Fur - An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
by Steven Shainberg
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Harris Yulin, Jane Alexander, Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr., Ty BurrellDirector: Steven Shainberg
Brand: NEW Line Home Video
Producer: Adam Brightman
Producer: Alessandro Camon
Producer: Andrew Fierberg
Producer: Bill Pohlad
Producer: Bonnie Timmermann
Producer: Edward R. Pressman
Writer: Erin Cressida Wilson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-08
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: New Line Home Video
Movie Reviews of Fur - An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
Movie Review: Mesmerizing, intoxicating view of the artist's life
Summary: 5 Stars
This jewel of a film is a gem one takes out and regards from time to time for its beauty and the lessons it imparts. I couldn't look away. What a beautiful treasure.
It's not a biopic of Diane Arbus, but instead a fantastic musing on a possibility; a possibility that the viewer will understand if she image-googles `Diane Arbus' and looks at her photographic portaits of those who don't quite fit the mold. The director absolutely got it spot-on. What a lovely inspired dream.
The plot: Diane, cocooned in her husband's bland portrait photography studio and her mid-twentieth century June Cleaver lifestyle, has her restless mind awakened by the arrival of a mysterious stranger who moves in to the flat upstairs. As she creeps up the stairs and passes through the heavy door to meet him and his entourage of society's outcasts, she herself is reborn to her original self and leaves the world of her young adulthood to fulfill her artistic destiny.
What unfolds is a beautiful morality tale of what it means to have a soul that lives outside of societal convention. How can one be true to one's art and still navigate the halls our culture places us in? How can one maintain integrity and control when one is dealt uncontrollable difficulties and challenges? And how does one provide unconditional love when the object of ones affections cannot be tethered? The Diane character is so starved for a world outside her own, you can see her salivate as she takes some marked risks in order to experience something different. Her passion will be recognized by those viewers who themselves have experienced such conflicted emotion. Kidman and Downey capture it perfectly.
The cinematography is beyond incredible, and redolent with symbolism involving doors, stairs, colors, and camera angles. The most obvious symbol of all, hair, weaves throughout the film in the most incredible manner. Diane's father is a furrier. Messages come to her via drains clogged with hair. The stranger is indeed the hirsute Beast. At the film's crisis, Diane is literally wearing a coat of the stranger's hair. And she emerges from her rebirth naked in a colony of nudists, ready to tell her secrets to an audience of people who, because they too are different, will listen with interest instead of revulsion. The ending is perfect. We could all benefit from being liberated from that which cloaks us from our true selves.
Be warned. This film is not for everyone. In fact it's not for most people. There's a reason it didn't score at the box office. It's for the rest of us. If you know and are intrigued by Diane Arbus' work, or by the artistic life itself, then you will enjoy this cinematic bon bon immensely.
Summary of Fur - An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
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