Strand: Under the Dark Cloth

Rating:
Summary: Towards a Bird on the Edge of Space
Review: This 81-minute documentary, "Strand: Under the Dark Cloth" , is an informative and emotionally resonant portrait of the late modern photographer Paul Strand. It was produced and directed by John Walker under the auspices of the National Film Board of Canada.

The work begins in 1906 with Strand, then 16 years old, visiting Alfred Stieglitz's "291" 5th avenue gallery. It was there, at an exhibit of accomplished early photographs that Strand decided to become a photographer. With Stieglitz as his mentor, Strand worked to produce visual abstractions of reality that conveyed a brutally direct expression of New York City civic life.

Strand's purchase of a movie camera, in 1919, led to the creation of one of America's first avant-garde films. The 10-minute work, "Manhatta", is included as a bonus feature on this DVD edition.

Anecdotes describing Paul Strand's three marriages, to Rebecca, Virginia and Hazel over the course of their lives, are woven into the story of his professional accomplishments as photographer and filmmaker. The sharing of details from these three personal relationships gives some sense of the degree to which Strand was devoted to his art as a primary mode of communication.

Strand moved to Europe in the 1950's, collaborating on a book with writer Cesare Zavattini, who's neorealistic approach in "The Bicycle Thief" and "Umberto D." suited Paul's starkly reverent visual philosophy. Strand remained mostly unknown to those Americans he left behind. However, in the 1970's, a retrospective of his photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York granted his life's work a broad public exposure.

Employing impressionistic acoustic instrumental music, coupled to a narration of keen insight into the subtleties of human dignity, this documentary becomes an ideal medium in which to view some of Paul Strand's commanding photographs.