Fur Debuts at Telluride

It was a smart move for Picturehouse's Bob Berney to unveil Steve Shainberg's Fur at Telluride. This delicate piece would have been lost at Toronto or Venice. It will have its official premiere in Rome, which was willing to pay the freight of bringing the gang, including Nicole Kidman, over. Venice wasn't.

I was expecting a weird movie about a woman photographing freaks and instead saw an exquisitely crafted love story. It played well for the Telluride crowd this morning, which tends toward the older art-house side. Instead of making a conventional Diane Arbus biopic, New Yorker Shainberg, who grew up with her photos in his house because his novelist uncle was friends with Arbus, has crafted an imaginative portrait of the period in her life when Arbus, 35, took a dive off the deep end. She stopped assisting her husband in his portrait studio and started taking her own photographs. How did that transformation happen?

Shainberg and his screenwriter-collaborator Erin Cressida Wilson took off from Patricia Bosworth's biography and threw Arbus (played by Nicole Kidman in tightly cinched 50s dresses) down the rabbit hole and into a wonderland peopled by freaks like Robert Downey, Jr., a man completely covered with hair. (He's a fictional construct based on a real person who Arbus never met.) It works. It's no surprise that the team that created the sadomasochistic romance in Secretary would dig into Arbus's strange universe with zest and glee. But many will want the movie to delve less into this woman's escape from bourgeois convention and more into exploring her iconic photography. "That would have been boring," Shainberg insisted at the Q & A this morning. "You already know about that."

Comments

[IClavdivs]

Exploration into her iconic photography? her words are enough because Arbus was a woman who already shared her whys for taking the pics, google Diane Arbus and the results point you where to go.
The question we all want to know is who IS Diane Arbus and thank God for filmmakers like Shainberg, who keep finding imaginative ways to entertain. Everyone can see Arbus' pics, it is out there. What we want to see is how she became Diane Arbus, we already know "Diane Arbus" so good on Shainberg for going that route.

Biopics of recent years have been nothing but diaries, they might as well have made them as documentaries.

[Sam]

Wow, this sounds amazing. Hope Nicole can get another Oscar nomination. Robert Downey, as well.

Can't wait to see it.

[romeoisbleeding]

The way you have described this movie is exactly how I hoped it would turn out. I cannot wait to see it. I have been a fan of Arbus and Downey jr. for a long time. This movie sounds amazing. Thankyou!

[Mark Rutland]

The Arbus biography, by Patricia Bosworth, is a remarkable book, somehow "impossible" to put on a convencional narrative — so this is good news.
While waiting, why not support Nicole and Downey Jr. to the Oscars?
We always think of her — "et pour cause...".
It's just fair to think more of him — he is one of the greatest american actors, right?

[IClavdivs]

Cinematical reports that Fur is a love it or hate it film after conducting a quick survey of some members of the crowd at Telluride. Good for Fur and the people who made it. Sadly, I doubt AMPAS will be able to wrap its head around Fur. If a movie is not filled with wailing, screaming then it is a no-go.

[Robert]

Kidman does have guts when she does projects like this. She has never been the kind(besides a few exceptions) to do the normal type of things someone would expect from someone of her status unlike some like Cate Blanchett or Julia Roberts who, most of the time, stick to high profile "baity" projects. Kidman is thankfully, different in that way and that is what sets her apart from everyone else.

Can't wait to see this film. Big fan of everyone involved.

[Anne Thompson]

While I obviously admired the film, I didn't say anything about its Oscar chances for a reason...I don't think that's where it's heading. Sophisticated cinephiles will appreciate its virtues. Finally, these filmmakers went where they wanted to go, and that's that.

[JUN]

Fur deserves serious consideration by AMPAS.
It is one of the most original, sophisticated, thought-provoking films I've seen in the last decade. It is a story about exploring the world outside of the square that you live in and finding your true self.
Isn't it time that we break out of the traditional mold and start doing something that we truly believe in?