Fur Review(s) Options

[gracie]

I was fortunate to see Fur yesterday. (I'm in San Antonio, TX, so I'm glad Fur is shown in more than a few really large metro areas.)

I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I thought it was very beautifully crafted to reflect what Diane Arbus's work was really about. Most critics missed a major concept of the movie (as they weren't willing to "think outside the box").

As all great art does, Arbus' venture into the "unknown" portrays the "secrets within secrets" of humanity. You can't seek out the "secrets" of what we as humans are without being brave enough to explore unique, unmasked aspects of the human race, even though it's very frightening (traumatic) at times. As portrayed in Fur (a scene also from Bosworth's bio of Arbus), when Arbus was a little girl she stepped out of her apartment home high above New York City onto a building ledge and repeated as she looked out over the city "I must be brave..I must be brave" which I think probably was Arbus' mantra to explore what frightened her and which nevertheless led her to discover many secrets within secrets through her photographs. This theme of "secrets" is carried out through the movie even to Arbus' last words before Fur ends..."Tell me a secret..."

This post has been edited by gracie: Dec 3 2006, 07:53 AM

[consuelo]

I enjoyed the movie thoroughly.  I thought it was very beautifully crafted to reflect what Diane Arbus's work was really about.  Most critics missed a major concept of the movie (as they weren't willing to "think outside the box"). 

I agree gracie.

[Grace Margaret M...]

here is a very intereting article about steven shainberg with some very good comments on fur:

Taking Arbus to the next level
Filmmaker develops a portrait of the photographer by imagining her muse.

By Jennifer Frey
The Washington Post
Posted December 3 2006

Filmmaker Steven Shainberg's voice is rising in expletive-riddled excitement, drawing warning glances from the guards at a photography exhibition at the National Gallery's West Building, and even an occasional shush.

Forgive Shainberg, but, at a moment like this, shush isn't his style. A Robert Frank photograph? He worked for the man his first year out of college and can describe and explain every single one of his photographs. Helen Levitt? Oh, she was friends with his mom, used to come out with the family to Cape Cod to summer. Look at that Walker Evans -- did you know that legendary photographer Diane Arbus was so terrified of him that upon arriving at his apartment, she refused to get out of the car?

Ah, Arbus. The reason Shainberg is in Washington, D.C., for an interview, responding to the photographs in "The Streets of New York: American Photographs From the Collection, 1938-1958" like a hyperactive kid with the insight and intellect of a top photography critic. His experimental take on Arbus' life -- Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (starring Nicole Kidman in the title role) -- has just opened, to much buzz and some controversy over that whole "imaginary" part.

Before he sits down to explain that decision, though, he works his way methodically and eagerly through the exhibition, eventually landing in front of one of two Arbus photographs being shown, Female Impersonator With Jewels, from 1958.

"When I look at this picture," he says, "I feel like I've gone two doors down the hallway further." Huh? He tries to explain, gesturing to the photographs that had come before. "Arbus said, `You guys went this far, I'm going to go two doors further.'"

And that's exactly what Shainberg set out to do with the film.

Photos and stories

Shainberg grew up with Arbus photographs on his walls, and stories from his uncle, author Lawrence Shainberg, who was one of Arbus' close friends until her death, by suicide, in 1971. He's had a lifetime fascination with her, with Arbus' gift for capturing the unusual and eccentric -- dwarfs, giants, transvestites -- with an authenticity that haunts some and horrifies others. The logical and safe and predictable thing for her would have been to continue her life as wife and mother and assistant to her fashion-photographer husband, Allan Arbus. Only she didn't.

The logical and safe entrance into the story of Arbus' life would have been through Door No.1: the Hollywood biopic. Not for Shainberg. Not for the guy whose breakout film, Secretary, a sadomasochistic love story (starring James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal), is about the healing power of a good spanking over the boss' desk.

He wanted to make a movie "true to her spirit and true to what my connection to her is," Shainberg says. The result, Fur, creates a fictional relationship between Arbus (whose first name is pronounced DE-ann) and a mysterious man, Lionel, who lives in the apartment above hers. Lionel, played by Robert Downey Jr., serves as her guide as she ventures into the darker sides of society that will eventually become the focus of her photography. He is, in fact, presented as the first portrait she takes.

In other words, Shainberg went straight to Door No.3, and stepped into a world of fairy-tale noir, one inhabited by a fictional man-muse covered entirely in fur.

Which door to pick?

