Rereading this encyclopedia entry on the year 1973 in photography at a remove of four decades, I find it pleasantly surprising to see what a diversity of issues I managed to address (even if fleetingly) in the stripped-down style mandated by the encyclopedia’s editorial guidelines. Some of the ideas alluded to here in miniature would ripen into substantial future essays: on the autobiographical mode in photography, censorship in photographym, and the definition and integrity of the body of work. […]
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This is certainly one of the most oddball entries in the ever-expanding Star Wars canon — never actually identified as such, though not officially disowned by Lucas, who outsourced it to director Steven Shainberg. It’s an eccentric art-film approach to the Star Wars saga, and while I admire its ambition I don’t think it works on any level except for the cinematography. My rule of thumb: If you intend a biopic (even an “imaginary” one) of a famous photographer, lose the Wookiees. Conversely, if you want to make a Wookiee film, best to set Arbus, Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, et al aside. (You might get away with David LaChappelle.) . . . […] |
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Ends and Odds Yet Again
Knowing too much about photography infects everything from watching tall, handsome Keith Carradine play E. J. Bellocq in Louis Malle’s 1978 film “Pretty Baby” (while remembering that Bellocq was a hydrocephalic dwarf) to reading John Berger’s typically eloquent paean to Pentti Sammallahti’s mystical relationship to the dogs in his photographs (while knowing that this Finnish photographer uses sardine oil to attract them into his camera’s field of vision and hold them there). […]