Makepeace Productions
Coming to Light


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Beautifully filmed, skillfully edited and well-paced, Coming To Lightis highly recommended for courses on North American Indians, visual anthropology, and American popular culture. Well researched and deftly touching on the complex politics of cross-cultural visual representation, Makepeace's film exhibits a balanced perspective on Curtis as a trailblazer in visual ethnography."
Harald Prins, American Anthropologist,
University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Kansas State University
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Documentarian Anne Makepeace’s Coming to Light is a riveting portrait of one of America’s most famous photographers... The film becomes a thoughtful exploration of powerful ideas about the relationship between an artist and his subjects.
Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle
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The Odyssean photographic career of Edward S. Curtis is charted with impressive sensitivity by Anne Makepeace in this very welcome documentary portrait.
Todd McCarthy, Variety
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Not only was there incredible artistry and soulfulness in his pictures, he had an amazing story himself.

Ted Loos, New York Times Arts and Leisure Feature article including an extensive interview with Anne Makepeace.
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This documentary, with its legions of rich photographs, film footage, journal entries and the like offers a comprehensive look at what Curtis found. Anne Makepeace does a phenomenal job of providing an inside glimpse into the mind of Curtis and the Indians he studied, lived with and loved.
Deborah Holmes, Hollywood Reporter
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In a comprehensive interview, filmmaker Anne Makepeace describes the ten-year adventure of making Coming to Light.
Betsy Bannerman, Release Print
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Feature article including photographs and an interview with the filmmaker.

Starshine Roshell, Santa Barbara News Press
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Remarkable, a fascinating and thorough look at a photographer whose 40,000 images recorded Native American life.
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"COMING TO LIGHT tells more than the story of its main subject, 'Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians.' It tells, too, of the tragedy of cultural loss and hopes for recovery of memory. The film honors the great achievements of Curtis by placing his pictures in a vibrant frame of sorrow, desire, and promise. In its sensitive and intelligent fusion of image, sound, and story, the film offers an extraordinary experience of living history. It cannot be praised enough."
Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray Professor of English and American Studies, Yale University

"The Odyssean photographic career and poignantly forlorn private life of Edward S. Curtis are charted with impressive sensitivity in this very welcome portrait...It's an outstanding subject, one that...emerges compellingly in documentary form."
Todd McCarthy, Variety

"A beautifully crafted epic..."
David Ansen, Newsweek

"An unusually well-balanced view of Edward Curtis' life and works as the best known photographer of North American Indian people during the first part of the twentieth century."
Bill Sturtevant, Curator of Ethnology, National Museum of National History, Smithsonian Institution

"Remarkable, a fascinating and thorough look at a photographer whose 40,000 images recorded Native American life."
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"A phenomenal film. Well crafted, intelligent, and beautiful to behold...brings historical depth and cultural context to our understanding of Curtis' photographs and his monographs on Native Americans...I highly recommend this piece for use in Art History courses, Photography courses, Native American Studies, and especially in Anthropology."
Julia Thompson, Professor of Anthropology, Mount Holyoke College

"Anne Makepeace has done total justice to the myth and the man that Edward S. Curtis was. Coming to Light is a thoroughly researched masterpiece of its own, honoring the man whose portraits continue to honor the beauty and glory of American Indians."
Wishelle Banks, Nevada Outpost

"This superlative movie will serve the classroom well, for its historical value as well as the many issues it raises: the nature of culture, cultural representation and revitalization; Native perspectives, and the ongoing relationship between Indians and non-Indian"
Raymond A. Bucko, Creighton University
(Anthropology Review Database)


OTHER ARTICLES MAY BE FOUND AT:

Bill Pullman’s Website
http://www.billpullman.org/film/light/curtis.htm