The Bill Lane Center for the American West, the Stanford Historical Society, the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford Libraries, and the Stanford University departments of Communications and Art History PRESENT A SPECIAL EVENT SCREENING.

WRITERS GUILD AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY “EXPOSING MUYBRIDGE” FOLLOWED BY PANEL DISCUSSIONS FEATURING FILMMAKER MARC SHAFFER JOINED BY
STANFORD SCHOLARS, CURATORS, AND OTHERS.

In June of 1878, on Leland Stanford’s Palo Alto Horse Farm, land that is now Stanford University, Eadweard Muybridge changed the world. Before a crowd of journalists and special guests, Muybridge became the first to photograph something moving faster than the human eye can see: Stanford’s galloping horses. In that instant, Muybridge transformed the camera into a machine of unmatched powers of perception and persuasion, and set the course for the invention of cinema. (Many consider Muybridge Silicon Valley’s original technological disruptor, and Leland Stanford its first VC.) Muybridge’s motion images opened our eyes to invisible worlds, but they also harbor secrets that provoke an enduring question: Can we believe what we see in a photograph? “Exposing Muybridge” is the first feature documentary to tell the melodramatic story of Muybridge, one dripping with ambition, betrayal, deception, and even murder. Called by critics one of the best films on photography ever made (TechRadar), “tremendously entertaining” (the San Francisco Chronicle), and a “must see” (IndieWire), “Exposing Muybridge” vividly brings the legendary photographer to life through colorful interviews with scholars, photographers, authors, and others, including Stanford historian emeritus Richard White and Muybridge
collector Gary Oldman. The film features hundreds of Muybridge’s landscape and motion photographs, including many provided from the collections of the Cantor Arts Center and the Stanford Libraries.