Beauty, they say, is only skin deep. Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. And if you were able to organize them for—let's say—a group portrait, "they" would undoubtedly all wear furs and masks and harbor secrets. "A photograph is a secret about a secret," Diane Arbus once said, "The more it tells you the less you know."

Then again, when Beauty is in the eye of the Beast, the deception of appearances reigns paramount and its anyone's guess how the terms apply and whether the veneer of civilization truly is as thin as human skin.

As capably as an M.C. Escher study on shifting perspective, the thematic tropes burrow in and out and through each other in Steven Shainberg's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. In the film's opening sequences Diane (Nicole Kidman) and her husband Allan (Ty Burrell) are hosting a fashion show for her wealthy furrier father's upper class friends. Diane wears one of her father's furs and wears a dress her mother gave her the year before buttoned up to the collar. The propriety is stifling her. Secretly, she longs to bare her breasts in full view of the neighbors. Eventually—after requesting permission to photograph a colony of nudists and discovering after she has arrived that one of the prerequisites is the removal of her own clothing—Arbus gives herself "a moment" (within which the film transpires) and achieves a literal naked freedom by removing not only her clothing but—as Variety's Todd McCarthy puts it—"some vestment of propriety."

Persona is a mask. And propriety is the most proper of masks. What is impropriety then? Another form of stark honest nakedness? The removal of one mask for another? Are masks lies? Are secrets masks? It's a mask that leads Diane to encounter her newly-arrived upstairs neighbor Lionel who is both honest and hirsute. Thus, honesty is not always naked and if Lionel's chestnut tresses are shaved in the film's final scenes it's for practical purposes, not necessarily confessional ones. Nor strictly for appearances. Robert Downey, Jr.—in a turn that would make Burt Lahr envious—reminds again that his capabilities as an actor remain seemingly limitless. His body of work is becoming almost magical. How he can hold our attention with the sad liquidity of his eyes and the confident understatement of his voice is astounding. Nicole Kidman, likewise, delivers one of her finest performances. Shane Danielsen has written that Kidman "does sexual hysteria better than anyone since Deborah Kerr"; intelligent, wary and refined like Kerr but also brittle, and tightly wound, and much of that is here, as Diane struggles to break free of convention to creatively photograph the unconventional.

Todd McCarthy notes that Carter Burwell's "frisky score, with its inventive orchestrations and strong sense of movement, is a big plus." I agree and I kept waiting for him to include a sample of Missy Elliot's "Get Your Freak On." It would have worked for me. Because if you had to choose one word to describe not only the body of photographer Diane Arbus's work and the "imaginative solutions" director Shainberg employs to tell the story of her awakening as an artist, it would have to be "freak." Yet what does that mean exactly in an age where terms—once derogatory—are recontextualized, politicized, to celebrate and honor difference? The film asks the obvious through the imagined: who is the most freakish? An upstairs neighbor pelted with fur? Or cruel staid socialities wearing fur? Again, the veneer of civilization wears thin when, in truth, it should probably wear nothing at all.

Now, as film critic Max Goldberg pointed out to me before today's screening of Fur, Susan Sontag would totally have disagreed with me on this and it's my loss, really, that she's not alive to rip me to shreds in her avid defense of the original meaning of the word "freak." Sontag's notorious 1973 essay attacking Arbus became the linchpin of her book On Photography. In his March 2005 essay for The New Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl quotes Sontag as saying: "Arbus's interest in freaks expresses a desire to violate her own innocence." Schjeldahl concurs that Sontag is probably right but—like myself—questions whether the idea of "freaks" is a "stable category of experience." Notwithstanding, Schjeldahl writes: "Sontag rushed to rescue the idea. 'In photographing dwarfs, you don't get majesty and beauty,' she insisted. 'You get dwarfs.' She noted with bemusement that in Arbus's pictures people who are 'pathetic, pitiable, as well as repulsive' look 'cheerful, self-accepting, matter-of-fact.' She wondered, 'Do they know how grotesque they are? It seems as if they don't.' They 'appear not to know that they are ugly.' It's an interesting complaint, suggesting that people who look or behave in unusual ways merit sympathy from the rest of us only if they visibly assent to our disgust with them." Were she alive today, Susan Sontag's review of Fur would be hotly anticipated. Since we're in the realm of the may-have-been; that's my fantasy.

In her own defense, Diane Arbus offered, "There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. …Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."

