photographer

as a mythic being.

[Marta] He'll go anywhere,
he'll photograph anything,

and it'll be perfect.

Helios
and his flying studio.

[Philip] One of the most
popular forms of photography

in the 1860s
were stereo views,

a pair of photographs

taken through a special
camera with two lenses,

just slightly different.

And then when they're viewed
through a special viewer,

your brain puts them together
as a three-dimensional image.

[delicate, haunting music]

These are the pictures
that different photographers

would sell
in their galleries

to the middle class people,
you know,

who could afford to buy them

for a dollar a view.

And, you know, Muybridge
made an extensive catalog

of stereo views
at the time.

[playful music]

[Gary] Of course,
in those days

you would have to hire
an expedition team.

You might want a guide
who knows the area.

You've got these massive
plates that-- that weigh a ton,

and many of them,
and they're in crates,

and you've got
the tripod,

which is very,
sort of, cumbersome.

And you've got
these big cameras.

And really
dangerous chemicals.

It was all glass, so everything
was in glass bottles.

You got to keep these things
really-- spotlessly clean.

And you've then got
to traverse this terrain

with all of this equipment
to get to where you're going.

The story goes

that he would do things
and go to places

where the guides
and the team would not go.

He would go
out on a ledge,

and really not care
for his own safety,

to get the picture.

The picture was all.
The picture was everything.

[footsteps shuffling]

[eerie tone]

Muybridge is right about here,
where my hands are,

and he made
a stereo view

from right about
this position, two lenses.

But it's interesting, because
he could have had his assistant

sit in the view,

but he had the guy
he was working with

take a picture of him,
so he's actually choosing

to put himself
in the picture for some reason.

Who knows? Maybe his assistant
refused to go out on the point.

Maybe!
I don't blame him.

-I'm not going out there.
-Would you go out there?

-[overlapping chatter]
-I'm not gonna go out there.

-Yeah.
-Yeah.

♪

[Byron] Glass plate film
was incredibly slow,

so an ordinary exposure
could easily take a minute,

or up to two minutes,
depending upon

what the lighting
conditions were.

So, if something like a river
were to be photographed,

it might end up as this
sort of blur in the scene.

[Gary] A lot of those
waterfalls are like white foam.

They become creamy and...

they're like lace,

or chiffon, or something.

There's some...

something very soft
and feminine

about them.

[birds chirping]

Photographers
might put a figure

in a landscape for scale.

Muybridge shows scale,

but then he just gives
it an artistic twist.

At times, it's whimsy.

♪

He'll put someone

way down
in a third of the frame

with their back to you.

They always seemed
to be looking out.

♪

♪

When Muybridge
arrives in San Francisco,

he arrives in this world
that's being modernized,

with the railroad,

with the steam engine,

with the telegraph.

[Richard] Everything is
changing, where a way of life,

which had gone on for
quite literally millennia,

is now over,

and Muybridge
is a part of it.

Photography is used to sell
bonds for the railroads,

and it's used to bring
people west as tourists,

and to bring them
west as settlers.

Certainly, Muybridge
is selling the west.

[dreamy, haunting music]

[Philip] He makes images
that are a great representation

of the destiny
of the nation.

You know,
reach the Pacific Shore

with the beacons
of the lighthouses

marking that territory.

♪

Muybridge is working

for corporate
and government interests.

He's certainly making pictures
that are propaganda pictures.

But he's also
playing with it,

and he's using
those opportunities

to make pictures
for himself.

[mischievous flute music]

Independence
was paramount for him.

It's just who he was.

Muybridge is commissioned
to help

the United States Army,

the War Department,

to photograph a war
going on

between the Modoc Indians

in Northern California,

and the US military.

Basically, Muybridge
is hired to help the army

to understand the territory

in which the fighting
is going on.

And at the same time,
there's interest in the media.

Muybridge's photographs
are used in Harper's Weekly,

which was a very
important weekly magazine.

One of the images
that Muybridge makes is called

Modoc Brave
on the Warpath.

I think that Muybridge's
photographs of Native people

are his most
documentary images,

showing, kind of,
everyday side of life,

uh, among people who are native
to the American West.

He's not trying
to make photographs that

disparage the people
he's photographing.

I think he's trying
to survey and document

and convey
a sense of respect

to communities
outside of his own,

you know, in ways
that other photographers

weren't really
doing at the time.

[snow shuffling]

[Mark] In 1868,
Muybridge was invited

to accompany a military
expedition to Alaska,

and it's just after
America has purchased

the territory from Russia.

Muybridge's job was really

to photograph military
forts and harbors.

[haunting percussive music]

But he also
photographed Native people.

[drums pounding]

Muybridge made, really,
the very first photographs

of Native people
in southeast Alaska.

♪

♪

The Tlingit people, if you look
at the word "Tlingit..."

It's-- it's a blowing sound--
"Thlingit. Thlingit."

It-- they're
the Tidelands people.

Russia claims Alaska,
through a discovery, right?

They came here and discovered
it, even though we were here.

We had our ownership rules,

we had our established
villages.

And then in 1867, they
sold it to the United States.

And there's a thought
that, you know,

because they were--

we were
purchased by the United States,

that we were
going to be cultured, right?

Well, we already
had a culture.

We expected some
reciprocity for...

them moving on our land.

