APERTURE
The Dorothea Lange Story

A Feature Film

Written by Michael Greenburg & Gerard de Marigny

Logline Synopsis

Dorothea Lange was not only the pioneer of photo documentary journalism, she was most probably the best shooter to ever hold a camera. Her gifted eye is unparalleled still today. The most profound events of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s come alive through Dorothea’s photographic point of view in this uniquely cinematic and relevant period biopic of her career.
For those three decades, Dorothea Lange’s mission in life, to provoke society to correct injustices, took her to over thirty states, at the expense of her own personal life, children, and health. Her passion for telling stories through the lens of a camera is only matched by the compassion she had for the subjects of her pictures. Her call to “see”— not just look at, but “see”—the struggles of those on the economic bottom are as important today as they were during the Great Depression.

At a time when mere words of the horrific impact from such tragedies as the “Dust Bowl” and Japanese Internment Camps were falling on deaf ears, it was Dorothea’s pictures that prompted action. Her iconic photos motivated the “powers that be” to provide the necessary relief to those deserving Americans, relief to which they were entitled. From the desperation of America’s homeless, migrant farmers, and Native Americans, to the cruel treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, Dorothea brought national awareness to the exploitation of our nation’s most underprivileged citizens.

Every great film possesses great dramatic irony. No irony can be greater than that of Lange’s maternal shortcomings and her most-famous portrait of a mother holding her two children close, in a tent, in the Dust Bowl, during the Great Depression. As a mother, Dorothea Lange was the antithesis of that now world-famous maternal image, yet her all-knowing eye captured a much bigger picture, one that resonated so powerfully, it started a relief movement paving the way for generations of mothers everywhere to be able to provide for their children.

Aperture is the empowering biopic of the relatively unknown hero, Dorothea Lange, Photographer.