Spend two hours listening to Shainberg talk -- about his life, his art, his motivations and especially about his sense of fellowship with Arbus -- and somehow it hardly seems fair to render his life entirely through Door No.1, aka the traditional narrative.

To wit:

Door No. 1 -- a brief biographical sketch of Steven Shainberg, age 43. He grew up on the upper east side of Manhattan with a father, David, who was a psychoanalyst, and a mother, Diane, a psychiatrist who became a Buddhist nun. (They divorced when he was 14.) He has a sister and a half brother. His family was, as he puts it, "unbelievably literate." He went to private schools, then Yale, and studied at the American Film Institute for three years in his mid-20s. He made some successful short films, did some work for MTV, got into commercials. His first movie, Hit Me, came out in 1996. He hates L.A.; loves New York, where he lives with his wife, documentary filmmaker Rachel Boynton.

Then there's Door No. 3 -- Shainberg on what drew him to the Mary Gaitskill short story that was the basis for Secretary.

"I'm almost exclusively interested in what happens behind closed doors, between people," Shainberg says. "The removal of their public face. ... Those two people in the story I just found incredibly touching. Like, who's this senator who just got nabbed?"

You mean former congressman Mark Foley?

"I found Foley, like, so touching. It's so amazing. The need and -- it's not even desperation, because that's almost pejorative -- but the energy is undeniable. It's fantastic. And beautiful. And everybody knows about that, in one form or another. Not necessarily teenage boys. But everybody has a connection to that desire and to that pain and to that conflict. And I find it really touching that people go through it."

`Artistic blind date'
Secretary was a collaborative project between Shainberg and writer Erin Cressida Wilson, who also scripted Fur. A mutual friend set up Shainberg and Wilson on what she refers to as an "artistic blind date" years ago because, she says, the two seemed to have "similar sensibilities."

As in?

"Sense of humor," she says. "Sense of power relationships. Sense of what is erotic and sensual and dirty and fun. Sense of what is most emotionally moving about seemingly creepy subject matter. These are all things we share, along with a political incorrectness. The bottom line is, we're both committed to dealing with typically dark subjects ... and revealing the beauty and vulnerability of that which seems scary and horrible."

To going two more doors down the hallway, as Arbus did.

"After Secretary, I was wanting very badly to find something to make that I really cared about," says Shainberg. The rights to Arbus' story -- specifically Diane Arbus: A Biography, by Patricia Bosworth -- were always owned by someone else, though no scripts ever made their way into production.

Then one day the producers currently in possession of the film rights -- Edward Pressman and Bonnie Timmerman -- called him, Shainberg says, and asked, "Do you know who Diane Arbus is?"

Shainberg widens his eyes to emphasize his shock. He and Wilson signed on.

Fairy-tale muse

So what happened when they told the producers that their vision of the film involved a fictional guy who lived in an apartment upstairs from the Arbus family ... and happened to be covered in fur?

"It was hysterical because no one knew what to say," Shainberg says.

But everyone bought in, including Downey, who had to undergo three hours a day of "makeup" -- getting fur glued on -- before shooting.

Downey's character is designed to represent the two biggest influences on Arbus' professional life -- photographer Lisette Model and painter Marvin Israel -- as well as the eccentric characters who were the hallmark of her work.

"He is at once her subject, her object of desire, he is her imagination, her muse, and he's also her mentor," Wilson says. "I needed him to be otherworldly. I needed him to be from a fairy-tale world."

Shainberg goes on to explain: Arbus felt that "in going out into the world to make pictures that she was having an Alice in Wonderland experience," he says. "So that idea of the myth and that idea of the fairy tale wasn't something that I imposed upon her life. It came from things she said. And it also comes from her work. Her work has all the qualities of a fairy tale -- giants and dwarfs and transvestites. It is a kind of in-the-rabbit-hole world."

The gamble now is whether viewers are willing to go down the rabbit hole and embrace what's behind Door No.3. Not that the risk would ever have stopped Shainberg.

"I like," he says, "to keep going further and further down the hall."

www.sun-sentinel.com

[gracie]

here is a very intereting article about steven shainberg with some very good comments on fur:

www.sun-sentinel.com

Grace, I love that interview with Shainberg...critics and movie goers might have modified their first reaction to Fur if they'd had a chance to read about where the director was coming from!

Thanks very much for sharing the interview!

[jujuelen]

Love's fur real



NICOLE Kidman and Robert Downer Jr star in Fur, a fictional account of (real) photographer Diane Arbus, and a love affair which inspired her to embrace the strange and unusual in her pictures.

