Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was an American photographer who is best known for her portraits of people in New York, which tackle issues of appearance and identity and have led people to debate about the moral role of the viewer in art - both the photographer and the person looking at Arbus' images have been criticised as voyeurs. She is noted for taking pictures of people on the outskirts of society, from carnival performers and transvestites to eccentrics and nudists. Arbus also took a number of pictures of those considered by society as 'conventional', but in such ways that she portrayed the fissures in their own identities, hinting at a strangeness existing even in more 'normalised' settings. I suppose this strangeness is what informs much of photography anyway - that fundamental mystery between what the photographer wanted from the subject, what the subject is thinking, and indeed what the viewer later makes of the image when it hangs on the wall or sits on a magazine page. Whatever your stance, Arbus was a fascinating woman. She died in 1971, aged 48, having killed herself. She left behind an astonishing legacy in the form of her confrontational, direct photographs and is considered an influential American artist.

Fur is an enthralling re-imagining of her birth as a photographer and should not be viewed as presenting true fact. Loosely based on the period in Arbus' life when she began to dip her toes in the waters of photography, Nicole Kidman plays Arbus as she leaves her family behind to pursue her ambitions. The catalyst for her doing so comes in the form of Lionel, a Svengali type figure played by the always value for money Robert Downey Jr. Lionel is a fictional character who is a man afflicted with hypertrichosis, an illness which means that his body is covered with hair (hence the title). He enters the movie to become Diane's counterpart, a socially marginalised figure who is a world away from her upper crust family. Downey and Kidman give some incredibly moving performances as Lionel unleashes Diane's previously pent up passions, presenting us with two people aching to feel like they belong, who achieve this in each other. Diane is introduced to us as a typical 1950s housewife, helping photographer husband Allan (who trivia fans will know actually ended up acting in MASH!) prep his models for shoots and looking after her daughters. She never quite feels like she belongs in the upper class world she is part of and has no outlet for self expression, having gone straight from her privileged and repressed family to her husband by the time she was 20. Upon meeting Lionel, who moves into the apartment upstairs from her, she senses he is a kindred spirit and slowly begins to fall in love with him over a series of sensitively acted and artfully shot scenes. The fact that Lionel is a fiction constructed by the writers of the film gives them free reign to present a story which owes much to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (on one occasion Lionel is actually seen reading this story to one of Diane's daughters); with lots of looping shots up, down and around staircases, through corridors and inside miniature doorways. As the title suggests, this is not a biopic but a creative retelling about Arbus which gives ample opportunity for the imagination to go for broke as she makes her psychological journey. The multi-leveled apartment buildings and ingenious use of piping, doorways and air vents hint at this psychological layering, the sets representing Diane's own burgeoning desires and eruption of long repressed secrets: Lionel is therefore a symbol of Diane's sense of feeling 'different', or a 'freak'. From the fur clothing her father manufactures to the hair on Lionel's body, the idea of fetishising the 'other' is never far from the story and - just like Arbus' own photography - conflates the socially marginalised with the weirdnesses of those considered conventional to hint that, as Morrissey says, there is no such thing as normal.

On the level of Diane and Lionel's relationship, the movie is about desire, however unconventional it may be, and tells a deeply affecting love story. The stylised fairytale look of Lionel's apartment also allows the audience to watch the movie as a fable of sorts about a woman finding herself. Whatever you decide the movie is, you can't disagree that Nicole Kidman gives a performance which in my opinion is far superior to that she gave in The Hours.She is incredible, and once again her eyes do the trick for me. They are so expressive they could move you to tears even if she was crying about a ladder in her tights. Kidman captures the frustrations of a woman who is torn between family and creativity powerfully. She was undoubtedly the right person to cast in the role: as Arbus is seen abandoning her more than understanding husband (Ty Burrell giving a restrained performance which easily wins your support) and children, she could easily be viewed as a selfish, spoiled woman if played by a less sympathetic actress. The impact her actions have on her family are suggested without compromising the central love story and the fact that the dilemma Kidman's character faces is such a controversial one is handled well by both Kidman and Burrell. Downey is wonderfully sardonic as usual, managing not to make Lionel too much of a pitiable or tragic figure and instead portraying him as a lively, fun guy to be around. I've read reviews that have said it's hard to take his Chewbacca make up seriously and whilst I concede this point, I think if you take the movie as a fairy story and suspend disbelief, it makes a beautiful sense. He and Kidman have an easy chemistry and he plays the role with a well chosen lightness. The love scene between the two (after a lengthy shaving sesh) is true to the sensuous, tactile feel the director has built up through using a palette of richly hued colours and gorgeous array of textiles. It's not a surprise that director Steven Shainberg was behind the similarly quirky Secretary, as this is another brave and unique undertaking. Fur will not be everyone's cup of tea, and I suspect there is ample room to criticise the fact it seems to excuse Arbus' selfish actions regarding her kids, but as a fairy tale-cum-love story I really enjoyed it. Compassionate and oddly erotic, the ending had me in tears.

Beauty and the Beast for grown ups.

Comments

[Martha Rodriguez]

i just saw the movie, and i think its an antagonistic movie, Nicole Kidman played a great role..and so did Robert Downey Jr. about the phatographer life of Diane Arbus...her life was just like this movie...antagonistic and very sad.

Great Film
-Martha.