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
Full Version: Fur Review(s)
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
3 out of 5 stars
http://www.radiotimes.com/servlet_film/com...ect=5&frn=46199
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus
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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
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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
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
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
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
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.
advertisement
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
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
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
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.
Feature continues
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
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.
Feature continues
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
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
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
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
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
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