Sex at work – Weekend
[ad_1]
With a delay of three years, a documentary biopic by Helmut Newton is released in Russian cinemas. Filmed by Gero von Böhm, Helmut Newton: Disgusting and Magnificent is, first of all, very banal.
Helmut Newton died on January 23, 2004 from a heart attack that happened when he was driving a Cadillac, donated the day before by the head of General Motors, leaving the parking lot of the legendary Chateau Marmont Hotel on the no less legendary street immortalized by his compatriot Billy Wilder – Sunset Boulevard. Newton himself, who was famous for his excellent sense of humor, would probably say that you couldn’t imagine a better ending. Glamor and macabra. Myth and reality. Death, which has always been a welcome guest in his art, is invisibly present in every picture, as if giving the artist an ideal setting, light and dramaturgy of the frame as parting.
What can not be said about the documentary film of the German journalist Gero von Boehm, who in 2020 got to the biography of Newton. Boehm made dozens of television biopics about celebrities of the 20th century – about thinkers like Susan Sontag or Umberto Eco, and about creators like Alberto Giacometti or Balthus, and about style icons like Jacqueline Kennedy or Veruschka. All according to the same template: admiring interviews of contemporaries who were lucky enough to come into contact with a genius, a gallery of works and, finally, a focus on the dark side – abuse, drug addiction, connections with someone without a handshake like fugitive Nazis.
In the case of Newton, one of the greatest fashion photographers of the last century, misogyny and dubious artistic references are responsible for the darkness. Today, when Newton is primarily associated with Taschen albums for coffee tables, available in any decent home or furniture showroom, it is already difficult for the viewer to imagine that many years ago his work aroused the indignation of the progressive-minded part of humanity, and the same Susan Sontag on the air of Bernard Beer’s television program Apostrophe branded the photographer in the face with the last words. For the exploitation and objectification of the female body, for the humiliating mise-en-scenes in which nude models got on all fours and tried on a saddle on their backs. “A woman is not a doll, not a Barbie – he played and threw it away,” Claudia Schiffer or Nadia Auerman embarrassedly agree. Their touching confessions are replaced by archival backstage footage: Newton tyrannizes models on the pier in Monaco, urging some swimwear advertising athlete to get an erection at hand. After all, in every picture there should be conflict and provocation, beauty is very boring.
The most interesting thing in von Boehm’s film is the rare replicas of Newton himself, who apparently agreed shortly before his death for a couple of informal conversations. In the very first minutes, he declares to the camera: it is impossible to watch all films about photographers, they are so banal. Helmut Newton: The Disgusting and the Magnificent is no exception. The hero eludes the author, who is trying to squeeze him into his narrow-minded concept of “there are spots on the sun.” The concept, no doubt, has its potential – due to a certain conjuncture. The time of feminism has been on the clock for many years, and Newton’s complex relationship with models, that is, with women (the master did not care about men), is an invaluable gift for a biographer looking for an original perspective. Alas, witnesses of misogyny – even Charlotte Rampling or Isabella Rossellini – repeat with a grin all the same tired formulas: men fear strong women and at the same time find Amazons sexy. “Sex is always about power,” reports Grace Jones, almost yawning. “Sex is freedom,” concludes Marianne Faithfull, obviously weary.
As for dubious artistic references, Newton is accused of admiring Leni Riefenstahl’s tapes by drawing parallels between Olympia or They’re Coming and a series of photographs of Dolph Lundgren lusting after Grace Jones. All these art studies do not look very convincing. Whether it’s again the recognition of Newton himself, in a joking manner, telling that yes, indeed, he grew up in Berlin in the thirties and yes, he enjoyed watching propaganda films about the superiority of the Aryan race over his Semitic race, and also ran to the lake to swim, ate ice cream, enjoyed the “continuing life”, until it ended and his first teacher in the profession died in the camp. That’s when, as historians of cinema and photography like to say, quoting Cocteau, “death has done its job,” then Newton set about his own – knowing full well, however, that the plan set by death could not be overfulfilled, not changed, not forgotten. But about this, unfortunately, in the film of Gero von Boehm, only half a word.
In theaters from 27 July
Subscribe to Weekend channel in Telegram
[ad_2]
Source link
