Too much Spielberg

Crewdson's interest in narrative photography brought him close to cinematic photography. While for many it is the most interesting part of his work, his critics describe it as a flaw. He's often being compared by them to Steven Spielberg of photography. I'm not the biggest fan of latest movies by Spielberg, however neither I or anybody else can ignore his impact on cinema. Hence I don't necessarily agree with this accusation towards Crewdson's work. I don't think he simply reproduces popular culture but re-interpret it. As many others postmodern artists his work is both based and influenced by pop culture and film genre.

Just in case you haven't seen any of Spielberg's movies, here's the special edition trailer for Close encounters of the third kind from 1977 which is often mentioned in relation to Crewdson's work.

Technicality

When looking at the final photograph, you usually focus on things like: do I like it or not, is it good or not, is it art or not, etc. With Gregory Crewdson’s photographs you might find yourself wondering how the heck did he put that all together? Well, as his images are often described as cinematic ones, they in fact require a film crew (usually around 20-40 people of different professions) and lots of preparation upfront.  

With the Ophelia photograph, one of the issues was that the model was in a pool of water together with electrical objects. The cooperation with an electrician was necessary. The other thing was the weight of the water itself. Gregory Crewdson wanted to have 90 cm of water on the set, but he was told that the stage could not take that amount and would simply collapse. The production designer suggested designing a room where everything is 54 cm lower than normal and this way creating an illusion of deeper water. Another thing with water was to heat it. They’ve installed water heaters but left them on too long and the fire started just when the model arrived!

Luckily it was extinguished quickly enough so the photo shoot could carry on. There were two versions of this photograph shot. One, when she was “just about to submerge herself into the water -- the moment before the moment. That was very beautiful. Then I said, 'Well, let's try the other one.' But we were running out of time -- we had to be done by 5 o'clock -- and the water was now freezing. So I said, 'Let's just not do it.' But the model was suddenly determined. When she was in the water, looking up at us, I knew that this was the right picture. The fact that there was anxiety on the set that we were running out of time, that there was a fire the night before, that the water was freezing -- all of that, I think, fueled the resulting image. It's beautiful and haunting. It's perfect.” (Interview by Nelson Hancock)

Ophelia

The pre-Raphaelite painting by Sir John Everett Millais is a well known across the world representation of Ophelia. It has inspired many painters and even at least one photographer. Gregory Crewdson’s interpretation of it is part of his series “Twilight”.  

Gregory Crewdson describes his inspirations for this image:  “this is a woman who has been living in this house her entire life and who has led, up to this point, an everyday existence. She comes down the stairs, and her living room is flooded. She just accepts the situation and submerges herself in the water. That's why the slippers are on the stairs and her robe is on the bannister. I see this as a cathartic event, something both beautiful and sad.”

As always lots of attention was paid to each single detail in the final image. The things you often take for granted while watching his photographs involved lots of work from different groups of people living nearby the shooting location, i.e. NorthAdams, MA.

For example, the curtains were donated by Country Curtains, the pictures on the wall were donated by a local wedding photographer, furniture and books were donated by Goodwill. If you look close enough you will notice that the book on the table is titled “Deep Harbor”. 

That’s actually the thing that draws me the most to his work, you need to look closer and not just glimpse at it to really see all of it.

 

Freud and Crewdson

It is emphasised that Gregory Crewdson’s father, and to be more precise his profession, has had a strong impact on Gregory Crewdson’s photographs.

His father was a psychoanalyst. He used to meet with his patients in the basement of their family home in Brooklyn. The future photographer would press his ear to the wooden floor and try to listen to his father’s therapy sessions.

Even though he says now he couldn’t really hear anything, it has still influenced him. He was projecting images in his mind into the patients’ histories. Gregory Crewdson calls it his “first photographic act”. He mentions as well that his father is “the most central person” in his work.

These influences are both visible in his earlier surreal images of birds inhabiting the rear gardens or farms with their own rituals as in the later cinematic works.

 

The motif of people driven by their fears and obsessions, or sometimes caught in the middle of some nightmare comes back in all of the cinematic images from Twilight and Beneath the Roses series.

 

Twilight series 1999

5 photos in 5 weeks

Gregory Crewdson's images are highly staged. There is no dubt about that. They are often described as being cinematic. And the truth is that the time spend on creating them is similar to shooting of a movie (sic!). As Gregory Crewdson says himself it takes 5 weeks work on a set to produce 5-6 images! If you can't believe it, see the below interview.

Sanctuary

An exhibition of latest work by Gregory Crewdson called Sanctuary is to open on 24th of November in White Cube in London.
Unlike his recent works, this project is without people. It shows 41 black and white photographs taken in Cinecittà film studios in Rome.
As it says on the Gagosian Gallery website "he has captured the palpable atmospheres of melancholy lurking at every twist and turn, cloaked in shadow or suddenly illuminated by a shaft of daylight."

Though I get the melancholy, I'm not sure these images have the same impact on me as the previous cinematic ones. They seem ordinary at a first glance. It's like you can find many similar ones on Flickr. Maybe I just need to sleep on this. See how they look tomorrow early morning.



Auction

If you have some spare cash laying around, you might be interested to know that few works of Gregory Crewdson will be on sale on 9th of November. For more details see artnet