Dir: Steven Shainberg
2006
***
It's an interesting idea. Diane Arbus' photographic portraits were somewhat radical in the 1950s, her subjects being of people with disabilities and deformities and of members of underground groups and counterculture in general. Her photographs have been praised by many since and she is recognised as a pioneer in the medium, although before her death she had declared that she hated all of them. Whether you like them or not, her legacy is clear. What this fictional film wants to depict is exactly how the daughter of wealthy 5th Avenue department store owners became such a rebellious creative force. This is actually all covered in Patricia Bosworth's unauthorized biography of the young artist, her influences are clear and well documented as are her conflicting thoughts on her own work. Steven Shainberg and playwright Erin Cressida Wilson have basically explored Arbus' metamorphosis by inserting her life story into both Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's Beauty and the Beast. There is also a strange eroticism at play in the film which isn't at all a reflection on Arbus' life or work but more because that's what both director and screen writer do best (see 2002's Secretary). It's an interesting theatrical experiment, it would have been nice to see a little more of her work in the film but then who knows what the intention really was here, I did like it, I thought it was different and quirky however a factual film of the artist would now be nice. Both Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr are good, I just wish they'd whispered less.
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