Strand: under the dark cloth

Although his influence on the history of photography has been profound, Paul Strand (1890-1976) remains an enigmatic and persistently paradoxical figure. Passionately devoted to humanity, Strand was happiest in the darkroom's solitude. Born and deeply rooted in America, he, nevertheless, spent the last thirty years of his life in Europe. John Walker's film, the result of an eight-year investigation, is both a portrait of a complex artist and a personal odyssey for the filmmaker, himself profoundly influenced by the work of Strand. Following the tracks of Strand's long, peripatetic life as it meanders from New York and Mexico to the Gaspé and New England, from France and Italy to Africa and the Outer Hebrides and as it intersects with personalities as vivid and influential as mentor Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Milton Brown, Fred Zinneman, Leo Hurwitz, Cesare Zavasttini, Virginia Stevens and Hazel Kingsbury, [the film] takes us on a journey that is as spiritual and psychological as it is physical and historical. Strand's saga is accompanied by examples of his work, from early avant-garde to portraiture to natural and urban studies.