Full Version: Fur Showing In Sydney.
For those in Sydney, FUR is FINALLY being screened, for a limited season only, (like, one week), at The Chauvel in Paddington, starting tomorrow, Thursday 13th September.
Thanks for the news cinemasaver. 
I had given up hope of seeing it on screen and still had not ordered the DVD (region 0).
Hope I can make it. If it shows for a week that should bring it past the 18th when I may be "in town" all going well. No idea where the cinema is yet, but I know Paddington a little bit. ie. I can find it on the map AND I have been there at least 5 times.
PS. I have shifted this to Nicoles Inbox as the film and stage section is usually more archives and people tend not to check it for news.
I had given up hope of seeing it on screen and still had not ordered the DVD (region 0). Hope I can make it. If it shows for a week that should bring it past the 18th when I may be "in town" all going well. No idea where the cinema is yet, but I know Paddington a little bit. ie. I can find it on the map AND I have been there at least 5 times.
PS. I have shifted this to Nicoles Inbox as the film and stage section is usually more archives and people tend not to check it for news.
Thanks! I'm in Syd and have seen it on DVD finally.. but i love seeing movies on the big screen!
so thanks for the news!
so thanks for the news!
Not sure if you know Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton from ABC's At the Movies.
Margaret gives 2.5 stars
David gives 3 stars
Here's their review..
http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2005051.htm
Fur
Review by Margaret Pomeranz
FUR opened the inaugural Rome Film Festival last year and because it starred NICOLE KIDMAN as the legendary New York photographer Diane Arbus we’ve been hanging out for it to get a release in this country.
Creeping into cinemas next week it depicts Arbus as a circumscribed upper class New Yorker, married to Allen, (TY BURRELL), whom she assists in his photography business.
But she’s a woman totally under the thumb of her domineering parents. When a mysterious stranger moves in upstairs her life changes. Lionel Sweeney, (ROBERT DOWNEY JR), is a neighbour like no other.
It’s through Lionel that Arbus will be introduced to the world that will make her famous through her photographs.
There’s something very odd about this film. It’s billed as an imaginary portrait of the artist but even fantasy has to have a touch of reality to it.
Robert Downey Jr. looks as if he can barely stifle a laugh let alone get words out from behind all that fur. Lionel’s look was designed by the Stan Winston Studios but I was not convinced.
Such oddity needs some sort of conviction but except for husband Allen, the characters are presented superficially as freaks or as demons.
As for the metaphor of Arbus being seduced away from the rigidity of her life by the charm of otherness, it just doesn’t give enough substance to her extraordinary art. It demeans it somehow.
It’s a bit of a disappointment from the creative team of director Steven Shainburg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson who brought us the delightfully different SECRETARY.
NICOLE KIDMAN is fragile and questing as Arbus but she’s really not given very much to work with here.
Further comments
MARGARET: David?
DAVID: Well, I thought this was really interesting. I mean, I think the first thing to say is that if you're not familiar with the work of Diane Arbus the film will mean nothing to you because...
MARGARET: Yes, most probably if you're not familiar you should look her up on the net and...
DAVID: I think you should, to see the photographs...
MARGARET: Yes.
DAVID: ...that she took, because obviously the film is suggesting that she was influenced by the events or similar, anyway, events in the film in the work she did later. I think Nicole Kidman actually is good in this. I think she gives one of her better performances.
MARGARET: But...
DAVID: I found her very interesting; her journey a very interesting one. It's a sort of beauty and the beast story, isn't it? I mean...
MARGARET: Well, yes, obviously.
DAVID: Obviously. But I mean, Robert Downey Jr, I think looks a bit like the beast in Cocteau's...
MARGARET: Yes, I was going to say that, you know.
DAVID: Yeah. And it is really strange. It's very strange, but I don't know, the basic set up is vaguely similar to that of SECRETARY. I mean, a young woman who is, kind of becomes obsessed, erotically obsessed, with somebody...
MARGARET: Some strange man.
DAVID: Yes. Somebody very different.
MARGARET: Yes.
DAVID: And so there's a - there's a linking theme there and I agree with you, it's so odd it doesn't quite come off but I thought it was a brave try, this.
MARGARET: You know, it's that hair on Robert Downey Jr.
DAVID: No, I didn't mind that at all. I wanted to stroke it.
MARGARET: No, no, no.
Margaret gives 2.5 stars
David gives 3 stars
Here's their review..
http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2005051.htm
Fur
Review by Margaret Pomeranz
FUR opened the inaugural Rome Film Festival last year and because it starred NICOLE KIDMAN as the legendary New York photographer Diane Arbus we’ve been hanging out for it to get a release in this country.
Creeping into cinemas next week it depicts Arbus as a circumscribed upper class New Yorker, married to Allen, (TY BURRELL), whom she assists in his photography business.
But she’s a woman totally under the thumb of her domineering parents. When a mysterious stranger moves in upstairs her life changes. Lionel Sweeney, (ROBERT DOWNEY JR), is a neighbour like no other.
It’s through Lionel that Arbus will be introduced to the world that will make her famous through her photographs.