Instead, we were moved
off the land.

We were excluded
from boating,

we were excluded
from having civil rights.

We lost our soul.

The soul that we are,
the soul of our identity.

We lost.
We lost a lot.

We've been here
since time immemorial.

And now we're down
to maybe two million families

that are left
in an area

that can trace their history

back to Tongass Island.

[somber music]

There's a Kootéeyaa
over here, a totem pole.

The base of one.

It fell down...

falling back
into the forest.

Yeah.

[singing in Tlingit]

[singing continues]

Okay, so, here, I want
to hand this to you

and have you look at it.

Only pick it up and sort of--
that's right, just like that.

And my grandmother
was on this island after this.

She was born in 1876.

And I think
one of these ladies

could be
my grandmother's mother.

The young ones.

And similar loo-- looks--

features like
my grandmother right here.

It gives me a longing.

At this time
they were a unit,

they were families.

They had
a cultural life.

[soft Tlingit song]

Well, they probably think,

"What-- what's
that strange box?"

So, when Muybridge sent
the picture to them...

it was a gift to them.

It was a return of what
he-- he promised them

from the box.

They probably
didn't know it,

but then, probably,
when they saw it,

they-- made them
real excited.

That you say say,

"Here I am inside this picture,
and here's my family."

♪

He gave us [speaking Tlingit],
our "precious thing."

This is
the precious thing now.

That's what we say, when
we say, [speaking Tlingit].

This is something that
belonged to me and my soul.

It's a renewal
when I look at it

to-- and feel better
when I walk out of here

and continue on my life.

And once in a while,
when I don't feel so good,

I'll look at this picture.

That's kind of like
a revitalization every time.

That's what I feel.

[solemn piano music]

♪

[Marta] In 1871,
Muybridge meets

and marries
Flora Shallcross Stone.

She's much younger
than he is.

She's in her early twenties,
and he's in his early forties.

This is a description
of Flora

by a Postjournalist who would
actually have known her.

"Petite,
but voluptuous-looking,

with a sweet, winning face

and large eyes
of tender blue,

and with a wealth
of dark brown hair.

She was just the woman
to make an impression

upon a cynic like Muybridge,
who was then,

after a life
of toil and privation,

beginning to achieve

the enviable reputation
he enjoys now."

He's traveling,
he's expanding his career.

He's always on the move,
and he leaves her at home.

That spells trouble.

[ominous chord]

In a way,
you have the mistress.

The siren's call, the art.

You have to be
obsessed with it,

you can't dabble.

That-- that's the thing,

if-- and-- and it's--
a-- and it's very selfish.

♪

[Marta] She gets
taken out to the theater a lot.

She loves the theater.

And one of the men
who take her to the theater

is a man
called Harry Larkins.

I am related
to Harry Larkins.

He was my
great-great-great-uncle.

Muybridge was born
into a family of, um,

coal dealers and corn salesmen
who ran barges on the Thames.

Harry's family, uh, owned
these great ships,

and were captains
of these ships,

and they were running, uh,
indigo, opium,

uh, porcelain,
and tea around the world.

When the two first met,
according to the reports

in the press
written by Harry's friends,

Muybridge was deeply
enamored of Harry.

Um, maybe slightly
glamorized by him,

before it all fell apart.

I think
he was somewhat naive

to think that he could
marry a pretty young girl

who's 20 years
his junior

and disappear
for six and seven, eight months

up a mountain,
taking pictures.

And she's gonna to be

waiting for him.

[Rebecca] In the 1950s,
a man called Brandenburg,

found a photograph album
in a secondhand shop.

It was identified early
on as belonging to Flora.

Fascinatingly,
two of the figures in there

were theorists
about women's equality

and women's
sexual liberation.

One, Victoria Woodhull,

who was the first woman to run
for United States president,

and the other, a man
called Orson Squire Fowler.

Fowler argued passionately

that women should be
as fulfilled sexually as men.

[interviewer] And was
this unusual for that era?

Absolutely, yes.

[both chuckling]

Not just thatera.

[laughing]

[Richard]
And Flora gets pregnant.

Muybridge, well, he's off
like he usually is, you know,

making pictures,
during the whole pregnancy.

[Marta]
Flora gives birth to their son.

They begin a family

and Muybridge makes
a very unfortunate discovery.

Muybridge sees
a picture of, uh, the child,

and on the back
is written, "little Harry."

This little
inscription that says, um,

"Oh,
my lovely little Harry."

Major Harry--
Harry Larkins.

And he thinks...

"I'm going to--
I'm gonna-- I'm--

I'm going to kill him."

[tense music]

He is in a whirlwind

of-- of-- of...

I mean, just rage.

[Rebecca] Muybridge went
to see William Roelofson,

who was by this point, selling
his photographs for him.

Had a complete,
sort of, nervous breakdown.

Roelofson, uh, said

that he desperately
tried to stop Muybridge,

but Muybridge
with the strength of ten men

burst away from him.

Leapt from the dock
onto the boat.

Caught the train to Callisto,
hurried through the night,

reached the Yellowjacket
mine at about 11 o'clock.

[Gary]
Larkins comes out,

looks into the sort of...

velvet black,

and says, you know,
"Hello? Who is it?"

[Marta]
And Muybridge says,

"I have a message
from my wife..."

and shoots him.

