*SPOILERS*
Kidman inspired in offbeat 'Fur'
Friday, February 02, 2007
By John Serba
The Grand Rapids Press
As the title implies, "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" is a fictional extrapolation of the famed American photographer's artistic muse.
As a title card and a disclaimer in the credits spoonfeed us, none of the film's events is true. Arbus did not fall in love with a man covered head-to-toe in thick hair, thus prompting her separation from her husband, and inspiring her striking portraits of people on society's fringe.
Somewhat disappointingly, the events in the film exist within the realm of possibility, so this "imaginary" non-biopic never ventures into the fantastic.
Perhaps this is the reason why Arbus, played by Nicole Kidman in one of her handful of offbeat roles, remains a relatively complex and sympathetic character. Despite Robert Downey Jr.'s resembling a truncated Chewbacca minus the grumphs and growls, the humanity at the film's heart isn't completely overshadowed by its dabbling with strangeness.
Similar characters
"Fur" is directed by Steven Shainberg, who helmed "Secretary," in which Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a woman -- again, sympathetic -- indulging in her secret desires for bedroom sadomasochism.
So it makes sense that "Fur" subtly depicts Arbus as having a fetish for the hirsute, on top of being a closeted exhibitionist and voyeur. One could argue that photographers often have voyeuristic tendencies, so maybe that trait has a toe in reality.
It's 1958. Arbus leads a conventional, buttoned-up lifestyle as the daughter of high-society Manhattanites, a mother of two daughters and the wife of successful fashion photographer Allan (Ty Burrell). During a fur-coat showcase arranged by her parents, she's asked what exactly she does, and while explaining her unchallenging duties as Allan's assistant, she breaks into tears. She walks to the balcony and opens her dress for the man in the flat across the street.
Outside interest
Enter Lionel. He's a masked man who moves into the apartment upstairs. Diane asks to take his portrait; first, she enters his apartment, filled with animals and freak-show paraphernalia, and then his headspace, which accepts and nurtures the dark corridors of her psyche.
She looks upon Lionel's hairy visage not with fear or condescension, but admiration -- he has no choice but to expose his oddity to the world, and therefore, he's free.
Not surprisingly, Lionel is a wigmaker. Perhaps he harvests himself; we'd rather not know, I think. His friends, presumably his former co-workers, include little people, giants, conjoined twins and a woman with no arms. Diane feels happier among these "freaks," a drastic contrast to the upper-crust Scotch-sippers she secretly loathes.
And so the film follows a fairly conventional path through Arbus' discontent. Smartly, though, the screenplay (by Erin Cressida Wilson, referencing Patricia Bosworth's biography of Arbus) never draws bold lines between Arbus and Allan. He slowly realizes he doesn't truly know his wife, and, in a quietly comic turn, he grows a beard, hoping to accommodate her.
Allan is a conventional man. Lionel is not. Yet, thanks to Kidman's inspired performance, we understand why Diane could love them both, and why she makes certain decisions. This is why "Fur" is a success as an off-kilter character study, even if it's not as inventive as it could be.