There’s something very odd about this film. It’s billed as an imaginary portrait of the artist but even fantasy has to have a touch of reality to it.
Robert Downey Jr. looks as if he can barely stifle a laugh let alone get words out from behind all that fur. Lionel’s look was designed by the Stan Winston Studios but I was not convinced.
Such oddity needs some sort of conviction but except for husband Allen, the characters are presented superficially as freaks or as demons.
As for the metaphor of Arbus being seduced away from the rigidity of her life by the charm of otherness, it just doesn’t give enough substance to her extraordinary art. It demeans it somehow.
It’s a bit of a disappointment from the creative team of director Steven Shainburg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson who brought us the delightfully different SECRETARY.
NICOLE KIDMAN is fragile and questing as Arbus but she’s really not given very much to work with here.
Further comments
MARGARET: David?
DAVID: Well, I thought this was really interesting. I mean, I think the first thing to say is that if you're not familiar with the work of Diane Arbus the film will mean nothing to you because...
MARGARET: Yes, most probably if you're not familiar you should look her up on the net and...
DAVID: I think you should, to see the photographs...
MARGARET: Yes.
DAVID: ...that she took, because obviously the film is suggesting that she was influenced by the events or similar, anyway, events in the film in the work she did later. I think Nicole Kidman actually is good in this. I think she gives one of her better performances.
MARGARET: But...
DAVID: I found her very interesting; her journey a very interesting one. It's a sort of beauty and the beast story, isn't it? I mean...
MARGARET: Well, yes, obviously.
DAVID: Obviously. But I mean, Robert Downey Jr, I think looks a bit like the beast in Cocteau's...
MARGARET: Yes, I was going to say that, you know.
DAVID: Yeah. And it is really strange. It's very strange, but I don't know, the basic set up is vaguely similar to that of SECRETARY. I mean, a young woman who is, kind of becomes obsessed, erotically obsessed, with somebody...
MARGARET: Some strange man.
DAVID: Yes. Somebody very different.
MARGARET: Yes.
DAVID: And so there's a - there's a linking theme there and I agree with you, it's so odd it doesn't quite come off but I thought it was a brave try, this.
MARGARET: You know, it's that hair on Robert Downey Jr.
DAVID: No, I didn't mind that at all. I wanted to stroke it.
MARGARET: No, no, no.
At last 
.
.
well, that's more than here in germany 
I'm looking forward to seeing it on the large screen. At last (after almost a year??). Then I might consider getting a dvd.
Thanks for shifting the post, Foxy. I should have thought of putting it here, first of all.
I do hope you can get to Sydney to see it. The Chauvel cinema is upstairs, behind the Paddington Town Hall, in Oatley Street, which runs off Oxford Street. The final screening is Wednesday19th September, 8.45 pm. There are numerous screenings throughout the day, most days.
Thanks, mss diane. I'm a regular viewer of Margaret and David on At The Movies. They often agree to disagree, but they're a very good combination. Margaret seemed less impressed than David. I generally think he's a more knowledgeable and insightful critic. She's a little 'gut reactionish', sometimes. Although I do think there's an urgent need for more female movie critics around so we could all get a more balanced perspective on films.
Just to add to mssdiane's post above: the rating system for the films on that show is scored out of 5.
So-Margaret gives 2.5 stars.
David gives 3 stars.
Thanks for shifting the post, Foxy. I should have thought of putting it here, first of all.
I do hope you can get to Sydney to see it. The Chauvel cinema is upstairs, behind the Paddington Town Hall, in Oatley Street, which runs off Oxford Street. The final screening is Wednesday19th September, 8.45 pm. There are numerous screenings throughout the day, most days.
Thanks, mss diane. I'm a regular viewer of Margaret and David on At The Movies. They often agree to disagree, but they're a very good combination. Margaret seemed less impressed than David. I generally think he's a more knowledgeable and insightful critic. She's a little 'gut reactionish', sometimes. Although I do think there's an urgent need for more female movie critics around so we could all get a more balanced perspective on films.
Just to add to mssdiane's post above: the rating system for the films on that show is scored out of 5.
So-Margaret gives 2.5 stars.
David gives 3 stars.
Thanks cinemasaver for the update on the date. There is a strong possiblilty I may get to it if it ends Wed 19.
Thanks mss_diane for David and Margaret's review . I have watching their show but missed this one. It could not have been this week as that was there Venice Film Festival coverage. I am sorry I missed it even if the number of stars could be higher. I laughed when reading Margaret 's "No no no!" as a reaction to David wanting to stroke Downey's fur. I can just imagine her saying it, laughing and looking horried at the same time
Here is a review from the Sydney Morning Herald which gave it 3 and 1/2 stars
/2
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Dianne ArbusSandra Hall, reviewer
September 13, 2007
GenreDramaRun Time122 minutes
RatedR 18+
CountryUnited StatesDirectorSteven ShainbergActorsNicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr, Ty Burrell, Harris Yulin, Jane Alexander, Teddy Tilkin, Genevieve McCarthy.Ratingstars-3half
VIDEO: Trailer - Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
Clearly the American director Steven Shainberg enjoys taking risks.