[interviewer] One time?

Dead.

[dramatic chord]

[Gary] Muybridge...

is caught red-handed.

This article contains
Muybridge's direct account,

in theory, of what happened
when he shot Harry,

uh, under the subheading,
"The Fatal Meeting."

"The only thing
I am sorry for

in connection
with the affair

is that
he died so quickly.

I would have wished

that he could
have lived long enough

at least to acknowledge
the wrong he had done me,

that his punishment
was deserved,

and that my act
was a justifiable defense

of my marital rights."

Extraordinary.

Flora not only
doesn't take Muybridge's side,

she actually
tries to help

the district attorney
prosecute Muybridge.

She also institutes divorce
proceedings against Muybridge.

[eerie music]

[Gary] And at the trial,
Muybridge's defense team

dredged up something
from earlier years

that they hoped
might get him off.

He had been
in a stagecoach accident

that had almost killed him,

and left him,
perhaps, brain damaged.

This is how Muybridge
recalled the accident

from the witness stand:

"We got
on board the stage,

which was drawn
by six wild Mustang horses.

That is the last
I recollect of that nine days.

After that,
I found myself lying in bed.

There was a small wound
on the top of my head.

When I recovered,

each eye formed
an individual impression,

so that looking at you,
for instance,

I could see another man
sitting by your side.

I had no taste,
nor smell, and was very deaf."

We don't really
have much of an idea

of what he was like
before the accident.

It may have
triggered something.

It may have changed
something in his personality.

[Marta] Afterward,

we hear about,
he's eccentric,

he's prone to rage,

he's uninhibited,
he wears strange clothes,

he's got
a hole in his hat,

he doesn't shave.

He's always
putting himself out

on the very
edges of rocks,

looking into an abyss.

There's the risk-taking
aspect of Muybridge

that one could say
is a product of this injury.

In the reliving of it
and the telling of the story,

it was a way
in which he could,

perhaps, persuade the jury

and the judge

that this...

madness
that came upon him

was-- was, in part,
connected to the head injury.

They plead
temporary insanity.

This is a picture
of Muybridge in Yosemite

on Contemplation Rock.

And he is
sitting untethered,

with his feet
dangling over the edge.

There's a 3,000 foot drop

beneath him.

And this was used
in evidence to prove

that Muybridge
was indeed insane.

Why the prosecution allowed
him to make that case,

I'm not sure, but they
brought in the superintendent

of a local in-- insane asylum

who absolutely disagreed
with all evidence

to suggest
that Muybridge was, uh, insane

at the time
of the killing.

The opposing counsel...

argued that it was
cold-blooded murder,

plain and simple,

and that he
should hang for it.

Muybridge,
and everyone at the trial...

knew he-- he was guilty.

Muybridge confessed his guilt.
He was proud of what he did.

He has a very,
very good attorney

by the name of,
uh, Pendergast.

So, Pendergast kind of
has to really do a 180,

think on his feet,
and he comes back.

Now they're pleading,
really, crime of passion.

This is from the closing
statement of the defense.

"You, gentlemen of the jury,

you who have wives
whom you love,

daughters whom you cherish,

and mothers whom you reverence,

will not say insanity.

I cannot ask you to send
this man back to a happy home.

He hasn't any.

The destroyer has been there

and has written all over it

from foundation
stone to roof tile.

Desolation, desolation!"

They obviously go
back to the jury room

going, "Yeah, you know.

Well, how would
you feel, Bill,

if someone came in
and slept with your wife?"

[wheezing laughter]

I mean, whatever
this conversation was

in the jury room,

it didn't take
very long to deliberate.

And they came back
and they said not guilty.

[interview] And what's
Muybridge's reaction?

Oh, he-- he collapses...

and bursts
into uncontrollable tears.

He's, like,
just stupefied by it.

I mean,
he is-- he is just-- uh,

he-- he becomes
like w-- water, you know?

And so much-- [laughing]
so much so...

that even Pendergast
and the people are telling him,

"Really, you've got
to pull yourself together."

He was wailing.

People were leaving
the courthouse--

the judge had
to actually leave

because he said,
"Oh, for heaven's sake."

My-- Ta-- take that man!

He was going-- [whining]

Muybridge... sort of
snapped out of it again

after a certain time
and, uh, gathered his wits

and walked out of court

and started joking
with the pressmen,

and he also said, um,
he wished Flora well,

and while he had
a penny to his name,

she would never
come to want.

[Gary]
Muybridge, he slips away

in the middle
of the night,

and boards a steamer
to Central America

on a new commission,

leaving, uh, his troubles
and Flora behind.

Flora, she was overcome
by some illness

that's never really
been clearly explained,

and, in July, she died

in hospital,
age 24 by then.

Alone, no money ever having
come through to help her.

[haunting music]

[Marta] The son, Muybridge
put into an orphanage.

Abandoned him, left him.

♪

♪

♪

[Richard]
In Central America,

he changes his name
to Eduardo Santiago Muybridge.

Muybridge took on
so many different names.

He's born
Edward James Muggeridge,

and then he takes out
the "E"-- "Muggridge."

When he goes to
the United States, "Muygridge."

[Marta] Then he becomes
"Muybridge" with a "B,"

and then finally,

the strange
first name, Eadweard,

the name that he takes after
Edward, the King of England.

