The movie Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus by Benjamin Williams isn’t your typical art history movie. To be honest it isn’t a typical movie in general that you would think to watch on your own. What caught my attention? As I watched the trailer, it reminded me of a mystery movie that just automatically grabbed my attention. In the title of the movie, it says “Imaginary” which is a very appropriate term to describe the movie. The movie plot was something different, and here is how. The movie plot did not focus on Diane Arbus’ artistic career. The movie present’s Arbus carrying around a camera everywhere she went and helping her husband with his photography for his magazines. While she did this, Arbus captured photos of the world around her. She viewed the outside world very suspiciously and that’s what made her portraits stand out. Arbus was alive between 1923-1971, during this time period technology was improving. The switch from films and photography being in black-and-white to color took place from the 1930s to the 1960s. Females were not dominant during this time period they were known for being housewives. So Arbus being a female taking portraits was already outstanding for the time period. Her photographs are in black and white so you would understand the time period. Photography around this time period was very popular for art history.
It was a point in the movie where Arbus was shown being shy, she was talking out loud to her friends but she was sad because she didn’t know what she was doing with her life. Arbus was living behind her husband’s shadow. This is what made Arbus push to take her own portraits. Arbus finds her passion for portraits when she finds a mysterious man who lives in her building. His mysteriousness caught her attention. But evidently she falls in love. The mysterious man was covered in hair everywhere you can think of, but when he went outside he would cover his face with a creepy mask and scarf. It would remind you of a man in disguise. Arbus reminded you of a housewife. She looked very strange. Anything that caught her eye or attention she viewed it mysteriously. The beginning of the movie catches your attention by starting Arbus off on a train ride and ending up in a nudist community. This appears again when she meets the mysterious neighbor Lionel and he invites her to a friend’s house where they appear naked and comfortable.
As she keeps hanging out with Lionel (the neighbor), her husband and kids start to feel neglected by her absence. What made Arbus so attracted to Lionel was that he wasn’t just mysterious, his house was too, which influenced her pictures. She had a variety of portraits of all objects and sceneries in his house. There were a lot of paintings on the wall, sculptures, and unique objects. As she captures portraits in his house you can tell how amazed Arbus really was with his collection, especially for his apartment to be so small and cluttered.
Lionel had problems of his own. He could remind you of Arbus when it came down to them being comfortable with themselves. Lionel hated how hairy he was. He used to shave himself every day before school so he wouldn’t get bullied. Similar to Arbus hiding her passion for photography because it was her “husband’s thing. She stayed behind his shadow because she didn’t have the courage to try. Once Lionel became comfortable with Arbus he didn’t try to hide his fur skin. But in the beginning, he blindfolded her or told her to “turn around” when he was coming. Arbus and Lionel eventually broke out from the negativity and felt comfortable within themselves.
After interviewing this movie, I came to the realization that this movie wasn’t about art from the outside world only, but art within themselves as well. Now I say this because Arbus was a shy woman. She didn’t use color in her portraits. The portraits were presented in black and white but maybe there’s color when you think deep into the photo. Arbus was attracted to mysteriousness so her portraits captured the items but gave the viewers a chance to think, “okay why did Arbus capture this? What’s special about this picture?”
Besides the viewers thinking deeply, the movie was portrayed as a love movie. It reminds you of Beauty and the Beast. They both didn’t love themselves fully until they met one another. The art showed what she took portraits of but it never gave us viewers reasons why she took these portraits and how she felt on them. I wouldn’t recommend this movie for an art history class because it didn’t give great detail on why she is an artist. The movie was based on love and the art within. The purpose of the movie was to show us the real imaginary art in Arbus portraits. Arbus captured photos of basic things but in her eyes she could see everything in it. She imagined the portraits to what she thought it should be. I would recommend an art class presenting this movie only because in art class we see paintings as how the painter presents it to be. As you learn more about art and its history behind it, you hear that there is more knowledge and significance in the painting that they wanted the viewers to see. The viewers just had to find it, sometimes using our “imagination.” Arbus allowed us to believe the unbelievable, which is our imagination. That is why she created the “Imaginary portrait.”