More high points for cinematographer Bill Pope's roving camera through Amy Danger's carnivalesque sets. Just as Todd Browning's Freaks used the circus carnival as a contextual setting for difference—a place without limits, one might say—so does Danger create a set that contextualizes Diane's alternate emerging world. And if this film truly is a conjecture about what might have been happening in Diane Arbus's psyche at this juncture in her life, how appropriate that the carnival setting should be easily accessed by a collapsible ladder leading into the attic.

As David Thomson said it would be, the ending is partially problematic. It all becomes a little obvious. All these different kinds of skin, naked ones, furry ones, ones worn as fur, ones worn to counter loss, skins you don't quite feel comfortable in, and Diane's own skin which she finally feels comfortable in. But a frisson swept across my own skin watching this movie recognizing how—like David Thomson's "biography" of Nicole Kidman—the may-have-been becomes the exalted fount of creativity rather than the tried-and-true what-has-been. The stories of our lives and the lives of others will never be the same. Then again, should they be?

One final focus: the movie is thrillingly riddled with trivia. Kim Voynar at Cinematical has already pointed out that the real-life older brother of Diane Arbus, under whose shadow she lived for many years, was the famous poet Howard Nemerov (who I adored in college). Kim also notes that Diane's husband Allan "later became an actor, most famously playing Major Sidney Freedman on M.A.S.H." And Peter Nellhaus—who finds it impossible to keep his opinions to himself—sent me an email today advising that Allan also starred in Robert Downey, Sr.'s film Greasers Palace. But then, I might just be splitting hairs with all that.

This is a brilliant write-up, the reviewer puts her opinions of the movie and squares it with those of others.  I find it interesting that he quotes Variety (a mixed review) and Shane Danielsen who engaged in a discussion about NK's acting ability with David Thomson (if you go to the link and click on Danielsen's name in the article, it will take you to the debate on The Independent), Danielsen took the view that NK pales in comparison to her peers but here, their analysis is used with a positive spin on it, almost as if they are not aware that they are actually giving both the movie and NK their dues or are simply refusing to do so despite listing good to great qualities of the movie and NK.

I see it was screened recently, I guess we will start reading more reviews between now and Rome, maybe.

Thanks .

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus

Mike Goodridge in Los Angeles 09 October 2006

Dir: Steven Shainberg. US. 2006. 122mins.

A surprising and seductive curio from Secretary director Steven Shainberg, Fur is one of the season’s most unusual films. On the one hand, its high-calibre cast led by Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr screams of prestige awards contender, while on the other its unconventional pacing, largely fictional story about the iconic Arbus and decidedly bizarre characters mark it out as a cult item which will infuriate as many as it enchants.

Fur already divided opinion when it had its world premiere screening at Telluride last month, although European audiences will probably be more favourable than those in the US when it has its international premiere as the opening night film of the inaugural Rome International Film Festival this week. Budgeted in the $12m region, it is a pricey specialised item, and the producers will be counting on the two star names to ensure payback in theatres and ancillary markets around the world.

The film, as the title makes very clear, is not a biopic of Arbus, the legendary photographer most famous for her portraits of life’s outsiders like dwarves, transvestites and prostitutes. It is, as the opening title card explains, “a film that invents characters and situations that reach beyond reality to express what might have been Arbus’ inner experience on her extraordinary path.”

In other words, Shainberg and his Secretary screenwriter Wilson have invented a story which might explain how Arbus went from a housewife, mother and the daughter of a wealthy New York family to become an artist, and how indeed she got to the point of leaving her husband.

The film, set in 1958, starts as a small fashion show takes place at the fancy New York apartment owned by Allan Arbus, a fashion and advertising photographer, and his wife Diane, who is his assistant. The show is for the latest furs from Russek’s, the Fifth Avenue fur store run by Diane’s imperious parents – her father (Yulin) and mother (Alexander). While Allan oversees the models, Diane buckles under the stress of her parents’ scrutiny and rushes out to the balcony where she instinctively unleashes her cleavage in full view of the neighbouring building.

Her hunger for adventure and curiosity for life outside her repressed existence are further awakened when she observes the arrival of her new upstairs neighbour Lionel (Downey Jr) whose face is concealed by a mask and scarf.

Over the following days, Diane becomes fascinated by Lionel and eventually dares to walk up to his apartment, armed with the camera which her husband bought her years before and which she has never used. On the promise that she wants to photograph him, she is invited in by Lionel, still masked, and the two embark on a friendship.