His last film, Secretary, was about the burgeoning of a passionate romance built on sadomasochism. His latest is a wildly speculative take on the life of the photographer Diane Arbus - a film so light on fact that it is billed as an "imaginary portrait".
Since Arbus made a career out of documenting the oddest aspects of being human, it is not as if her life needs extra colour. Her search for the extraordinary was an obsession, taking her from the mildly aberrant environment of a nudist camp to the extremes of existence found in mental hospitals and circus sideshows. Even more contentious was the enigmatic character of her gaze. It was up to the viewer, she implied, to decide if she was being exploratory or just exploitative.
The exploration launched by Shainberg and the screenwriter, Erin Cressida Wilson, takes off on its flight into fantasy from the Arbus biography by Patricia Bosworth - a basically sympathetic account which lays some persuasive clues to the way Arbus may have been looking at those she photographed. As Bosworth interprets her motives, Arbus regarded photography as both sinister and mysterious, convinced that it really did capture the souls of those it scrutinised. It was a belief which owed a lot to the childhood love of myths and fairytales she carried into her adult life. Follow this line - as Shainberg and Wilson do - and every photograph she took was an excursion into the woods.
It's a nice idea which the film fashions into its own kind of fairytale, replete with elements of Cocteau and Lewis Carroll. Symptomatic of Shainberg's ardent embrace of the fanciful is the casting. Arbus was small, dark and sparrow-like, so he's cast tall, swan-like Nicole Kidman. As Arbus, she makes a great Alice in Wonderland.
The film focuses on the beginnings of Arbus's career, towards the end of the 1950s, as she gains the resolve to start taking photographs of her own after spending years as housewife and helpmate to her husband, Allan (Ty Burrell). The Arbuses produce fashion photography and advertising spreads for the New York glossies as well as arranging fashion parades to show the furs sold by Diane's wealthy father, David Nemerov (Harris Yulin), in his chain of department stores. It is during one of these parades that Diane breaks down. She now hates the work and is even more revolted by her father's customers and their predatory fixation on the pelts of dead animals.
As therapy, she takes her camera and starts roaming the neighbourhood looking for inspiration. At the same time, a new tenant moves into the apartment upstairs. All she sees of him at first is an overcoat and a mask rather like the one David Lynch gave his tormented hero in The Elephant Man. But Lionel is not tormented. He's long since resigned himself to the strangeness of his condition - a disorder that promotes uncontrollable hair growth. When he finally removes the mask, the brown eyes peering out of the leonine face announce the irrepressible presence of Robert Downey jnr.
In her first visit to his apartment, he greets her with a cup of tea and an introduction to his pet white rabbit. And so she enters Wonderland. He earns his living making wigs for circus and sideshow performers and before long Diane has met and been entranced by them all.
Shainberg leaves us to conjure with the question of whether Lionel exists in reality or in Arbus's psyche. What matters is the delicately droll tone the film maintains as Lionel and his seductive freak show make their way into the tidy world she inhabits. Gothic fairytale collides with Vogue Living, with the camera casting an ironic eye from the middle distance as if Shainberg is pre-empting the urge to deride by slyly getting in first.
In Kidman and Downey jnr, he has two gifted accomplices. Kidman negotiates some very tricky scenes by underplaying, and while Downey jnr has long been an expert when it comes to insouciance, the poignancy he manages once Alice in Wonderland starts morphing into Beauty and the Beast is something we haven't had from him before.
The film has had a mixed response in the US. Its cruellest critics see shades of Chewbacca rather than Cocteau in its hairy hero and it is hardly going to satisfy those who want some real insights into Arbus's life, which ended with her suicide at the age of 48. Nonetheless, its unabashed weirdness is perversely beguiling.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/fu...9276850977.html
Thanks mss_diane for David and Margaret's review
. I have watching their show but missed this one. It could not have been this week as that was there Venice Film Festival coverage. I am sorry I missed it even if the number of stars could be higher. I laughed when reading Margaret 's "No no no!" as a reaction to David wanting to stroke Downey's fur. I can just imagine her saying it, laughing and looking horried at the same time Here is a review from the Sydney Morning Herald which gave it 3 and 1/2 stars
/2Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Dianne ArbusSandra Hall, reviewer
September 13, 2007
GenreDramaRun Time122 minutes
RatedR 18+
CountryUnited StatesDirectorSteven ShainbergActorsNicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr, Ty Burrell, Harris Yulin, Jane Alexander, Teddy Tilkin, Genevieve McCarthy.Ratingstars-3half
VIDEO: Trailer - Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
Clearly the American director Steven Shainberg enjoys taking risks.
His last film, Secretary, was about the burgeoning of a passionate romance built on sadomasochism. His latest is a wildly speculative take on the life of the photographer Diane Arbus - a film so light on fact that it is billed as an "imaginary portrait".
Since Arbus made a career out of documenting the oddest aspects of being human, it is not as if her life needs extra colour. Her search for the extraordinary was an obsession, taking her from the mildly aberrant environment of a nudist camp to the extremes of existence found in mental hospitals and circus sideshows. Even more contentious was the enigmatic character of her gaze. It was up to the viewer, she implied, to decide if she was being exploratory or just exploitative.
