Notman's World

This film portrays the Scottish-born Montreal photographer William Notman (1826-1891) as a man of rare talent. Photography was still in its infancy when Notman opened his first studio in the city in 1856. He rapidly turned his art, and a budding technology, into a highly successful business. Not content with doing mere portraiture, Notman saw photography as a means of documenting history. With the use of props in his studio, composite photographs, and calling on his background as a trained artist, Notman immortalized the people and places of Canada. But this film goes beyond the re-creation of the past to question how photographs shape our sense of history.

National Film Board of Canada

1989

Documentary

29 min, 7 sec

en