Kidman plays Arbus at a time in her life when she is happily married in a wealthy New York family. But she unexpectedly falls in love with a new neighbour, Lionel Sweeney (Downey Jr), who has hypertrichosis. This is the condition sometimes referred to as Werewolf Syndrome, leaving those affected by it extremely hairy all over. Downey Jr is said to resemble Chewbaca from the Star Wars films in his role.

The made up love affair introduces Arbus to the kind of world she comes to capture and share with the world in her remarkable career.

An interesting mix of fact and, mostly, fiction make up this portrait of one of the iconic photographers of the 20th century.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, certificate 15, on general release from Friday March 16.

source: http://www.bromleytimes.co.uk

[skankyoldwhore]

From The Times
March 14, 2007

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

James Christopher

15, 121 mins

4 out of 5 stars

The clever spin that Steven Shainberg applies to Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus is not to treat the material like a biopic at all. In fact it would be difficult to attribute a single frame of this quirky fantasy to Patricia Bosworth’s earnest biography if it wasn’t for the title credits. This is a genuinely novel way to explore a life that has famously eluded any conventional covers. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that it is the male director of Secretary who has painted this almost feminist fairytale of Arbus.

Nicole Kidman is the pinched and lonely wife, Diane (pronounced Dee-Anne). Her sensible husband makes a living by photographing kitsch adverts for catalogues. Diane’s rich and stifling parents provide the biggest contracts via the fur trade. “I take light-readings and iron clothes,” explains Diane to a studio full of bored clients. You could choke on the tedium.

The arrival of a mysterious masked stranger in the large apartment above sparks a bizarre and touching fable. It rapidly transpires that Robert Downey Jr has retired as the main attraction from a freak show. He is carpeted from head to foot in hair; a genetic accident has made him capable of winning Crufts.

The beautiful Diane is mesmerised by this beast. A sharp, almost sexual, desire to photograph him opens a metaphorical door. Downey’s huge brown eyes and sophisticated manners are the disarming tools. His freakery empowers Diane. His life on the fringe (with weird and misshapen friends to match) is a terrific source of visual drama. Nothing needs to be spelled out. What Shainberg captures on film is as familiar as the Brothers Grimm, and yet as strange as David Lynch. Diane’s art is to make it feel normal. It drives her loyal husband (Ty Burrell) and her two confused young daughters to a distraction bordering on despair.

Kidman delivers another standout performance, transparent and magnetic. Burrell is no match for Downey’s hypnotic beast. The hairy romantic chemistry with Kidman is electric, the context inspired.

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http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle1515886.ece

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur (15)

Fur
Plot
A biopic of the life and times of American photographer Diane Arbus, who began in the fashion industry and ended up building her portfolio with photos of 'freaks and misfits'.

Empire Review
With its subtitle, “An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus”, this tribute to the celebrated and controversial photographer Diane Arbus confesses that it is not a conventional biography, but a fantasy expressing her inner experience. Well, alright then! Most biopics of artists make it all up anyway, but it’s good of them to say so.

Still, art lovers’ hackles may rise as it offers a simplistic, if bizarro, vision of Arbus’ artistic awakening. Diane here is devoted wife, mother and assistant to her fashion-photographer husband Allan (Ty Burrell). Her vulnerability is explained by meeting her wealthy, overbearing parents. She’s stifled. We know this because she sneaks outside to unbutton her prim dress and breathe. All she needed, apparently, was to meet a man — admittedly an unusual one — to teach her that oddity is the real beauty. We know this before she ever snaps her camera because all his chums are lookalikes of Arbus’ ’60s photographic subjects: dwarves, a woman without arms, transvestites, twins.

Give it up for Nicole Kidman. She seems to have an affinity with frustrated artists who committed suicide. It’s another adventurous choice of hers to work with the director (Steven Shainberg) and screenwriter (Erin Cressida Wilson) of the bold Secretary. And she’s well matched in the acting stakes by Robert Downey Jr., whose Lionel, circus freak turned reclusive wigmaker, turns his top-floor flat into what looks like the tower in an enchanted castle. Unmasked, every inch of him is covered with luxuriant hair; he’s a dead ringer for the Beast in Cocteau’s La Belle Et La Bête. There are also obvious allusions to Alice In Wonderland and a humorous delight in some far-fetched elements, although other notions teeter towards silliness (check out jealous husband Allan’s sprouting beard).

