I've just been watching the trailer of "Fur", the new Diane Arbus film (so-called "imaginary portrait") directed by Steven Shainberg who trod all over Mary Gaitskill's "Secretary" a few years back.
The trailer shows a breathy-Nicole Kidmann as a painfully shy 50's mom trying to break away from her husband's photo biz to "take pictures of our neighbours" and to be bowled over by Robert Downey jr in a Jason-mask who will encourage her to find her wild side. Huh? Is this the same Diane Arbus who blew open photography in the 60's?
I guess Hollywood can't figure out what to do w/artists. Ed Harris did get to paint (to a jazzy soundtrack) in "Pollack", and I suppose they'll show Nicole/Diane photographing, and surround it with some ridiculous timid-woman-artist-"opened up"-by-weird-guy-mentor-in-a-mask plot.
I can't help wishing that Doon Arbus who looks after her mother's estate would sue. But how do you sue a fiction? What bugs me is that this serious artist who redefined her art is reduced (in the trailer anyway) to a squeeky voiced parody of a shrinking violet without a shred of self awareness.
Quote from Arbus: "...there's a kind of power thing about the camera. I mean everyone knows you've got some edge. You're carrying some slight magic which does something to them. It fixes them in a way."
Who knows? Maybe the movie will send more people to the photographs:
Identical Twins, Roselle, NJ
Nudist Lady with Swan sunglasses
The King and Queen of a Senior Citizens Dance
Mexican dwarf in his hotel room in N.Y.C.
A Jewish Giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, NY
Look 'em up. Be amazed.
(cityofmushrooms)
3 comments:
I bought an oldies compilation cd like that once, only to find that it was a re-recording. All of the artists were twenty years past the time they should have stopped singing. Guess I should've read the fine print on the back cover.
and now, for something actually related to the topic at hand...
(oh, you shoe filler, you...)
wonders if the diane arbus movie will send people to see the pictures....
does that mean that blogs will send people out to libraries or bookstores??
frieda444@hotmail.com
blogs to libraries and bookstores? in our dreams, frieda-girl, in our dreams
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