I think Muybridge
keeps changing his name

because I think
his whole life

is the search for...

his self, for status.

[dramatic folk music]

He says, as a very young child,
to his grandmother,

"I am going to make
a name for myself.

And, uh, if I don't,
you'll never hear from me."

♪

[Richard] A couple
of years before the events

that really
changed Muybridge's life,

the murder of Larkins and
his trip to Central America,

he began working
with Leland Stanford

when he was hired
to photograph his home.

♪

[Philip] If Stanford
is the king on the hill

looking out over all of his
wealth and territory, you know,

Muybridge is an artist
who's commissioned by the King.

♪

[Richard
Leland Stanford's known

for building
the Central Pacific Railroad.

He was one of the richest
and most powerful men

in 19th century California--
indeed in the United States.

He was a governor,
he was a senator.

This man
who is enamored with horses.

He really
is in love with horses.

He'd rather
spend more time

with his horses
than with the railroad.

And in fact,
he often does.

And Leland Stanford builds

what is probably the greatest
stable of trotting horses

in the United States
in the late 19th century.

He throws himself
into it.

Stanford wants to show

that a horse at full gallop
is going to have

all four feet off the ground
at the same time.

The issue is when a horse
is galloping,

no human eye can see exactly
what it's doing.

It's too quick.

He wants Muybridge
to take a single picture

of a moment

when the horse has
all, uh, hooves off the ground.

Muybridge thinks that the--
the adventure is impossible.

The mission is impossible.

The process of photography
is just too slow.

When it's
all very quickly,

I think, put together,
and they get--

uh, I think, just a smudge.

[wind howling]

When Muybridge comes back
from Central America,

they picked up
this mission,

this adventure.

[Philip] Muybridge proposes
to try to capture

a sequence of images.
Not just one picture,

but a sequence of images,

one after another,

that show a horse running
through time.

And Stanford
agrees to this.

[Marta] Stanford
wants to use machines

to understand
how the horse runs

in order
to make them run faster,

in order to make
them compete better,

in order to win.

I think Muybridge had no
interest in that at all.

I think Muybridge
was interested in

the idea
that one could

create the illusion
of real life with a camera.

And that's what
he set out to do.

He wants to capture
this horse moving

over a certain...

space in time.

So, he's thinking,

"Well, the horse
is moving, you know,

as it--
as it runs across.

I'm going
to need multiple cameras."

Of course,
you had all the naysayers

saying that
it couldn't be done.

The chemistry used
to produce the images

at that time period,

the lenses, the shutters,

all of the technology,
um, said no.

[Marta]
Muybridge is still working

with a very slow,
wet plate.

[Luther] So, this was made
by taking a piece of glass

and, uh, pouring
on a very special type

of chemistry
called collodion.

Collodion are cotton balls
dissolved in nitric acid.

They have ether
and alcohol as the vaporants

and salts of iodides
and bromides,

in this whole
mixture concoction.

Super volatile.

You could have caught fire

and blown yourself up.

[Luther] Pour that
onto the glass plate

from corner to corner,
to corner to corner,

and drain that off

and then put that
into a bath of silver nitrate.

The silver nitrate
was not light-sensitive,

the collodion
is not light-sensitive,

but you put this little
bit of chemistry together

and it becomes
light-sensitive,

and, uh, it makes molecules
of light-sensitive compound

floating in a sticky substance
stuck to the glass.

And while that light-sensitive
emulsion is still tacky,

carry that plate
in a light-proof box

over to his camera,

put it into his camera,
expose it.

Back in the day
you were counting out seconds,

not fractions of seconds.

You can't remove a lens cap
real fast-- that fast--

and have it happen.
You couldn't time that.

[Gary] This is how
primitive it was.

I expose.

So, you-- you're
not going to be

able to capture
a horse running.

Probably what's
the most important

part of this equation
is a shutter.

Something
to open and close

to let a fraction
of a second of light

into that camera.

That would allow
the light to go through.

[Luther] He kept on trying,
reinventing his inventions,

figuring out
better ways to do this.

So, this
wasn't a one-shot deal.

He tried
all different ways to do this.

[Marta] Still,
his cameras are too slow

to ever capture the horse,
so he has to make something

that's completely artificial

in order
to make the cameras

capture something.

He built
this big, monstrous wall

that was
raked at an angle

so the sunlight
would bounce off of it

and straight
into the cameras.

[suspenseful music]

[Marta] He then
makes the ground white

by putting
marble dust or lime on it.

[Luther] White,
white, white, white.

All the light
they could possibly muster.

They were trying to photograph
the light behind the object,

and the horse would become
the absence of light.

[Marta]
Looking at the wall

are, in fact,
a series of cameras.

Each a stereo camera

that has
two lenses which operate

faster than
any lens operated at the time.

In front of them
is a guillotine shutter.

And there's
the added thing of alchemy.

[transcendent vocal music]

[Marta] There's
something in the chemistry

that Muybridge does.

We don't know
what it is.

♪

[suspenseful music]

[Gary]
Muybridge, with help,

uh, from some
of Stanford's engineers,

had, uh, been working
on this for months,

and they invited
the press to come and watch

so there would be no disputing
that the images were real.

♪

[horse snorts]

[horse rider] Yaw!