Downey Jr. is not just his usual great value; he is spellbinding. Those dark eyes penetrate through his pelt, exerting a supernatural charm that makes a memorably erotic love scene believable and affecting. Kidman, exposed without the assistance of any physical peculiarities, meets the singular challenge of conveying an artist’s inner journey with a quiet, subtle, passionate intelligence. More likeable, some might feel, than the real Arbus or her provocative images.

Verdict
Far-out touches and liberal application of metaphor are compensated for by intensity and two mesmerising performances.

3 out of 5 stars

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/Review...e.asp?FID=11013

[skankyoldwhore]

FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS (15)

THE STARS: Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Junior, Ty Burrell.

THE STORY: Diane Arbus (Kidman) turns her back on her wealthy family, and is introduced by the enigmatic Lionel Sweeney (Downey Jr) to the people who live on the fringes of society. Her photographs of them bring her great acclaim.

WHAT'S GOOD? This surreal re-imagining of the life of photographer Diane Arbus is a real exercise in creative film-making as director Steven Shainberg's film treads a delicate path between oddly charming and downright daft.

Kidman is suitably stylish as Arbus with Downey Jr a hairy-faced freak who looks like a charming Chewbacca.

WHAT'S BAD? It takes a real leap of faith to take this story at face value and, while thoughtful, beautiful and intriguing, its appeal may be limited.

HOW LONG IS IT? A freakish 122 minutes.

FINAL VERDICT: Wonderfully weird, with Kidman also strangely charming.

Opens Friday, March 16
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/showbiz/movies/#story3

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

The title spells it out: this is not a conventional biopic about the New York photographer whose obsession with circus ‘freaks’, transvestites and mental patients inspired her cruel, disturbing pictures of marginalised human ‘beauty’. Rather, it is a fantastical speculation about Diane Arbus’ metamorphosis from dutiful housewife, mother and assistant to her fashion photographer husband into fully-fledged artist in her own right. Superficially, ‘Secretary’ director Steven Shainberg’s film is conceptually bold; but it is also hermetically sealed off from reality. Anyone familiar with the facts of Arbus’ life will wonder why neither they nor her images feature anywhere; those unfamiliar with her life and work will leave the film none the wiser.

The conceit of a ‘Through the Looking Glass’-style meeting between Arbus (Nicole Kidman) and her secretive new neighbour – hirsute ‘Wolf Man’ Lionel (Robert Downey Jr) – is a striking one. But the story of a 1950s housewife struggling to escape her stifling, middle-class life and give expression to her burgeoning artistic vision could not be more conventional. Although absurdly miscast as the fragile, bird-like Arbus, the statuesque Kidman exudes a fluttery, neurotic excitement. As the seductive Lionel, Downey Jr bristles with confidence: at ease with his hairy self, he is also loved and supported by his circle of oddball friends. The neurotic beauty to Lionel’s sexy beast, Arbus trembles on the edge of self-discovery as she crosses into her neighbour’s strange, enticing world.

Shainberg plays fast and loose with the facts, which might have been justified had it led to some profound artistic or psychological insights. As it stands, his film illuminates Arbus’ artistically brilliant, emotionally unstable life for no longer than the popping of a flash bulb.
http://www.timeout.com/film/84006.html

[In Theory]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

The title spells it out: this is not a conventional biopic about the New York photographer whose obsession with circus ‘freaks’, transvestites and mental patients inspired her cruel, disturbing pictures of marginalised human ‘beauty’. Rather, it is a fantastical speculation about Diane Arbus’ metamorphosis from dutiful housewife, mother and assistant to her fashion photographer husband into fully-fledged artist in her own right. Superficially, ‘Secretary’ director Steven Shainberg’s film is conceptually bold; but it is also hermetically sealed off from reality. Anyone familiar with the facts of Arbus’ life will wonder why neither they nor her images feature anywhere; those unfamiliar with her life and work will leave the film none the wiser.

The conceit of a ‘Through the Looking Glass’-style meeting between Arbus (Nicole Kidman) and her secretive new neighbour – hirsute ‘Wolf Man’ Lionel (Robert Downey Jr) – is a striking one. But the story of a 1950s housewife struggling to escape her stifling, middle-class life and give expression to her burgeoning artistic vision could not be more conventional. Although absurdly miscast as the fragile, bird-like Arbus, the statuesque Kidman exudes a fluttery, neurotic excitement. As the seductive Lionel, Downey Jr bristles with confidence: at ease with his hairy self, he is also loved and supported by his circle of oddball friends. The neurotic beauty to Lionel’s sexy beast, Arbus trembles on the edge of self-discovery as she crosses into her neighbour’s strange, enticing world.

