Critical studies lectures reviewed - Manufactured landscapes 8 Dec 2011

Quote by Edward Burtynsky

" Inspired by nature - that's the theme here and I think, quite frankly, that's where I started "

This film has been nominated for many awards. In the first shot, Jennifer Baichwal introduces us to the longest panning shot ever seen of a Japanese factory and its' workers. Her film cameras then continue to follow Edward Burtynsky around many locations in the world.

Edward explored over a 10 year period various quarries and  mines for copper and nickle and this then showed how much of the landscape had been extracted for use. We are then taken to see factory workers in China undertaking painful, mind-numbing tasks assembling components for different goods such as irons. It then moves on to a scrap metal landscape of different recycled goods in China.

The ship docking area with so many different coloured crates was a real eye opener to a landscape picture and this then led us into workers stripping metal from old ships in Bangladesh. Other different landscapes it introduced us to was cars, tyres, motorways and oilfields.

I was able to watch this film again at my own leisure and enjoyed it more, it is also a real eye opener to what goes on in the rest of the world. In a strange way it made you take off the rose coloured specks to the planet in which we live in and see how slowly we have caused destruction to some areas of it. Some done in the name of progress.

The old saying goes that a picture speaks a million words and Edward Burtysky's photos certainly do.

Below are more of Edward Burtyskys photos of MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPE that feature in this film.

 

This was another LAZY LECTURE by the same lecturer that brought us the film Beautiful Losers. We could have been directed to watch these at our own leisure on Youtube!

Supposedly this was going to be another 2 weeks of two parts at 1hr a session but the second viewing was cancelled.

Many of us had previously seen this film in our chosen field of Photography in a previous session which we also discussed.

I had wasted a full morning out of my life that could have been constructive in other ways to my studies.
If I go to a lecture hall I don't then expect to be sat down and shown a film over a two week period with no discussion. I expect to be lectured to with aid of different materials such as maybe a short film, slides etc and someone talking - hence lecturing to me!

I have been to many different events at the Science Festival that were more organised  and interesting than what this lecture had to offer.

INTEREST    2/10  At the time it was being viewed in the lecture hall. ( film its self is 9/10 )

CONTENT    0/10

DELIVERY   0/10