Let me state, straight up, that this is not the type of movie that I would normally seek out.
I ran across it the other day while I was helping out the circulation workroom. It caught my eye (Hello, RDJ!) and since working in circ makes me think of college, I decided to check it out.
Back in my undergraduate days, I majored in Women’s Studies. Diane Arbus, the subject of Fur, was a name that often came up in discussions. Arbus was a photographer who is best known for her portraits of “deviant” groups – transvestites, circus performers, nudists. She’s credited for pioneering a new spirit in documentary photography, empathizing with her subjects rather than displaying them.
She’s also an artist I have never really understood. Although people who know a hell of a lot more about art photography than I do have said her photos are astounding, they never really struck me as anything more than voyeuristic .
So – Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. I went into it with a little knowledge about the subject and not a whole lot of expectations. I accept that this film is not a “biography” and that plenty of artistic liberty has been taken with Arbus’s life. Since I only have the barest sense of Arbus’s history anyway, I was willing to separate this fantasy from the historical person. Even with that caveat, I don’t think this film works very well.
