Discovery in a Landscape
(Leo Hurwitz, US 1970, 32 min., 16mm)
Image of the City
(Charles Eames, Ray Eames, US 1969, 15 min., 16mm)
Canadian Landscape
(F.R. Crawley, Canada 1941, 18 min., 16mm)
In a Landscape
(Paolo Cherchi Usai, Italy/Netherlands 2022, 12 min., 35mm)
A Year Along the Abandoned Road
(Året gjennom Børfjord, Morten Skallerud, Norway 1991, 12 min., 35mm)
While many films require a landscape to set the scene, most simply leave it at that, as the drama plays out in front of the backdrop. It is the rare film that considers the landscape itself, urban or rural, and how the camera lens mediates being in that environment. This program of shorts takes diverse views of landscapes, with commentary by University of Rochester professor Danielle Genevro. Discovery in a Landscape is a contemplative, poetic film that seeks to show the rural autumn landscape not as an object itself, but made up of many individual objects. Image of the City, directed by Charles and Ray Eames and made for a Smithsonian exhibition, explores the mediation of the urban landscape through image capture, particularly those that can provide us with information. Canadian Landscape is a documentary about the working process of "Group of Seven" painter A.Y. Jackson and how he interprets the landscapes he sees into his art. In a Landscape suggests the changing nature of a landscape through a static shot. In A Year Along the Abandoned Road, shot over the course of an entire year, a 70mm camera captures the natural cycles of a pastoral community as it traverses the shores of the lake it surrounds.
Film prints from the George Eastman Museum collection.