Shainberg plays fast and loose with the facts, which might have been justified had it led to some profound artistic or psychological insights. As it stands, his film illuminates Arbus’ artistically brilliant, emotionally unstable life for no longer than the popping of a flash bulb.
http://www.timeout.com/film/84006.html

It's funny this reviewer says Nicole is miscast and then uses words to describe Arbus that have been used to describe Nicole. Go figure.

Thanks for all the reviews by the way.



This post has been edited by In Theory: Mar 15 2007, 02:58 PM

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
(15)
Director. Stephen Shainberg
Starring.
Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
Four out of Five stars
Running time: 122 mins

Stylish, imaginative and beautifully directed, this is a slow-moving but utterly mesmerising drama with terrific performances from Kidman and Downey Jnr.

What's it all about?
As the subtitle suggests, Fur presents an imaginary portrait of legendary photographer Diane Arbus. It's set in 1958 (the year Arbus began her career), when Diane (Nicole Kidman) is a housewife and mother, who works as an assistant to her fashion photographer husband Allan (Ty Burrell).

However, Diane is uncomfortable with her life and her hunger for something different leads her to forge a relationship with her new neighbour, a mysterious masked man named Lionel (Robert Downey Jnr). As Diane meets Lionel's unusual friends and acquaintances, her confidence grows until she's ready to embark on her own artistic career, although she finds herself alienating her family in the process.

The Good
There isn't a huge amount of plot and the film moves extremely slowly, but it's never dull and there are several scenes and images that will stay with you long after you leave the cinema. It also has a superb score by Carter Burwell.

The Great
Fur is the eagerly awaited second feature from Stephen Shainberg who made Secretary, and he directs with the same strongly visual style, saturating the film with bright colours and making full use of some impressive set design work. Just to hammer home the imaginary element, he also packs the film full of references to both Beauty and the Beast and Alice in Wonderland, although in the case of Alice this backfires somewhat because there are just so many of them.

Kidman is terrific as Diane, effecting a thoroughly captivating transition from shy, emotionally fragile housewife to a confident, sexually curious artist, hungry to explore new worlds. Downey Jnr is equally good and his sensitive portrayal of Lionel is genuinely moving.

Worth seeing?
Shainberg's imaginative approach to Arbus' life pays off handsomely, resulting in a beautifully directed, stylish drama with superb performances. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by - Matthew Turner
http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/review_3201.html

[skankyoldwhore]

With the likes of Dogville, Birth and Eyes Wide Shut on her CV, it's fair to say that Nicole Kidman has always been fearless in her choice of projects. It's also fair to say that this phantasmagoric biopic of American photographer Diane Arbus is definitely one of her stranger roles. Arbus, who died in 1971, was inspired by Tod Browning's cult 1932 movie Freaks and is best known for her photographs of people on the fringes of society. Billed as “an imaginary portrait”, this highly fictionalised biographical snapshot follows Arbus as she embarks on a mysterious and sexually charged affair with her neighbour Lionel (Robert Downey Jr), a man suffering from hypertrichosis, which gives him a werewolf-like abundance of hair. Director Steven Shainberg (Secretary) lets Kidman's bashfully aroused performance lead us into a neurotic, psychosexual fairy tale in which normality gives way to a dark carnival of weirdness as the photographer discovers her artistic calling. Kidman and Downey Jr excel as the improbable lovers, and the unusual premise just about survives Shainberg's constrictive pacing and mannered direction. JR

3 out of 5 stars

http://www.radiotimes.com/servlet_film/com...ect=5&frn=46199

This post has been edited by skankyoldwhore: Mar 16 2007, 02:27 AM

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus
Your rating
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Click on a star to rate
Cert: 15

Evening Standard rating Derek Malcolm's rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Dir: Steven Shainberg. Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Ty Burrell, Nicole Kidman

Country: US. 2006. 122mins

A fictional picture of the past

By Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard 15.03.07



Picture perfect: Nicole Kidman plays controversial Sixties photographer Diane Arbus

There are two ways you can make screen biographies. You can tell the truth and, at least in America, risk getting sued. Or you can doll up a life like a kindly preacher at a funeral.

But Steven Shainberg, who came to attention with Secretary, which dared to present us with a sado-masochistic relationship which was highly satisfactory for both parties, has found a third way.

In Fur, he presents us with a fairy tale about Diane Arbus, controversial photographer of the Sixties, that doesn't pretend to represent the facts. He merely wants to suggest how this once conventional wife and mother might have become the legend she was.

