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Spiritual Movies and Books
Ansel Adams: An American Experience Documentary Film by Ric Burns (2002) --
As a young man hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Ansel Adams saw something that he would
spend the rest of his life trying to convey through his photographs:
I was suddenly arrested in the long, crunching path of the ridge by an exceedingly 
pointed awareness of the light. The moment I paused, the full impact of the mood was upon me.
I saw more clearly than I'd ever seen before, the minute detail of the grasses, the small flotsam
of the forest, the motion of the high clouds streaming above the peaks. I dreamed that for a
moment, time stood quietly and the vision became but the shadow of an infinitely greater world,
and I had within the grasp of consciousness a transcendental experience.
Art inspired by such experience has the potential to evoke that experience in others, and this film is a work of art in itself. The timing and intonation of narrator David Ogden Stiers, the grand and graceful videography of Yosemite, the stark black and white photographs of Ansel Adams, and the soundtrack by Brian Keane amplify every nuance of the story, framing the journey of Adams' life in a mood of transcendental possibility. Both the film and the soundtrack are well worth owning.
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