Product Description

In the spirit of such environmentally enlightening hits as AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and RIVERS AND TIDES, MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES powerfully shifts our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.

The film follows Internationally acclaimed photographer Edward Burtynsky whose large-scale photographs of manufactured landscapes quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams create stunningly beautiful art from civilization s materials and debris. The film follows him through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country s massive industrial revolution. Burtynsky s photographs allow us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15914 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-11-20
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Manufactured Landscapes works triple-time as a documentary portrait, a tone poem, and a work of protest. The title comes from Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's 2003 book of the same name. His large-scale images depict the ways industrialization has transformed the environment. Locations include quarries, slag heaps, and dumping grounds. Director Jennifer Baichwal (The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia) introduces photographs focusing on China and Bangladesh, and then presents Burtynsky in the process of creating them. He adds a few words here and there, but Baichwal mostly lets the people behind his prints--and the devastation that surrounds them--do the talking. Of the sites they visit, China's monumental Three Gorges Dam is the most impressive... and depressing. At the same time the construction has created much-needed jobs, the world's largest engineering project has also displaced 13 cities of over 1.3 million people. To paraphrase Burtynsky, Baichwal's film "searches for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion." With its ominous soundtrack and stately pace--cinematographer Peter Mettler's opening pan through a vast manufacturing plant lasts eight minutes--Manufactured Landscapes is about as far from conventional as a non-fiction film can get. Like Koyanisqaatsi, Rivers and Tides, and Darwin's Nightmare, Baichwal leaves the charts and graphs behind to make one irrefutable point: We're in trouble. Extra features, like deleted scenes (with commentary by Baichwal) and an extensive slide gallery (with commentary by Burtynsky) add welcome context. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Review
Awe inspiring! Stimulates the senses and the conscience simultaneously. - --Hollywood Reporter

Review
The opening scene in MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is one of the most memorable I've seen in years.... Polemic-free, yet undeniably frightening and weirdly beautiful in its depiction of industrial ugliness. - --Toronto Sun

Customer Reviews

Unforgettable Journey into Edward Burtynsky's Striking Industrial Landscapes.
I didn't know what to expect after the opening 8-minute tracking shot spanned a Chinese factory's considerable length. "Manufactured Landscapes" is about the work of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, but this film is unlike any other I've seen on the subject of an artist and his work. Burtynsky has made a name -and many beautiful photographs- in "industrial landscapes". Struck by the ways in which modern humanity has transformed Earth's landscape, he seeks out "the largest industrial incursions" he can find. His photographs are fascinating and surprisingly beautiful representations of the heart of modernization and globalization.

Director Jennifer Baichwal accompanied Burtynsky on several trips to Asia, observing the artist at work and allowing a movie camera to see the industrial landscape as he does. This gives the photographs context that they don't normally have, and Burtynsky takes the opportunity to comment in a spare narration. Baichwal wisely subscribes to the same philosophy as Burtynsky in never interpreting or demystifying the photos. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of Burtynsky's photographs are presented in the film and amazed at how well the movie footage supports and directs the viewer into them.

After photographing extraction industries for 10 years, Burtynsky turned his attention to China, where all those materials coalesce and are turned into products we consume. We go with him as he documents the rapidly changing landscapes at a factory, a village that recycles "e-waste", a shipyard, coal mine, the incredible Three Gorges Dam, and China's fastest-growing city, Shanghai. A short trip to a shipwrecking beach in Bangladesh is particularly astonishing. "Manufactured Landscapes" showed me things I had never seen before. And it is content just to show them without judgment.

The DVD (Zeitgeist 2007): Bonus features include 5 additional scenes, a theatrical trailer, and 3 featurettes. "Discussion with the Director and Edward Burtynsky" (19 min) is very worthwhile. Richard Goddard interviews Baichwal and Burtynsky about questions of authorship, perspective, what the film brings to the photos, and touches on the controversial aspects of the Burtynsky's photos. "Al Gore at the Nashville Film Festival" (9 min) records the former Vice President's speech as he presents Baichwal with an award. "Mini-Interview with the Cinematographer/Collaborator" (5 min) talks with Peter Mettler about working with both a photographer and a director. Subtitles are available for the film in English SDH.

The Beauty of Waste
Jennifer Baichwal's documentary is a companion to renowned artist Edward Burtynsky's large-scale photographs depicting man's violent alteration of natural environments. Burtynsky achieved notoriety when he documented mine tailings, rail cuts, quarries and oil refineries, mostly located in North America. Baichwal shows Burtynsky at a lecture and exhibition of this material then travels to Asia with him to document the process of creating art based on China's industrial revolution. Manufactured Landscapes opens with an amazing tracking shot from the sidelines of a factory so enormous that the shot lasts eight minutes. There are stunning views of recycling yards and mountains of electronic refuse. Manufactured Landscapes takes us to the site of the Three Gorges Dam, 50% bigger than any previous such project, and to the ruins of the eleven cities that had to be demolished to make its construction possible. In Bangladesh, we witness an area that's become the final resting place for old oil tankers, which are being scrubbed clean of oil by teenagers. The central theme of Manufactured Landscapes is that the things we've come to regard as indicative of progress and human advancement have created a huge dependence on the extraction of natural resources that undermines the health of our planet and consequently our own. Beinchwal's documentary doesn't need to lecture because the visual evidence is so compelling and, ironically, so beautiful.

a great addition to any eco-doc collector. stunning!
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1X2XR9JJS58NJ