The exploration launched by Shainberg and the screenwriter, Erin Cressida Wilson, takes off on its flight into fantasy from the Arbus biography by Patricia Bosworth - a basically sympathetic account which lays some persuasive clues to the way Arbus may have been looking at those she photographed. As Bosworth interprets her motives, Arbus regarded photography as both sinister and mysterious, convinced that it really did capture the souls of those it scrutinised. It was a belief which owed a lot to the childhood love of myths and fairytales she carried into her adult life. Follow this line - as Shainberg and Wilson do - and every photograph she took was an excursion into the woods.
It's a nice idea which the film fashions into its own kind of fairytale, replete with elements of Cocteau and Lewis Carroll. Symptomatic of Shainberg's ardent embrace of the fanciful is the casting. Arbus was small, dark and sparrow-like, so he's cast tall, swan-like Nicole Kidman. As Arbus, she makes a great Alice in Wonderland.
The film focuses on the beginnings of Arbus's career, towards the end of the 1950s, as she gains the resolve to start taking photographs of her own after spending years as housewife and helpmate to her husband, Allan (Ty Burrell). The Arbuses produce fashion photography and advertising spreads for the New York glossies as well as arranging fashion parades to show the furs sold by Diane's wealthy father, David Nemerov (Harris Yulin), in his chain of department stores. It is during one of these parades that Diane breaks down. She now hates the work and is even more revolted by her father's customers and their predatory fixation on the pelts of dead animals.
As therapy, she takes her camera and starts roaming the neighbourhood looking for inspiration. At the same time, a new tenant moves into the apartment upstairs. All she sees of him at first is an overcoat and a mask rather like the one David Lynch gave his tormented hero in The Elephant Man. But Lionel is not tormented. He's long since resigned himself to the strangeness of his condition - a disorder that promotes uncontrollable hair growth. When he finally removes the mask, the brown eyes peering out of the leonine face announce the irrepressible presence of Robert Downey jnr.
In her first visit to his apartment, he greets her with a cup of tea and an introduction to his pet white rabbit. And so she enters Wonderland. He earns his living making wigs for circus and sideshow performers and before long Diane has met and been entranced by them all.
Shainberg leaves us to conjure with the question of whether Lionel exists in reality or in Arbus's psyche. What matters is the delicately droll tone the film maintains as Lionel and his seductive freak show make their way into the tidy world she inhabits. Gothic fairytale collides with Vogue Living, with the camera casting an ironic eye from the middle distance as if Shainberg is pre-empting the urge to deride by slyly getting in first.
In Kidman and Downey jnr, he has two gifted accomplices. Kidman negotiates some very tricky scenes by underplaying, and while Downey jnr has long been an expert when it comes to insouciance, the poignancy he manages once Alice in Wonderland starts morphing into Beauty and the Beast is something we haven't had from him before.
The film has had a mixed response in the US. Its cruellest critics see shades of Chewbacca rather than Cocteau in its hairy hero and it is hardly going to satisfy those who want some real insights into Arbus's life, which ended with her suicide at the age of 48. Nonetheless, its unabashed weirdness is perversely beguiling.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/fu...9276850977.html
"I'm thinking of a number between one and 10." Diane Arbus (Nicole Kidman) and Allan Arbus (Ty Burrell).
Kidman's quandary
Nicole Kidman is in a confiding mood. "It's still a quandary in a way, the relationship between wanting to express yourself artistically and your desire to be devoted to your relationship," she says. "It's really complicated. In some way you feel like it's a betrayal if you go and explore your artistic part. I do, because it requires you to exist in a separate way.
"The person that you are with will never experience that - and finding that balance has always been a big thing for me. When I got divorced I was able to go and explore myself artistically because I didn't feel I was betraying my devotion to the person I was with.
"For anyone with a career you hope to find someone who understands you. You hope they will understand what makes you laugh and what's necessary for you to exist in the world and to have a rich and rewarding life."
Clearly Kidman, whose career flourished after her divorce from Tom Cruise, hopes she has found that with new husband Keith Urban. There are parallels with Kidman's role in Steven Shainberg's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, based on a real story of a woman who abandons an easy, conventional life in the 1950s to photograph people on society's fringes.
The film will finally screen in Sydney after its premiere at last year's RomeFilmFest. Its delay is the result of mixed reviews. Shainberg, who directed Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary, took great licence with the story of Arbus.
Set in the 1950s, the quirky film shows Arbus's disillusionment with her existence as the immaculately groomed wife of a photographer (Ty Burrell) and comes up with a rather strange reason for her artistic inspiration: sexy S&M meetings of mind and body with a fur-covered Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey jnr).
Yes, shades of Secretary, and it was because of the success of that film that Shainberg got to make this one. A collector of Diane Arbus's photography, he had long nurtured the idea of making a film about her.
"What is so compelling about Diane Arbus is that she was a personality that exploded at the age of 35," he says. "Until then this unbelievably poetic, complicated and mysterious intelligence was encased in a kind of steel box inside herself. She reached a point where she either could have retreated, as many people do, or struck out on her own, which the film portrays.
