Last night I watched Fur: an Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006), a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downy Jr. The movie was enticing and provocative but accurate?-not in the slightest. Apparently according to most accounts of the famed photograher that I could find online, the majority of the movie was completely false. The whole movie is based around this love affair she has with her exotic neighbor which leads to her abandoning her family. The movie ends with saying that this character “Lionel” whom she has an affair with never existed, and all accounts elsewhere said the same thing. WHY would you make a movie about a ground-breaking photographer of the 20th century and have it be totally abstract from any factual knowledge pertaining to the artists life?! I understand that it was supposed to be an “imaginary portrait” but in the very least I expected it to be based on some truths. While I did find the movie to be fasinating, I left broken-hearted that I hadn’t really learned anything at all about this beautiful, mysterious photographer whom I have admired for years.
