The situation depicted in “The Show” (Cruz Angeles) is grim and unfolds as an intense exercise in point-of-view. Angeles’s short film starts with the lynching of a black man and ends with a black and white photograph of the event displayed on a wall in a modern art gallery. The camera takes on the perspectives of the man (Marlon Dow), the picture, and the different people who look at it. Angeles presents in lynching in fragments but it is still difficult to watch. The viewer’s reaction to the images is paralleled in the reactions of the gallery visitors. Some people look at the photo with humility, other people are almost ashamed to make direct eye contact, and others appear to be intrigued and even hold up a magnifying glass to the picture. Shorter than ten minutes in length, “The Show” powerfully demonstrates the potency of images, especially those representing darker portions of American history.