[music crescendos]

[music cuts out]

[transcendent music]

[Gary]
And the image appears.

And it is like...

"Ooh! Oh, my God."

It's-- it's-- it's magical.

[Marta
He was able to

take a series of images

in 1/500th, 1/1000th,

1/2000th of a second.

He captures time.

[Marta] He got
mostly silhouettes,

but they were exactly
what Stanford had hoped.

For the first time,

one could see
the gaits of a horse.

It's like
splitting the atom.

It's like
discovering penicillin

or-- I-- I mean, you know,

it's-- it's...

a monumental achievement.

Muybridge
was offering a picture

that nobody
had seen before.

Here, we're involved,

I would say,
in a real revolution.

The camera becomes

more powerful
than the eye.

The camera's purposes,
its abilities,

its possibilities,
become redefined.

To be something
that can penetrate

into, basically,
an invisible world.

[Marta] The images
were simply a phenomenon.

Everyone is astonished
and Muybridge is triumphant.

[soft classical music]

[Thomas] But immediately,
there was also skepticism.

There are people
who don't believe them.

If you look at paintings
in the 19th century

and earlier
of-- of galloping horses,

they're very often
like a rocking horse.

You know,
the legs are stretched out

before and after.

Whereas
if you look at a Muybridge,

they're curled up
under the belly.

I often say they
look like a dead spider.

They're ugly.

Rodin, the great
French sculptor of this era,

when he was asked,

"Do you believe these?
Are these true?"

He said,

"No, Muybridge's work lies.

Muybridge gives you
the truth of the machine

that can stop an image,

but it's not the truth
of human experience.

It's not the truth
of human vision."

[solemn music]

Leland Stanford travels
to Europe on the heels

of the success
of Muybridge's,

uh, experiments
and the construction

of the album,

The Attitudes
of Animals in Motion.

And Stanford brings
a copy of the album

to the great French painter,

Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier.

And Meissonier is astounded

by what he sees.

Meissonier really expresses
disbelief that, you know,

the pictures were
authentic and true.

Stanford responded
to Meissonier,

"The machine cannot lie."

So, can the machine lie?

You know, I think
that in some ways, you know,

Muybridge
and his photographs

are at the heart
of this question.

♪

There's the question
of how do you prove

that they're authentic?

That even though
they look very bizarre

when you look
at them one by one,

if you look at them
in rapid succession

so that, you know,
you're looking at them in this,

in effect,
motion picture device,

you can see
continuous motion.

It doesn't look weird.

It looks
just like a horse galloping.

[curious music]

So, he devises

what he calls
a zoopraxiscope.

Muybridge
actually creates disks

that have
sequential drawings on them--

drawings made
from his photographs--

each phase
of the movement,

and a machine

that will put those
disks into motion

and project
the movement of the animal.

[reel whirring]

He is able to show discs

that he's made
from his photographs from

the San Francisco Olympic Club.

So, you have
guys doing somersaults,

jumping
and running and leaping

and even
shaking his hand.

Muybridge,
sort of like Alfred Hitchcock,

he always
puts himself into the project.

♪

Then he gives public lectures

and-- and people are
absolutely lining up to see it.

They love it.
They can't get enough of it.

[applause]

He combines
the various photographs

that he had made
in this creative, narrative,

fantastical way.

[Gary] He has
an idea that, "What I stopped,

I can reanimate."

So, when people
first saw this,

this was
the very beginnings of cinema.

Just the effect of watching
something that was still

move... is magical.

It's witchcraft.

[stirring orchestral music]

[Marta] There's,
a-- a new aspect

to Muybridge's understanding

of what kind of name
he wants to make for himself.

He wants
to be a scientist,

and he wants to be
associated with that kind of...

higher calling.

I mean, even on the back here,

it says, "Left forefoot,"

and then the horse's head
is 85 inches

and then 38 inches,

the vertical lines
are 27 inches apart.

I mean,
it's incredibly detailed.

But I also like

the aesthetic.

I think they're
just beautiful-looking.

[soft classical music]

[Marta] And Muybridge
goes to Europe as a famous man.

He's made
a name for himself.

And he presents
his zoopraxiscope,

uh, to the artists
and the scientists of his time,

and the royal family.

There's a record
of the Prince of Wales

being astonished
and laughing

and enjoying
what Muybridge has to show.

♪

Letter from Muybridge
to Frank Shay,

Leland Stanford's secretary.

"Many of the most
eminent men in arts,

science and letters
in Europe were present

at the exhibition.

Happily,
I have strong nerves,

or I should have blushed

with the lavishness
of their praises.

Yours faithfully, Muybridge."

"Happily,
I have strong nerves,"

I'll have to
use that one.

[posh accent]
"No, you're too kind.

Oh, no, it was--

it was
merely competent, come now.

Ha-- ha-- happily,

I have a strong nerve."

[laughing]

[normal accent] You know, and
he's soaking up the applause

that he so
desperately wanted.

[applause]

Now he's quite famous.

He is being asked
to these places

that Stanford had to
buy his way into.

And it puts
Stanford's nose out of joint.

He doesn't-- he-- he--
he doesn't like this.

"It was my idea,

my funding."

[Richard] Stanford's
letter to Stillman, 1883.