"From my point of view, one of the beauties of the film and one of the beauties of Nicole's performance, is you really feel that deep necessity to open the door and go out into the world. Once that happened she developed this profound intelligence in all sorts of areas, including as a writer, but from my point of view she had an incredible intelligence for life, for knowing how to go out and live the way she wanted."
Kidman came to the film as a last-minute replacement for Samantha Morton, who more closely resembles Arbus. Even if the Australian actress is too beautiful in the role - she looks fabulous in those '50s frocks - she is keen about her subject as she has long been a collector of black and white photography.
"I didn't know the intricacies of Diane Arbus's life so I went and saw the exhibition at the Met [in New York] and spent couple of hours absorbing her that way," Kidman says. "Patricia Bosworth's biography was my main access to her, but at the same time the film is not a biopic. It's based [on] a small, small portion of her life.
"What's interesting about playing somebody who really existed is that you begin to interpret them through yourself. Something happens where you're discovering things about them that you can recognise and you feel that's why you choose to play them.
"It's an incredibly deep spiritual connection and the same thing happened to me when I played Virginia Woolf [her Oscar-winning role in The Hours] - and both of the women ultimately commit suicide. It's hard to talk about it because it's quite mysterious and quite beautiful as an actor. It's an incredible thing to be able to do and I'm drawn to doing it."
FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS
Director Steven Shainberg Stars Nicole?Kidman, Ty Burrell, Robert Downey jnr
Rated MA Opens Thursday at Paddington's Chauvel.
Source
Hopefully this is a new one!!! Lately everyone has just been re-using old interviews
Enjoy!!
Wow, that reviewer shows great insite and knowlege of the actors work. I love the well chosen words.
Thanks Foxy .
.
Thanks emku . It may be new but I get the feeling it is from the RomeFilmFest last year especially her quote in the first paragraph and Shainberg's quote as well but nice to read it again .
. It may be new but I get the feeling it is from the RomeFilmFest last year especially her quote in the first paragraph and Shainberg's quote as well but nice to read it again .
Thanks a lot for the article , emku ! It's very nice ! 
Here's another article about Fur being shown in Sydney. Don't know if it's been posted already?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/kidmans-qu...9276867315.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/kidmans-qu...9276867315.html
QUOTE(skankyoldwhore @ Sep 14 2007, 03:50 AM) 
Thanks emku . It may be new but I get the feeling it is from the RomeFilmFest last year especially her quote in the first paragraph and Shainberg's quote as well but nice to read it again .
. It may be new but I get the feeling it is from the RomeFilmFest last year especially her quote in the first paragraph and Shainberg's quote as well but nice to read it again .I think a lot of it is not new. There are just a few updates to go with the current screening.
I've been to see 'Fur', at long last. It was worth the wait. Although I know it's not possible for many to see it on the large screen, given the limited screenings globally, I'm glad I hung out to see it there, first of all. It is a very artistic, very poetic, very visual film. And a very beautiful one. Nicole is superb, sensitive, intuitive. And she looks beautiful. Robert Downey Jr brings tenderness to his role. I'm not going to say too much more now, as I'm going to see it again. While I have the chance-on the big screen It's that kind of film. You want to see it again.
Thanks for the article.
ciao
ciao
Thanks emku for the article 
Thanks emku!
I agree with you, Skanky and cinemasaver, that a lot of the article is not new material. QUOTE(cinemasaver @ Sep 14 2007, 11:43 AM)
I've been to see 'Fur', at long last. It was worth the wait. Although I know it's not possible for many to see it on the large screen, given the limited screenings globally, I'm glad I hung out to see it there, first of all. It is a very artistic, very poetic, very visual film. And a very beautiful one. Nicole is superb, sensitive, intuitive. And she looks beautiful. Robert Downey Jr brings tenderness to his role. I'm not going to say too much more now, as I'm going to see it again. While I have the chance-on the big screen It's that kind of film. You want to see it again.
I got the DVD and watched it four times in a week, couldn't take it out of the player,
.
The scene in the movie from which this picture is such a great one. All the tension and awkwardness, just lovely to watch the actors portray that.
You have me excited cinemasaver and skanky. I am trying to plan for it, now I think it is a must.
This is the scan of the article I posted above. Lovely big photo of Nicole in the article.
Sydney Morning Herald
September 13, 2007
Click on image to make bigger
This is the scan of the article I posted above. Lovely big photo of Nicole in the article.
Sydney Morning Herald
September 13, 2007
Click on image to make bigger
Thanks emku
Now this is most strange as this is frmo the Sydney Morning Herald and there was review by the Sydney Morning Herald from the day before (13th) as we;;.
I posted the one from the 13th on cinemasaver's topic, and even added the scans. It was by a different reviewer though. I will have to read Friday's paper. It may be in the liftout guide. If so will scan it as well for the "paper" record.
I love that photo and cannot wait to see the film this week.
emku...I did not realise this was here and just made the cinemasaver topic the one for all the Sydney showing related articles. For today I will keep this seperate but will merge the two tomorrow.
Is it showing in Melbourne as well?
Now this is most strange as this is frmo the Sydney Morning Herald and there was review by the Sydney Morning Herald from the day before (13th) as we;;.