Nicole Kidman plays her and that alone should draw an audience over and above the fact that the Arbus portraiture, grim and possibly exploitative as it often was, changed the whole tone of still photography.

We see her, in a prim Fifties dress, assisting her fashion and advertising photographer husband (Ty Burrell) who shoots conventional photos for her rich and bullying father's Fifth Avenue fur and department store. That much is true.

The rest is pure fiction as she discovers a man in the room upstairs who is peculiar, to say the least. He is an ex-circus performer who is so covered in hair that he resembles Cocteau's Beast. And she, of course, is the beauty.

Fascinated by the man, who is clearly fascinated by her, Arbus spends more and more time with him. She watches as his circus friends gather in his apartment, each some sort of freakish mutation from the normal. And she learns to love rather than fear them.

It is fortunate that Robert Downey Jr has wonderfully expressive eyes, because that's about all we see of him as the hairy man upstairs. It makes acting difficult but not impossible and Downey does what he can with his soulful sockets.

Kidman, however, is better served. She shows us how an ordinary woman becomes unordinary through the experience, though we never see her work that caused such a furore at the time, and does so even now.

What we do see is her husband's increasing pain as he realises she might be drifting away from him. So he grows a beard and hopes for the best.

Shainberg's film is long and slow, in contrast to Secretary, and nothing like as powerful in making its point. What's more, it tells us less about Arbus than we want to know. But at least it is attempting something audaciously different and Kidman's performance keeps it alive.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/film-23...viewId=23389033

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
4.5/5 stars

The writer and director of Secretary return with an even more inventive and audacious follow-up, which distributors are clearly unsure how to market. It may be an adventurous oddity, but mainstream audiences tired of watching the same movie over and over again would love this.

In 1958 New York, Diane Arbus (Kidman) assists her husband Allan (Burrell) in his commercial photography studio. She also tries to live up to her social standing as daughter of wealthy fur-shop owners (Alexander and Yulin). When Lionel (Downey) moves in upstairs her artistic curiosity is piqued, and she decides to meet him and take his portrait. But since he has a condition that makes him grow thick hair all over his body, he doesn't exactly fit into her ordered world.

As the title says, this isn't a literal biography. It's a figurative story about how Arbus opened the artist within herself, and went on to become one of the century's greatest photographers with her bracing portraits of people outside so-called civilised society. Wilson's script cleverly merges the facts with heavy doses of fiction to show us Arbus' inner journey, stirring beautiful parallels to Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast all the way through (although some of these references become rather heavy-handed).

Kidman is perfectly cast in the role, balancing her physical elegance with an inner grit and determination that's expressed brilliantly through her entire physicality. Even the way she breathes her dialog offers a glimpse into Arbus' internal world. And the sparky Downey uses his expressive eyes to wonderful effect, partly because that's all we can see through his fur. Burrell even has a strongly layered role as a man who understands that his wife needs more than he can offer.

Director Shainberg films it beautifully, with striking production design, gorgeously textured cinematography (by Bill Pope) and an astonishing sound mix. Meanwhile, the emotional impact is reminiscent of Julianne Moore's storylines in both Far From Heaven and The Hours, people breaking free from constricted situations. These are themes that everyone can identify with, especially when they're expressed with such intelligence and artistry.
http://www.shadowsonthewall.co.uk/index.html

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur (15)
By Telegraph newsdesk

AMONG the prizes Steven Shainberg picked up for Secretary, his kooky, S&M-among-the-filing-cabinets comedy, was the Independent Spirit Award.

His ease with edgier subjects seemed to make him the ideal choice to direct a movie about Diane Arbus, the photographer who focussed on the world of outsiders, particularly people with extreme disabilities.

Nicole Kidman, in another bold career move, plays Arbus.
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When we meet her it's the 1950s and she is a bored wife and mother, helping to run her husband's photography studio in New York.

The arrival of a new neighbour (Robert Downey Jr) arouses her curiosity, but Lionel, who suffers from hypertrichosis, or excessive body hair, is wary of strangers.

The two eventually form a bond, and as he draws her into his alternative social circle, she starts to feel more at ease with this new family than her old one.

Those looking for a conventional biopic of Arbus won't find it here.

This, as the subtitle tells us, is "an imaginary portrait", full of hints and metaphors. For all its attempts at daring, it is not quite brave or imaginative enough to do justice to such a complex and controversial, figure.

Suggesting Arbus took up her particular obsessions because once upon a time some people were nice to her is a thuddingly literal explanation of her artistry.

Though some parts are very silly, Shainberg's beautifully styled film nevertheless sneaks up on the viewer and exerts a hold.

