Gregory
Crewdson: Brief Encounters
I've
often felt that it would be wonderful to record your dreams in a concrete and
technologically accurate way like a TiVo device or DVR although this is
impossible, at least right now. But there is one artist who is striving to
document his own personal REM tableaux. His name is Gregory Crewdson and he is
obsessed.
"Gregory
Crewdson: Brief Encounters" is a new documentary about Crewdson's large format photographs that spill on the
eye like a painting by George Bellows or Edward Hopper if filmed by David Lynch.
Crewdson's
immense works are painstakingly staged and posed before they are shot. His work
which resembles film, is often shot on location in Mid-American towns and they
have a definitive economically depressed tone. Shabby grey people often stare in
doorways their mouths agape with eyes full of sleep. Often, an eerie
supernatural light emanates from windows suggesting the arrival of aliens or
possibly a noxious gas.
Crewdon's
mastery is unmatched ; he manipulates huge machinery, people and lights, often building entire sets to produce his imagery.
But
for me, at least from the point of view of a documentary, Crewdson himself
seems more compelling than his work. Throughout the film he tells of his
father, a psychoanalyst in New York. He admits to wanting to eavesdrop on
psychiatric sessions, of having dyslexia, of making art during his divorce
(which were dioramas of birds and suburban houses clearly inspired by the film
Blue Velvet) and one wishes for more details.
Crewdson
is clearly a charismatic person but the documentary reveals little of his
personal life. What about his divorce? And who was she? Crewdson also mentions a
sensation of dislocation, yet we are given very little as to how he really
feels about himself, his loves or his parents. Given the obvious otherworldly
and personal nature of his work, I was left craving a bit more.
The
documentary, which contains many striking on-location scenes of Crewdson at
work, as he poses his cast, nervously walking and talking, is so step by step
that it seemed I was watching an art history piece more than a feature
documentary. The residents all seem to respect him as he closes down entire
streets of a Massachusetts town and that's all well and good, but given that
the work is existential and haunting it seemed to be missing some dramatic
discontent. What about his enemies? I'm
sure the artist has some critics.
Despite
its want of private information however, "Gregory Crewdson: Brief
Encounters" makes a good introduction to an artist who works with his own
insular visions. Excluding any intimacies of the artist, the photographs are
majestic alone, lighted with minute detail and birthing new suburban offspring
to the painters John William Waterhouse and Millais.
Write
Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com
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