I posted the one from the 13th on cinemasaver's topic, and even added the scans. It was by a different reviewer though. I will have to read Friday's paper. It may be in the liftout guide. If so will scan it as well for the "paper" record.
I love that photo and cannot wait to see the film this week.
emku...I did not realise this was here and just made the cinemasaver topic the one for all the Sydney showing related articles. For today I will keep this seperate but will merge the two tomorrow.
Is it showing in Melbourne as well?
Thanks for the scan Foxy! My friend told me about the article but i missed it 
So thanks for having it here!
Fur is such a great movie. Watch it again and again!
So thanks for having it here!
Fur is such a great movie. Watch it again and again!
Not showing in Melbourne Foxy, might just be Sydney.
Thanks for the scan, Foxy. I strongly recommend that, if you have the opportunity, see Fur and have your own opinion about the movie. I, personally, loved it and I ask myself if it is because I am Nic´s fan. But after having watched it a second time I tend to reject this thought. I really liked it. Maybe the fact I love Beauty and the Beast contributed. I thought the movie was bold, different and romantic in a very unusual way. And the performances are marvellous.
I'm glad Fur finally reached Australia! 11 months after it was showed at Rome FilmFest. Better late than never... 
Thanks for the reviews.
ciao
Thanks for the reviews.
ciao
Thanx Cinemasaver, Mss_diane, Ronnoco and Foxy 4 everything
~Viviana~
~Viviana~
I did the scans for emku's article for us because I like having the newspaper scans. Thanks again emku.
And thanks lynf for update on Melbourne. Perhaps it will show there later.
Sydney Morning Herald
September 14, 2007
Click on thumbnail to make bigger
(will still merge this with other topic but did not have time today )
And thanks lynf for update on Melbourne. Perhaps it will show there later.
Sydney Morning Herald
September 14, 2007
Click on thumbnail to make bigger
(will still merge this with other topic but did not have time today
)
thanks for posting
QUOTE(friendlyfox @ Sep 15 2007, 11:05 AM)
You have me excited cinemasaver and skanky. I am trying to plan for it, now I think it is a must.
This is the scan of the article I posted above. Lovely big photo of Nicole in the article.
Sydney Morning Herald
September 13, 2007
Click on image to make bigger
This is the scan of the article I posted above. Lovely big photo of Nicole in the article.
Sydney Morning Herald
September 13, 2007
Click on image to make bigger
Thanks Foxy
Thanks for the scan foxy.
Thanx 4 da article Emku
~Viviana~
~Viviana~
Thanks for the scans, Foxy.
For those who need to know-the season for 'Fur'at The Chauvel has been extended by another week-until Wednesday 26th September, 8.50pm. There are several screenings each day.
Yes, I will write something soon. (I've seen it twice, now).
Yes, I will write something soon. (I've seen it twice, now).
Oh... wish I had known that yesterday!! as that was the only chance I had to go and see it after going to see "I have never forgotten you" the night before. Still, most of the day was taken up with medical stuff and I was not feeling much like seeing a movie then before we came back home. Thinks...how can I justify going up to Sydney again so soon...... hmmm.
Thanks for the update cinemasaver , and thanks too for this scan from Empire Magazine in Australia
Empire Magazine (Full size)
Thanks for the update cinemasaver
, and thanks too for this scan from Empire Magazine in AustraliaEmpire Magazine (Full size)
Thanks Foxy
Thanx Foxy 4 da new scan
~Viviana~
~Viviana~
Thanks for the scans, Foxy .
.
thanks foxy. this is one of my favorite films 
Many thanks for the new scans--I really enjoyed reading the reviews as I don't know when I will get the chance to see it--I am going to try to get the DVD.
Thanks for the scan foxy.
These are a few disorganised thoughts about some aspects of Fur.
When it comes to such an unusual film as Fur, with its imaginative take on the biopic, some scenes which may be confronting, and a great diversity of critical responses, it becomes difficult to form a personal judgement. In my opinion, Nicole Kidman’s portrait of Diane Arbus is sensitive and expressive, exploring Diane’s inner life within the parameters of a seemingly naïve fantasy. There is a subtlety about her performance that takes on a special resonance in some of the more difficult scenes in the film. Her role, to my mind, is more demanding than that of Lionel, (Robert Downey Jnr), who at certain moments flinches from the focus required by his voice and eyes, the main tools for his role. It is this ever so slight distraction, and some of the masks that he is required to wear, that may cause some critics to go into a tailspin about what they see as ludicrous. Perhaps the fact that Fur references the life of a real person makes it even more disorienting for the film critic or the photography historian, as a linear narrative based in fact, or an assessment grounded in the most current academic theory, may have been anticipated.
The review by Sandra Hall, ( film critic with The Sydney Morning Herald , Kidman’s Beguiling Hairytale), suggests she’s had time to absorb some reading about the film beforehand, regardless of the number of times she’s seen it. Furthermore, she is known to be a balanced and well-informed reviewer. Critics who are negative about Fur, I suspect, have not done their research on Diane Arbus.