Kidman and Downey Jr are a watchable pair, his obvious relish of the more outlandish scenes throwing her slight uneasiness into sharp relief.

It won't be to everyone's taste, and Downey's appearance takes some getting used to, but it's an arresting attempt to pin down an intriguing woman.
http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/display....84.0.fur_15.php

[skankyoldwhore]

BEAUTY And The Beast meets Alice In Wonderland in this seriously surreal so-called biopic of legendary U.S. photographer Diane Arbus.

Set in New York in the Fifties, it stars Nicole Kidman as Arbus, a bored wife and mother whose creative talents are stifled by her conventional life and overbearing parents.

Things change when she meets mysterious masked neighbour Lionel (played by Hollywood wreck-head Robert Downey Jr), a circus freak turned wigmaker who, despite being a dead ringer for Chewbacca, steals her heart and launches her on the road to artistic acclaim.

Director Steven Shainberg follows up his wonderfully weird S&M flick Secretary with yet another genuinely odd slice of cinema packed full of kinky moments that may leave some viewers cringing behind their popcorn.

Luckily, Kidman and Downey Jr’s moving performances more than make up for the film’s daft script.

3 pups
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003080...7120450,00.html

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus

our rating: 3.0
StarStarStarNo StarNo Star


Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus
Starring
Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr, Ty Burrell, Harris Yulin, Jane Alexander, Emmy Clarke

Directed by
Steven Shainberg

112 minutes, USA (2006), 15


Nicole Kidman plays Diane Arbus, the well-to-do Manhattan wife who becomes one of the twentieth century's most revered photographers in Secretary director Steven Shainberg's "imaginary portrait" of an artist

Even before the credits have rolled, it's evident that Steven Shainberg's film is not a traditional 'biopic'. "This is a film about Diane Arbus," reads an antiquated-looking title-card, "but it is not a historical biography." Despite using Patricia Bosworth's book 'Diane Arbus: A Biography' as a source, Shainberg and writer Erin Cressida Wilson, reunited after their highly successful 2003 film Secretary, take a leap into the unknown with this unusual attempt to express their subject's inner life.

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After a brief flash-forward, as Diane (Kidman) is about to take on her first photographic study at a naturist camp, the film rewinds three months. It's 1958 in New York City and Diane (pronounced 'Dee-Ann') is hosting a party. Her husband Allan (Burrell) is a photographer, who has recently been shooting campaigns for the latest furs at Russek's, the exclusive Fifth Avenue department store owned by Diane's father (Yulin). A devoted wife and mother-of-two, Diane is also her husband's assistant - but it soon becomes clear that she has long since repressed any dreams of her own artistic expression.

What - or rather who - brings Diane out of her domesticated shell is the subject of Fur. It is her mysterious (fictional) new neighbour, Lionel Sweeney (Downey Jr) who helps launch Diane into a wider world. Afflicted with a rare condition that causes hair to sprout all over his face and body - as a teenager shaving proved pointless because "it grew back so quickly, it was hardly worth the effort" - it's no surprise that Lionel used to eke out a living as a circus freak.

Now making money by spinning wigs from his excess hair, Lionel hangs out with other 'outsiders' - from dwarves to a dominatrix - who accept him for who he is. But once he reveals the full extent of his condition to Diane, she does not back away; rather she finds genuine friendship with Lionel, at the expense of her life with Allan (who even grows a beard at one point in a desperate hope of winning her round) and her children.

What emerges is a very tender beauty-and-the-beast love story that anyone who saw Secretary will instantly feel familiar with. While that film dealt with a couple bonded by a sado-masochistic relationship, so here is another romance where Shainberg and Wilson ask us not to judge their protagonists. Likewise the hermetically sealed atmosphere of the film - encouraged by the ornate production design of Lionel's apartment - recalls Secretary, as Shainberg allows the film to hover between reality and a fairy-tale fantasy world.

Undeniably brave in its attempt to show how an artist's creative impulses are inspired, Shainberg is backed to the hilt by two committed performances from Kidman and Downey Jr, who must've gone through hell with the hair-mask he's forced to wear. Another unsung hero of the film is Burrell, who hits exactly the right note as Allan, a decent man struggling to keep his family together while losing his wife to another.

Recalling previous attempts to express an artist's mind-set rather than their life and times - Steven Soderbergh's Kafka and John Maybury's film about Francis Bacon Love Is The Devil spring to mind - Fur never really gets to grips with Arbus, either as a woman or an artist. Fans of her work may appreciate this unusual approach to telling her story, but rather like the canisters of film Diane leaves in her cookie jar, it's a method that remains largely undeveloped until its' too late.

