The Salt of the Earth

2014 "A Journey With Sebastião Salgado"
8.4| 1h50m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 29 August 2014 Released
Producted By: La Région Île-de-France
Country: Italy
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Genre

Documentary

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The Salt of the Earth (2014) is now streaming with subscription on Starz

Director

Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

Production Companies

La Région Île-de-France

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The Salt of the Earth Audience Reviews

Linkshoch Wonderful Movie
Portia Hilton Blistering performances.
Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
kombizz Indeed it is a good informative film about the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. For sure the first few frames of the film which he took images of the Serra Pelada was amazing. I hope one day I see the film of this place in Youtube or other media. I recommend this movie to those people who enjoy photography. For sure this documentary film talk about despair, love, loss, and redemption.I reckon this movie should be shown in colleges and schools about our world history and greed. Although it gives this hope that one day soon (not in my life time) something drastically happens for better life of people all around the globe.
kosmasp Werner Herzog knows how to make a human story. Be it a feature film or like in this case a documentary. I've seen documentaries where the filmmakers tried hard but failed to get the essence of the subject they tried to portray. This does not happen here. Obviously the subject matter itself is not always an easy one to stomach.But if you can and you're genuinely interested in the work of the photographer (even if you didn't really know much about him, like myself, prior to watching this movie), this will be more than an interesting watch for you. I avoid saying entertaining, because as stated, it is a tough watch at times. The (mostly) black and white nature of it all is enhancing the dreadful feeling, but also elevates it into another class.
baddah This outstanding documentary hit me like a ton of bricks, I don't remember the last time I was that much intrigued and couldn't take my eyes off the screen. The works of photographer Sebastião Salgado is shown in detail while his life is narrated on the background. One of the best things of this movie is that it's not a sole biography, it is actually the story of his soul-shattering pictures taken during the Ethiopian famine, genocide in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, end of Gulf War I while Kuwaiti oilfields were in flames, and many other horrific moments humankind have experienced. Concurrently, Salgado tells how he felt during those moments and how difficult it was to witness such dreadful moments after his interaction with the people forced to endure their misfortune. From this perspective, as the story goes on the viewer develops a great deal of admiration for Mr. Salgado and his work. He is definitely a life changer artist, and to picture the reality he's made lots of sacrifices some of which are even inconceivable to most of us. This work of art does not only depict the pain human kind have experienced in a mechanical order, but with the tense emotional reality we human beings possess. You don't just see the sufferings, feel pity for them and move on, you feel it in your heart and think something is really wrong with our system. And the hardest reality to accept is that we all are part of the system. I think it is a formidable sin to live in prosperity while others struggle and stay alive in poverty, but the funny thing is there is no divine retribution for anything in this world; therefore it is up to average people to do something. Even watching this movie will help increase the awareness of the facts around the world.The Salt of the Earth is a remarkable documentary, well-directed by acclaimed German director Wim Wenders, and tells the life story of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado in chapters of his expeditions during last 40 years of his life. I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes not to see the world through rose-coloured glasses.
CleveMan66 Watching a documentary can be a powerful experience. A good documentary does what any good film does – entertains, educates and makes you feel something. Of course, a documentary is usually more concerned with the last two of those three, but if it does them well, the entertainment value will inevitably be part of the mix. It's also worth noting that the documentary has the impact of truth and reality on its side. Few feature films can match the raw emotional power of a well-done documentary about a compelling subject – especially one that relates to the lives of the audience. You get all of that with "The Salt of the Earth" (PG-13, 1:50), a 2014 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature.The film traces the career of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, a man whose initial career path was about as far from the arts as you can get, but nevertheless has made an indelible mark on the way we see the people and the lands that are part of this planet we all share. Salgado started studying law in college, but switched majors and ended up getting a master's degree in economics. He began using his wife's camera to document his travels in Africa on missions for the World Bank. Soon, he and his wife, Lélia, both came to realize that Sebastião could have a bigger and more positive impact with his life by using his obvious natural talent as a photographer, showing people both what was right and what was wrong with the world in which we live. With his understanding of economic conditions and global trade informing the projects he chose for himself, he went from working as a photojournalist to being part of an international organization of photographers, to striking out on his own, with Lélia as his main supporter, his chief adviser and his primary photo editor. Famed gallery curator Hal Gould has said that Salgado is the most important photographer of the early 21st century. To learn Salgado's story is to discover that statements like that one are difficult to dispute.Salgado's photo projects often lasted years and flowed organically, one into the next, based on his interests and the things he learned along the way. In this documentary, we see him discover the lesser known areas of his native South America (and into Central America) for his project "The Other Americas". The poverty and desperation that he uncovered led him to explore a part of the world with similar problems, the Sahel region of Africa, a continent to which he would make many trips in his career. These experiences led him to other long-term projects, documenting "Workers" all over the world and then helping to publicize the plight of refugees in "Migrations". This latter project and his ongoing interest in Africa resulted in Salgado covering the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994. The horror he witnessed caused Salgado to put down his camera, but his contributions to helping us all understand our world through his photography did not end there. In fact, not only would he pick up his camera many times in the years to come, but he and his family have ended up making contributions to the planet that may have a much bigger impact than the photos that he has shown in galleries and published in books all over the world."The Salt of the Earth" was directed by two men who can only be seen as the perfect team to bring Sebastião Salgado's story to life. Wim Wenders, a previous Oscar nominee for his documentaries "Pina" and "Buena Vista Social Club", brings his experience and expertise to this film, not only as a lauded documentarian, but also as a photographer. Wenders' co-director is none other than Sebastião Salgado's son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, who tells his father's story through the eyes of someone who grew up enduring his father's extended absences, but as an adult, began to accompany Sebastião on his globe-trotting adventures.As Juliano narrates and shoots Sebastião's story and Wenders procduces, we see a man apply his impressive intellect not to making himself rich, but to enriching our understanding of the world in which we live – and how we can make it better. We see a man who once sported a bushy beard and a twinkle in his eye transform into a man whose face and head are devoid of hair and whose impenetrable eyes belie the emotion that occasionally cracks his voice as he talks about his experiences. We see a man of uncompromising artistic integrity and a seemingly bottomless well of personal energy and concern for the earth and its inhabitants. In short, we see a small portion of a unique body of work and we get to know the man behind those photographs and other projects that make him so unforgettable.This film steers clear of the frills of many documentaries and lets the photographer's stark black and white images speak for themselves, many on screen for a brief moment when the camera seems to move through them to reveal the face of the man telling the stories behind the photos. This film starts very slowly and never gets to a point that one would describe as exciting, but there is no denying the impact of the images, the stories they tell and the singular importance of Sebastião Salgado, the man behind the camera. "B+".