Some films don’t need homework, as the film is all laid out for the viewer to just look and absorb. Fur is the type of film that requires more input from the viewer, in order to understand better the world that has been created. Steven Shainberg, the writer and Director, together with the screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson, has taken Patricia Bosworth’s biography of Diane Arbus and compressed a life story into a fictional three month period, for the narrative. However, this is not a mere three month narrative, but a story which distills aspects of Diane’s real background, the influences on her life, and her fascination with otherness, that became the focus of the groundbreaking photography she created.
Shainberg creates a visual fantasy to describe his narrative, stepping from the circumscribed , controlled and fashionable world of 1950’s NY into the odd, marginalised world of those who are different. This world, under the guidance of Lionel, who is a composite figure derived from the ‘real’ mentors in Diane’s life, assists in liberating Diane’s creative imagination. Even Lionel’s demise parallels Diane’s own ‘real’ life, as does her stepping out onto the balcony to expose her ardent desires to her neighbours. The love that evolves between Lionel and Diane becomes a metaphor for the birth of the creative artist, that process by which Diane crosses over from her more predictable life into that ‘otherness’ of the unusual and the strange, and which enables her to find her inner artist’s voice. In some sense, the question might be raised as to why Diane needed a male to escort her across the threshold. The repression she felt within her personal life was already there as a propelling factor to overcome her inhibitions about stepping into her own world of creativity. Sometimes we need an outside muse.
Shainberg, too, drew from the influences in his own life to create this world. With parents who were psychoanalysts, and a family acquaintance with Diane and her photography, Shainberg had the daring to set up a sometimes surreal world of Alice in Wonderland perspectives in the apartment interiors. This setting becomes a claustrophobic yet magical interior world, that is a metaphor for Diane’s memory and internalised thoughts.
Fur may not be a film for everyone, but then very few films ever are for everyone. There is an unsettling quality to Fur, no doubt about it, an oddness, an element of strangeness and the bizarre. For the viewer, you need to enter in a complicit way into that almost fairytale other world that the actors and director have created.
For myself, it’s the only film I’ve ever seen four times at a cinema and, while I’ll concede I have the time right now to do that, I wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t an interest to explore the ideas within the film with more understanding than I gained at first viewing. My starting point was a long standing curiosity and a little knowledge about the photography of Diane Arbus.
There’s always been the debate about the exotic otherness aspect of Arbus’s photography. Is the photographer sympathetic with her subjects or is she a voyeur? To a certain extent we’re all voyeurs, whether photographers, or viewers of photography or film. The real Diane believed that a photograph captured the soul of a person on film, and although fascinated by people who were unusual, appears to have respected and befriended her photographic subjects. Although we don’t see her photographs in the film, we gain an understanding of her artistic sensitivity. Nicole Kidman’s empathetic performance helps us see this. What could have become disconcerting, sideshow elements when Diane, with Lionel, enters his world of marginalised people, is instead explored with an affection which ensures that these people are never seen to be ‘freaks.’ The director and actors, NK and RDjr, are to be commended for the sensitive way in which we are led to view their world.
That world is one in which Diane seems more at ease than the predictable world of her married life, inhabited by her husband and children. On one level this is a sad story of the disintegration of a marriage, which, ironically, provides a more grounded world for the viewer to identify with than Lionel’s world. Alan Arbus, Diane’s husband, as so movingly acted by Ty Burrell, keeps us connected to that world.
His birthday tribute to Diane, made with full awareness of their failing union, is so emotionally real. Throughout the film Burrell gives a convincing portrait of frustration, despair and realisation.
Nicole Kidman, as Diane, has a tricky role to negotiate, and gives a real and sensitive portrayal of the artistic arousal of a woman, repressed by her predictable life, who pursues her desire to escape into the unusual. It is no surprise that she is responsive to the strange, uncouth behaviour of Lionel, so tenderly portrayed, in the main, by RDJr. Perhaps they bravely recognise a kindred soul in the acceptance of each other.
If you are interested in the creative imagination, in the influences on an artist in the making of art, in human relationships, lives which are unusual, photography, or simply in the photographs of Diane Arbus, you will be interested in FUR. It is a complicated, powerful, intense yet visually absorbing arthouse piece. It is a fairytale that both intrigues and suffocates in a strangely affecting way.
And the musical score is a perfect complement to the film. It reveals no secrets.
When it comes to such an unusual film as Fur, with its imaginative take on the biopic, some scenes which may be confronting, and a great diversity of critical responses, it becomes difficult to form a personal judgement. In my opinion, Nicole Kidman’s portrait of Diane Arbus is sensitive and expressive, exploring Diane’s inner life within the parameters of a seemingly naïve fantasy. There is a subtlety about her performance that takes on a special resonance in some of the more difficult scenes in the film. Her role, to my mind, is more demanding than that of Lionel, (Robert Downey Jnr), who at certain moments flinches from the focus required by his voice and eyes, the main tools for his role. It is this ever so slight distraction, and some of the masks that he is required to wear, that may cause some critics to go into a tailspin about what they see as ludicrous. Perhaps the fact that Fur references the life of a real person makes it even more disorienting for the film critic or the photography historian, as a linear narrative based in fact, or an assessment grounded in the most current academic theory, may have been anticipated.