"The actual facts are,
from beginning to end,

he was an instrument
to carry out my ideas.

I think the fame
that we have given him

has turned his head."

[mysterious music]

When Muybridge is about to get

his greatest honor,

Stanford publishes a book.

But the author of the book
is not Muybridge.

The title
is The Horse in Motion

with a Study
of Animal Mechanics.

And it's by J.D.B. Stillman.

"Executed and published

under the auspices
of Leland Stanford."

There is no credit here
given to Muybridge at all.

He is not mentioned
on the title page.

He is mentioned
only briefly in the preface

and then
again as a technician.

So, all of a sudden,
Muybridge's triumph is dashed.

Muybridge's whole work
is called into question

and his name, uh,
is besmirched.

He's actually being told
that the work isn't his--

the work he's showing.

He-- it-- it's not his,
it's-- it's stolen.

I mean, talk about
having your legs cut off.

The Royal Society...

that was the--
that's the Oscar.

That's the recognition
by your peers,

and he was almost,

almost to it,
you know what I mean?

It is really a b-- a betrayal.

He doesn't ha--
he doesn't handle it well.

And-- and really,

uh, Leland Stanford
just cuts him off.

Muybridge
never got over,

never got over the pain
of what Stanford did.

He writes a letter

to Mrs. Stanford
years later

saying how hurt he was.

"I received a note
requesting my presence

at the rooms
of the society.

Upon my arrival,
I was conducted

to the council chamber

and was asked
by the president

if I knew
anything about a book,

then on the table,
having on its title page

the following:

The Horse in Motion
by J.D.B. Stillman, M.D.

Published
under the auspices

of Leland Stanford.

The doors
of the Royal Society

were thus
closed against me,

and my promising
career in London

was thus brought
to a disastrous close."

So great.

[ominous music]

Muybridge
began lecturing again

with his zoopraxiscope
all over the East Coast.

He was in Baltimore,

Washington,
New York, Philadelphia...

[Amy] When he was
finished with California,

he went to Europe.

When Europe
was finished with him,

he came
back to the States.

And he just keeps
soldiering on,

picking himself up

when his reputation
is trashed,

when his body
is trashed.

He is persistent

and he keeps finding a way

to be relevant and important.

♪

In one of these lectures,

he met Thomas Eakins,
the painter.

Eakins was
one of the painters,

like Meissonier,

who saw
Muybridge's Stanford work

and was absolutely
enthralled by it.

Eeakins
introduced him to the provost

of the University
of Pennsylvania

whose name
was William Pepper,

and they invited Muybridge

to make
a new series of photographs

on animal
and human movements.

[lively music]

[Amy] This was
a very expensive undertaking,

and William Pepper
was really taking a gamble

with a lot of
people's money

on the project's outcome

being magnificent
and amazing.

[Marta] Pepper creates

what he calls
his "scientific commission."

A group of professors

that will ensure

the scientific accuracy
of the project.

Why did he put
this committee together?

Why did he
need this oversight?

He must have known
about the murder,

because that
was in all the papers.

He may have known
about Muybridge's reputation

as an eccentric character.

[Amy] There's no question

that this
is Muybridge's project,

but he is so circumscribed

in what he can do

by virtue of the people

who are overseeing his work--

professors, doctors,

physicists, artists.

They believe
that he can deliver

what they all want.

Frances Durkheim,
who's a neurologist,

brought his patients

from the Philadelphia hospital

to measure and document
the changes in their gait,

the difficulties
they had with balance.

[reel rattling]

♪

And then you have
the comparative zoologists

who are really interested
in this very Darwinian project

of understanding
the relationship

between animals and humans.

Where is that
line really crossed?

♪

[reel rattling]

[Amy] And then,
of course, you have artists

who stand to benefit
from these representations

of the body in motion.

♪

[Marta]
At the very beginning,

he sets up his cameras,

not in a sequence at all.

He has six cameras

and he plants them

around the subject

he's photographing.

And he has them synched

to go off simultaneously.

It's kind of
like a cinematic tracking shot,

the camera
is moving around.

[music intensifying]

[Marta] And then,
just as he did in Palo Alto,

he puts
12 cameras in a row

and he
photographs sequences.

And then he adds
two more cameras,

so from the rear
and from the front.

And then he
takes 12, 12 and 12,

and he assembles them
so that they line up.

But in order
to make those final prints,

he has to organize them,

he has to
enlarge some of them,

he has to
crop the laterals.

He has to make
every image match up.

[Amy] All of these men
on the commission

think they're creating
knowledge that is neutral,

that is verifiable,
that is measurable.

[Marta] We see a grid
in the background,

very scientific looking grid
that makes the whole picture

look scientific.

[Amy] Muybridge wasn't
the first photographer

to use a grid,

but it typically was used

in anthropological studies

to document images

of people of color.

[Marta]
There was a strong belief

in the hierarchy
of race at this time.

There's the belief

that the most
technologically advanced humans

are the most
civilized humans.

And there's a desire

to measure
racial difference

in order
to show a hierarchy

with white men
at the top.

[solemn music]

[Amy]
In Muybridge's case,

the very first person

that he photographs with a grid

is a gentleman who's listed
as a mulatto pugilist.

[Marta] Ben Bailey, the first,
and only, Black model

in the whole project.

