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 (Madman)
The story of a photographer now as famous as her subjects
Celebrity-spotters and photography fanatics alike are going to have a field day with this DVD. As a photographer to the stars, Annie Leibovitz has captured all kinds of famous people in iconic and sometimes controversial poses, from a naked John Lennon curling up to Yoko Ono (taken just hours before his murder) to the recent headline-making semi-nude shot of Miley Cyrus (taken after this film was made). In the process, Leibovitz herself has become famous as one of the world’s great photographers. This documentary, made by her filmmaker sister Barbara for America’s PBS network, traces her work from the peace-and-love era of ‘60s San Francisco up to 2006. For over three decades, she has snapped bold, eye-catching images for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Life Magazine, Vogue and other publications, from fly-on-the-wall stuff like The Rolling Stones on tour to elaborately staged fashion shoots – and even found room for an occasional war. In 90 minutes people on both sides of the lens, including Mick Jagger, Gloria Steinem, Arnold Scharzenegger, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Hillary Clinton and Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, paint a revealing picture of this driven but stylish image-maker. Along the way, we are treated to frame after frame of her stunning camera work and, in an hour of extra footage, hear people like Whoopi Goldberg and Demi Moore talk about how her photographs changed their lives (Goldberg in a bath of milk, Moore gloriously pregnant and naked for a Vanity Fare cover). Apart from seeing how she actually works (in a photo set-up involving George Clooney, for example), we’re also taken some way behind the lens into aspects of her private life, from the loss of her partner Susan Sontag to the raising of her three children. This documentary is for anybody who has come under the spell of a great photo.
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BILL HOLDSWORTH
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