The review by Sandra Hall, ( film critic with The Sydney Morning Herald , Kidman’s Beguiling Hairytale), suggests she’s had time to absorb some reading about the film beforehand, regardless of the number of times she’s seen it. Furthermore, she is known to be a balanced and well-informed reviewer. Critics who are negative about Fur, I suspect, have not done their research on Diane Arbus.
Some films don’t need homework, as the film is all laid out for the viewer to just look and absorb. Fur is the type of film that requires more input from the viewer, in order to understand better the world that has been created. Steven Shainberg, the writer and Director, together with the screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson, has taken Patricia Bosworth’s biography of Diane Arbus and compressed a life story into a fictional three month period, for the narrative. However, this is not a mere three month narrative, but a story which distills aspects of Diane’s real background, the influences on her life, and her fascination with otherness, that became the focus of the groundbreaking photography she created.
Shainberg creates a visual fantasy to describe his narrative, stepping from the circumscribed , controlled and fashionable world of 1950’s NY into the odd, marginalised world of those who are different. This world, under the guidance of Lionel, who is a composite figure derived from the ‘real’ mentors in Diane’s life, assists in liberating Diane’s creative imagination. Even Lionel’s demise parallels Diane’s own ‘real’ life, as does her stepping out onto the balcony to expose her ardent desires to her neighbours. The love that evolves between Lionel and Diane becomes a metaphor for the birth of the creative artist, that process by which Diane crosses over from her more predictable life into that ‘otherness’ of the unusual and the strange, and which enables her to find her inner artist’s voice. In some sense, the question might be raised as to why Diane needed a male to escort her across the threshold. The repression she felt within her personal life was already there as a propelling factor to overcome her inhibitions about stepping into her own world of creativity. Sometimes we need an outside muse.
Shainberg, too, drew from the influences in his own life to create this world. With parents who were psychoanalysts, and a family acquaintance with Diane and her photography, Shainberg had the daring to set up a sometimes surreal world of Alice in Wonderland perspectives in the apartment interiors. This setting becomes a claustrophobic yet magical interior world, that is a metaphor for Diane’s memory and internalised thoughts.
Fur may not be a film for everyone, but then very few films ever are for everyone. There is an unsettling quality to Fur, no doubt about it, an oddness, an element of strangeness and the bizarre. For the viewer, you need to enter in a complicit way into that almost fairytale other world that the actors and director have created.
For myself, it’s the only film I’ve ever seen four times at a cinema and, while I’ll concede I have the time right now to do that, I wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t an interest to explore the ideas within the film with more understanding than I gained at first viewing. My starting point was a long standing curiosity and a little knowledge about the photography of Diane Arbus.
There’s always been the debate about the exotic otherness aspect of Arbus’s photography. Is the photographer sympathetic with her subjects or is she a voyeur? To a certain extent we’re all voyeurs, whether photographers, or viewers of photography or film. The real Diane believed that a photograph captured the soul of a person on film, and although fascinated by people who were unusual, appears to have respected and befriended her photographic subjects. Although we don’t see her photographs in the film, we gain an understanding of her artistic sensitivity. Nicole Kidman’s empathetic performance helps us see this. What could have become disconcerting, sideshow elements when Diane, with Lionel, enters his world of marginalised people, is instead explored with an affection which ensures that these people are never seen to be ‘freaks.’ The director and actors, NK and RDjr, are to be commended for the sensitive way in which we are led to view their world.
That world is one in which Diane seems more at ease than the predictable world of her married life, inhabited by her husband and children. On one level this is a sad story of the disintegration of a marriage, which, ironically, provides a more grounded world for the viewer to identify with than Lionel’s world. Alan Arbus, Diane’s husband, as so movingly acted by Ty Burrell, keeps us connected to that world.
His birthday tribute to Diane, made with full awareness of their failing union, is so emotionally real. Throughout the film Burrell gives a convincing portrait of frustration, despair and realisation.
Nicole Kidman, as Diane, has a tricky role to negotiate, and gives a real and sensitive portrayal of the artistic arousal of a woman, repressed by her predictable life, who pursues her desire to escape into the unusual. It is no surprise that she is responsive to the strange, uncouth behaviour of Lionel, so tenderly portrayed, in the main, by RDJr. Perhaps they bravely recognise a kindred soul in the acceptance of each other.
If you are interested in the creative imagination, in the influences on an artist in the making of art, in human relationships, lives which are unusual, photography, or simply in the photographs of Diane Arbus, you will be interested in FUR. It is a complicated, powerful, intense yet visually absorbing arthouse piece. It is a fairytale that both intrigues and suffocates in a strangely affecting way.
And the musical score is a perfect complement to the film. It reveals no secrets.
For those who need to know, yet again-is there anyone out there in cyberspace who reads these things from Sydney???-[i]FUR[/i] is screening for a third week at The Chauvel Cinema in Paddington, until Wednesday 3rd October, but with very limited screenings only. Check out their website for details. I doubt it will go beyond that date.
Thanks for your review, cinemasaver, such a wonderful movie .
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