The grid
appears with Ben Bailey,

because the commissioners

were studying
racial difference.

♪

[Marta] And the grid
stays in the picture

from this time onward.

♪

The project,
as it develops,

confines
Muybridge a little bit,

because the professors
are working with him.

The professors
are sending him,

uh, the people
that they want photographed.

[Amy] These are all
white men making decisions

about who they're
going to photograph

and what they're
going to photograph

and what these people
are going to be doing.

If you're a man,
you're going to be photographed

as an athlete,

performing amazing feats

of flexibility
and strength.

[reel rattling]

[whimsical music]

Women are asked

to do things
like move gracefully...

♪

... carry buckets of water.

Often they're
asked to do things

that refer
to domestic tasks.

♪

[playful music]

The male models include

University of Pennsylvania
student athletes and alumni.

♪

The reason that
those upper class students

were not afraid
to pose in the nude

was because
they weren't vulnerable.

The women
in the photographs

were vulnerable.

The women who posed
for Muybridge in the nude

all came
from these ranks

of working class women
who didn't have a lot

of employment opportunities.

Then at the far end,
we have women

who would not be,
in any way,

respectable and polite
middle class society.

Muybridge's models were--

some of them,
and especially the ones

that-- that carry

the, uh,
erotic content of the word--

artist's models.

Artist models
were no better than,

or, prostitutes.

Muybridge,
really, his attraction

is to the naked women
and to the frozen water.

That is
what Muybridge is,

where his interests lie.

[tense orchestral music]

So, you have class,
you have race, you have gender.

Is there
anything else you need?

[quirky music]

[Amy] And then
there are scenes

that really
don't make any sense

from a scientific perspective.

[Marta] This is supposed
to be a scientific project,

it's funded
as a scientific project.

When you read
the history of photography,

Muybridge
is always the great creator

of the study
of locomotion.

Hmm. What movement
is being described here?

What are the laws
of locomotive mechanics?

[Amy] Certainly,
William Pepper never imagined

that Muybridge
was going to try

to make funny pictures.

It was definitely
not in the mission statement,

but it's in there.

♪

[Thomas] You know,
all those strange images

of naked women
having tea parties.

What are those?

He-- he had no idea
what surrealism was,

you know,
and I don't think he thought

they were
funny or bizarre,

but they are.

[Marta]
Jokes, these are jokes.

These are fantasies.

Most of all,
they're stories.

It's the content...

of what will become

the industry
of motion pictures.

Stories and sex.

That's it,
that's Muybridge's

contribution
to motion pictures.

It's the fantasy
that we all know

from the movies,

that we all
go to the movies for.

-[reel rattling]
-[gentle melody playing]

He's a rulebreaker.

He doesn't get
the accolades

for his inventiveness,

for his ability
to do what he wanted to do,

even under
the watchful eyes

of a committee

that really
didn't want him to do that.

Muybridge, the artist,
and Muybridge, the scientist,

what he produces
with the conflation

of those two things,

to me, is really
the true work of art.

A true work of genius.

[sentimental
orchestral music]

♪

♪

[music fades out]

When I think
about the choice

that William Pepper made

to forge on
with Muybridge's project,

even including
the photographs

that have
somewhat provocative,

and clearly
unscientific themes,

I think about
how far deep he was in,

in terms
of his own reputation

and the reputation
of the university.

There was
no turning back.

It would have been
such an admission

of poor judgment.

They decided
to just hold their nose

and keep insisting

that this
was a scientific project.

And the decision
that's made in 1886

is basically to go ahead

with the publication
and distribution,

but to market them
in a way

that they would
only be accessible

by very rich people

in limited circulation,

thereby
pretty much guaranteeing

that only
wealthy white men

would ever see
these photographs.

♪

She has this kind of--

He's-- he's
outlined her boobs.

He's taken an instrument
to outline certain things,

to add shade to certain things
that are missing.

I mean, there's all sorts
of things you can see

about the process
and about the pictures here

that...

again, support this idea
of how manipulated it was.

Some
of the pictures he took

are just
single images of poses

which he put
into a sequence.

And sometimes not even
a sequence of movement,

it's the sequence
of a pattern.

[playful violin music]

[Marta] This is called,

Woman Dropping a Handkerchief.

The position
of the handkerchief

in this image,
and in this image,

is not the same.

It didn't happen
at the same time.

[interviewer] Do you think
it's being sold as the same,

like,
we're meant to think that?

[Marta] Of course.

You know
that the sequence

tells you how to look,

so you never question it.

You have to really look.

[interviewer]
Is it a deception?

[Marta sighs]

Is it the truth?

The truth of what?

♪

This picture is called,
La Libertad, El Salvador,

and like many
of Muybridge's photographs,

it has a figure
positioned somewhere,

partly for scale.

It also has
some details,

like a little rip
in the emulsion

where you can
see part of the picture

literally
peeling away from the glass.

There are
some specks and spots

throughout the scene.

And normally,
these are details

that you wouldn't pay
that much attention to.

But when I looked
at this picture,

I was looking for those
kinds of telltale signs

that would
indicate the uniqueness

of this actual picture,

so that when I would
look at a photograph

that existed
in another album,

I could see
a different view.

And I could know

that this same
landscape picture

with the torn negative
also revealed a picture

that included clouds,

and a fictional horizon

that showed
mountain peaks in the scene.

