Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens
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- Nadrzędna kategoria: Filmy
- Kategoria: Recenzje filmowe z Guardiana
Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens
Xan Brooks
Friday February 15, 2008
The Guardian
Originally made for American TV, Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens is an illuminating study of the doyen of celebrity photography, charting her rise from unaffected hippie chancer to her current position as quasi-official portrait artist for the Hollywood elite. Actually this turns out to be more akin to a fall, since the early, Rolling Stone work is far superior. The film revisits the defiant theatre of Nixon's exit from the White House, peruses the legendary shots of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and hears the stories behind her crisp, Walker Evans-esque photojournalism. Compared to these, those lucrative Vanity Fair commissions just can't compete. By and large, they involve contorting her subjects into unnatural, airbrushed tableux that are at once wildly decadent and oddly un-involving.
The fact that the documentary was shot by Leibovitz's sister, Barbara, proves to be a mixed blessing. We are allowed what at first appears to be limitless access only to suspect that the film is playing coy in certain areas, so that crucial details relating to her relationship with Susan Sontag or her apparently debilitating drug addiction are left tantalisingly out of focus. One comes away with the sense that Leibovitz's photography is at its best when it is shot on the hoof; free and natural and gently indiscreet. This film does too.
by and large – ogólnie biorąc, w sumie
chart- zapisywać, rejestrować
contort – wykrzywiać, wyginać
coy – skromny, nieśmiały, wstydliwy
crisp – świeży; rzeczowy, zwięzły
debilitating - osłabiający
defiant – buntowniczy, bezczelny, prowokatorski
doyen - nestor
illuminating – pouczający, wyjaśniający
on the hoof – (zrobiony) z marszu
peruse – badawczo się przyglądać; przeglądać
tableau , l. mn. tableux – żywy obraz
tantalisingly - zwodniczo, złudnie; w dokuczliwy sposób