Verdict
While Steven Shainberg and his collaborators should be congratulated for eschewing the traditional biopic route, Fur is a noble experiment that goes awry. Sad to say but this is not a film for anyone wishing to learn about Diane Arbus.

http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=160638

[skankyoldwhore]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus (2007)
Reviewed by Stella Papamichael
Updated 15 March 2007 15Contains infrequent strong language, moderate sex and sex references

Like his subject, pioneering photographer Diane Arbus, director Steven Shainberg relishes the dirty little secrets that arguably make us human. He did that with twisted romance Secretary and ventures into similar territory with Fur. It's tagged as 'An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus' because only the peripheral details are true. The rest is fairytale - Nicole Kidman in an adult version of Alice Through The Looking Glass - and while not entirely convincing, it is engaging.

Arbus is introduced as the sort of buttoned-down housewife that graced magazine covers in 1958 - the year the story is set. Chances are her husband (Ty Burrell) photographed those covers, but it's an idea of womanhood that Arbus finds oppressive. Kidman portrays that contained hysteria with brilliant efficiency; unfortunately Shainberg weighs her down with some clumsy moments, eg literally bursting out of her dress on the terrace of her New York apartment.

"A PROVOCATIVE PORTRAIT"

In doing so, she catches the eye of a mysterious neighbour who eventually reveals himself as an ex-sideshow 'freak'. Actually it's Robert Downey Jr staring soulfully out through a curtain of hair that sheaths his entire face and body. Still, his humanity shines through and keeps the story grounded as love blossoms. It's a provocative portrait, but more than that, an imaginative and sweet natured examination of Arbus' fascination with society's outsiders. The pace is rather too leisurely, however, and a late foray into soapy melodrama threatens to shatter the carefully constructed Looking Glass world. Certainly the film isn't without its flaws. Then again, perfection is in the eye of beholder.

3 out of 5 stars

Fur is released in UK cinemas on Friday 16th March 2007.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2007/03/12/fur_2007_review.shtml

[jujuelen]

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
A shaggy man story
By Nicholas Barber
Published: 18 March 2007
Just a week after Becoming Jane dismayed Jane Austen's more purist fans, here's another film that fantasises about a famous woman's artistic awakening, and they both approach female genius from the same angle. All a woman needs to unlock her creativity and escape her bourgeois background, apparently, is an indecent proposal from a far more liberated man.

In Fur, it's Diane Arbus who gets this patronising treatment. As played by a typically pale and watery-eyed Nicole Kidman, she's the very model of a 1950s helpmate: she raises two daughters, she works as an assistant in her husband's New York photography studio, and she looks immaculately pretty while she's doing both. But part of her yearns for a less buttoned-up existence, a longing which is conveyed via the unsubtle means of having Arbus sneaking out onto her balcony and unbuttoning her dress. Then, in 1958, she meets her new neighbour, Lionel, a Chewbacca-lookalike played by a very downy Robert Downey Jr. He agrees to let Arbus photograph him, but not until he's introduced her to his old colleagues from his days as a circus freak.

Arbus is renowned for the photos she took of these giants, dwarves and identical twins - not that you'd know it from Fur. Rather than opting for a conventional biopic, the writer and director of Secretary tell an almost entirely fictional story. Lionel the lion-man, for one, never existed. An opening caption informs us that we're watching "a tribute to Diane: a film that invents characters and situations that reach beyond reality to express what might have been Arbus's inner experience on her extraordinary path". Luckily, Fur itself isn't as horrendously written as that caption, although at times it's not far off. It's a self-consciously dreamy fairy-tale romance, overflowing with references to Beauty and the Beast and Alice in Wonderland, and because it's expressing Arbus's "inner experience", the production designer can be as fanciful as she likes. Within hours of moving in, Lionel has remodelled his flat as a Moorish palace with a bath the size of a swimming pool.

Kidman and Downey compete to see which of them can whisper more quietly, but their relationship is persuasively tender and erotic, just as long as you forget that it has anything to do with Arbus. Fur hangs onto a couple of true biographical details, but there's no inkling of her eventual suicide, it doesn't reproduce a single one of her photographs, and it doesn't attempt to replicate their ominous, Victorian style. It's a strange sort of tribute. At least in her imaginary portrait, the young Jane Austen got to do some writing.

n.barber@ independent.co.uk


source: http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/re...icle2369519.ece