And so, these
two pictures side by side

are what I call, La Libertad,

basic and deluxe versions.

♪

There is an element of--

I don't know
if I would call it

whimsy or playfulness.

There are particular clouds
that he liked to use

over and over again.

♪

♪

When I first looked

at The Crater of Volcano,
Quetzaltenango, I laughed.

It was as-- an absurd picture,

it was a construction,
a fabrication.

I came to appreciate
that one picture

maybe more
than any of the others,

because it has
a falseness to it,

which makes it
a little bit more believable.

It doesn't hide behind...

a fiction of pretending

to be an accurate
representation of a moment.

Muybridge's photographs
in Central America,

and in some ways,
all of his work,

are more like poems,

and less like precise,
accurate descriptions

of something
that happened in the world.

[Philip] At the time
Muybridge is doing this,

the manipulation
of photographs

was really open and prevalent.

Photographers
did it all the time.

You know,
we have to always be vigilant

in looking
at photography

about, you know,
whether what we're seeing

is actually right
and-- and truthful.

What's so interesting

about Muybridge's
photograph of the Modoc warrior

is that it is represented

as a journalistic photograph,

as the news.

But when you look closely,

you can see that
the Native American man

is actually
holding a military rifle

and it's not, in fact,
a Modoc warrior at all.

It's a Warm Springs scout
helping the US Army.

Muybridge himself,
he couldn't go to the front,

and so he had to
stage a photograph.

So, in fact, Muybridge
is deceiving the viewer.

He-- he was not going to
go to that encampment

and return to San Francisco

without picture.

And so,
he dressed a guy up

as a Modoc warrior,

and posed him
with a gun on a wall.

I mean,
that's dress-up.

That's directing.

"I want what I want."

♪

[Marta] The contract
between the viewer

and the photographer,
that seeing is believing,

is-- is not-- does not
hold in Muybridge's work.

[interviewer]
Seeing is not believing.

No.

You cannot
believe what you see.

[transcendent vocal music]

[Thomas]
Leland Stanford says,

you know,
the machine cannot lie.

You know, the machine
just records what's there.

What I would
say about that is,

of course it can't lie,

but it can't tell
the truth either.

Machines
don't say anything.

It's only how people

present the image
of the machine, the photograph,

that is either
a lie or a truth.

[gentle orchestral music]

[Marta]
We have letters

back to Philadelphia
from Muybridge,

who's on the road

trying to sell
Animal Locomotion.

And he tries
for a few years

in order, uh,
to-- to make it work.

And he just doesn't.

He-- he sold maybe

37 full copies,
as far as we know.

Don't know
how many single images

or groups
of a hundred he sold,

but it-- it
wasn't a-- a commercial success

by any means.

♪

[transcendent vocal music]

He then has a booth
at the Chicago World's Fair

that is also
not a success.

Muybridge
showed his zoopraxiscope,

but he couldn't compete

with the hoochie coochie girl

down the street.

[Gary] An old man
with a beard turning a handle

these horses
going around in a circle...

I don't know,
might be boring

the pants off you,
talking about...

you know...

[posh accent] "When the left
fore foot is 85 inches,

the right hand foot
on the vertical line--"

I-- I-- I mean,
maybe these lectures

had... run their course.

♪

[reel whirring]

[Marta]
December 1895 and 1896,

we have
the motion picture projection

of the Lumiere brothers,

the beginning
of the motion picture industry,

and of course,
that leaves Muybridge

completely,
completely behind.

So, he sets
sail for home.

Muybridge,
toward the end of his life

when he went
back to Kingston,

you know,
he felt like a failure

because he didn't really
get credited for innovation,

you know, the development
of the motion picture.

[Marta] He tells Lafeber,

the painter
who colored his glass discs,

to destroy the disks

so that he will
not be associated

with the zoopraxiscope.

[somber music]

I think he is still...

conscious of the name
he made for himself,

and he doesn't want
to be associated

with the technology
that really doesn't lead

to the motion pictures, uh,
that were on the world stage

at that point.

[dripping]

[Gary] He's diagnosed
with prostate cancer.

It's like
he didn't know what he had.

It was like
he went out there one day,

took a great,
big box of plates,

um...

You know, he's like,
going through his things

and saying,
"Oh, that's not good.

Chuck that out,
oh, that's crap," you know?

And anything
that could be left behind

that wasn't up to snuff,

I think he just smashed it,
he just chucked.

[sentimental piano music]

[Marta] In 1904,
when Muybridge dies,

he dies in a world
utterly changed.

Muybridge
has become forgotten.

♪

[birds chirping]

[footsteps crunching]

[Gary] Here we are.

[exhaling]

[grunts]

Mr. Muybridge.

All right.

Let's--

[gentle music]

"Loving memory..."

"In loving memory
of Eadweard..."

Eadweard.

"Loving memory--

Eadweard Maybridge..."

M-A-Y.

Oh, the indignity

that you suffered.
Betrayal and...

and even in death...

they got
your name wrong.

You poor soul.

[sentimental piano music]

♪

♪

♪

♪

["Lemon" by U2]

♪ Oh

[mysterious orchestral music]

♪

... time is gonna be unstable?
What does that even mean?

[dramatic action music]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[music ends]