Lionel, it emerges, has an illness which means that he is covered in abundant hair from head to toe. His face is covered in hair, apart from his eyes, which penetrate deep into Diane’s soul. Regardless of his condition, Diane is mesmerised and she abandons all scruples as he introduces her into a netherworld peopled by those living on the fringes of society as she knows it – conjoined twins, dwarves, drag queens, giants and so on.

Diane starts neglecting her family, staying out night after night as Lionel shows her the other side of New York. She tries to bring Allan into her new circle, but he resists, leaving the path open for Diane to fall in love with Lionel.

The film’s portrayal of Arbus’ creative awakening is nothing more than fantasy, but it is an effective conceit which not only captures the direction of her future photography but also rather beautifully illustrates the soul of its characters beyond physical idiosyncrasies.

Shainberg deliberately paces the film like a dream, and mainstream audiences used to fast cutting and short scenes will be shuffling in their seats. Fortunately the two lead actors are so persuasive that the dreamlike journey of Arbus in the film becomes equally persuasive. When Diane starts shaving Lionel’s body hair and confessing her love for him, even as he himself is telling her of his impending death, the film has convincingly morphed from a “what if” whimsy to a genuinely affecting love story.

Kidman, once again demonstrating her impulse to take on unusual projects and characters, splendidly and subtly embodies the seachange in Diane, while Downey Jr, in one of the most challenging roles of his career, is captivating as Lionel. Even though he spends most of the film covered in hair, the actor hypnotizes Arbus and the screen with just his eyes.

Production companies
River Road Entertainment
Edward R Pressman Film Corp
Iron Films
Vox3 Films

US distribution
Picturehouse

Rome Film Festival: Kidman & Arbus
Rome's new film festival gets under way with a controversial 'biography' of the photographer
By David Thomson
Published: 08 October 2006
Rome stages its first film festival this week, in a direct challenge to the annual Venice jamboree, and its choice of opening presentation shows every readiness to go for the sensational, the unexpected, the daring.

The film chosen was until recently known simply as Fur. It has picked up a subtitle, "An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus", a placatory gesture that will serve no purpose. A lot of people - starting with the family of the late controversial photographer - will be outraged by the complete abandonment of biographical fact.

Biography, however, is a strange art (I write as the author of a recent book on Nicole Kidman, who plays the imaginary Diane Arbus). Sometimes the front door is the last place to enter; buildings have their own private nooks and crannies.

Fur opens in New York City in 1958. Diane and Allan Arbus live together with their two children. Allan is a professional photographer, and one of his main jobs every year is to photograph the new collections of furs produced by the firm run by Diane's parents. We see that fashion show, and it's clear that Diane, its organiser, is a nervous wreck, caught between demanding parents and a rather cool husband.

As Kidman presents her, Diane is at first a classic portrait of a 1950s wife and mother who has no life of her own. A few people ask Diane in a kindly way what she photographs, and she cannot admit to anything. You feel she is headed for a nervous breakdown.

One day there are violent noises from the apartment upstairs as a new tenant moves in. Diane is curious, and at night thinks she sees a masked man upstairs watching her. A kind of subtle attraction develops between them - it could be love, it could be the start of a horror story.

It bears no relation to anything that ever happened in the life of the real Diane Arbus, but it is the basis of a great film.

The man upstairs, named Lionel, is played by Robert Downey Jr. He is among the most enigmatic, charming, wise and amusing men we've met in a film for a long time. And hair grows all over his body: you might call it fur.

Like a little girl in a very grave fairy story, Arbus musters the courage to go upstairs to see Lionel. It's the start of a rare friendship. Bit by bit, he opens her up. It's not so much the sex or the shaving (you'll have to see for yourself) as the general education he provides.

You see, Lionel has friends - transsexuals, giants, dwarfs, freaks. What do you expect in a film that - imaginatively - is going to try to show you how Arbus became herself? Upstairs, she finds out what it is she needs to photograph. None of this ever happened, yet there it is on screen in Fur as large as life - and as mysterious and touching as it is beautiful.

Kidman doesn't look like Arbus, but the world she discovers does look like the Arbus work we know. The film will be argued over fiercely. You see, there are so many ways of turning the raw skin of life into the fur coat called biography.

For Kidman, this is another of her very brave films. For Downey, it is another sign of genius. And for Rome, it is a terrific start.