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MOVIES / ON DVD / FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

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Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)

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30 %
Reviews Counted: 109 Fresh: 33  Rotten:76 Average Rating: 4.8/10
 
Consensus: This biopic lacks the daring of its subject. This portrait of a groundbreaking photographer lacks the daring of its subject. more
 
Rated: 15
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Theatrical Release: 16-03-2007
Synopsis:
Was Diane Arbus a brilliant innovator whose photographs captured the beauty in the most desperate of subjects? Or was she an exploiter of "freaks," shilling pictures of the deformed as a modern-day sideshow? Regardless of where one stands on her work, few can argue its impact on the art world.... [More]
Was Diane Arbus a brilliant innovator whose photographs captured the beauty in the most desperate of subjects? Or was she an exploiter of "freaks," shilling pictures of the deformed as a modern-day sideshow? Regardless of where one stands on her work, few can argue its impact on the art world. In FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS, director Steven Shainberg makes a bold first attempt at bringing the artist to the big screen. The film opens with Arbus (Nicole Kidman) living as a depressed housewife in a ritzy Park Avenue apartment. Assisting her husband Allen (Ty Burrell) in his photography studio, Arbus helps him shoot ads for women's magazines. One night, after spying her mysterious next door neighbor--a sharply dressed man with a hood over his face--Arbus decides to heed her husband's advice to step out and take some photos of her own. She climbs the stairs to her neighbor's apartment with the intention of taking his portrait, and there she meets Lionel (Robert Downey, Jr.). Lionel suffers from hypertrichosis, a disease that causes thick hair to grow over every inch of his body, including his face. He and Arbus strike up a flirtatious friendship, and he introduces her to the underworld of New York. They party with dwarves, dominatrixes, and circus performers--all future subjects of Arbus photographs. Arbus's marriage soon begins to fall apart, and her relationship with Lionel builds towards a traumatic, but transformative, end. In an unusual twist, screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson has completely fabricated the character of Lionel, and his ensuing effect on Arbus. He is Wilson's fantastical idea of what might have spurred Arbus's metamorphosis from repressed housewife to daring documentarian of those living on the fringe. As the title states, this isn't a biopic--it's an "imaginary portrait," and while some might take exception to FUR's surreal spin on reality, others might find the unconventional film a fitting tribute to the always unconventional artist. [Less]

Genre: Dramas

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey, Ty Burrell, Jane Alexander, Emily Bergl

Director: Steven Shainberg
Producer: William Pohlad, Laura Bickford, Bonnie Timmermann, Andrew Fierberg
Composer: Carter Burwell

DVD Info

Release:

Aug 5, 2007

[DVD Details]

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Ratings Image

An interestingly designed but inescapably pointless film.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 06:44 AM
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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Kidman and Downey Jr’s moving performances more than make up for the film’s daft script.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 06:37 AM
Johnny Vaughan
Sun Online
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Kidman delivers another standout performance, transparent and magnetic. Burrell is no match for Downey’s hypnotic beast. The hairy romantic chemistry with Kidman is electric, the context inspired.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 06:26 AM
James Christopher
Times [UK]
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Ratings Image

While Steven Shainberg and his collaborators should be congratulated for eschewing the traditional biopic route, Fur is a noble experiment that goes awry. Sad to say but this is not a film for anyone wishing to learn about Diane Arbus.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 05:48 AM
James Mottram
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Stylish, imaginative and beautifully directed, this is a slow-moving but utterly mesmerising drama with terrific performances from Kidman and Downey Jnr.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 05:13 AM
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon
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These are themes that everyone can identify with, especially when they're expressed with such intelligence and artistry.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 05:10 AM
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
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Kidman wades in over her depth in this genuinely odd but disappointingly flat attempt to recast a biopic as a fairytale.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 05:06 AM
Tom Charity
Total Film
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Certainly the film isn't without its flaws. Then again, perfection is in the eye of beholder.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 04:30 AM
Stella Papamichael
BBC
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N/R

[The] film illuminates Arbus’ artistically brilliant, emotionally unstable life for no longer than the popping of a flash bulb.

Full Review | Comment
03/14/07 03:29 AM
Nigel Floyd
Time Out
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Far-out touches and liberal application of metaphor are compensated for by intensity and two mesmerising performances.

Full Review | Comment
03/13/07 03:17 AM
Angie Errigo
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image

Nicole Kidman is superb as the woman who blooms and goes a trifle mad at the touch of this other world inhabited by Lionel, and Robert Downey Jnr is the perfect actor for the role.

Full Review | Comment
09/06/07 02:47 AM
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile
Ratings Image

Una película diferente y para nada complaciente con el espectador, que permite aproximarse a una de las artistas más influyentes del siglo XX.

Full Review | Comment
07/23/07 11:15 PM
Enrique Buchichio
Uruguay Total
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Click to read the article

Full Review | Comment
07/14/07 05:18 AM
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound
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Unfortunately, the romanticism of Fur falls flat - a miscast Kidman trying to pretend Robert Downey Jr.'s foul-mouthed wolfman is dangerous and sexy. He is neither.

Full Review | Comment
06/09/07 12:04 AM
Kevin Koehler
Pretentious Musings
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If the filmmakers are telling us that Diane's artistic creativity was unleashed by the love of a good freak, then it's a shame. To turn a story so full of good intentions at the beginning into another movie about a woman who is liberated from the chains

Full Review | Comment
04/23/07 03:29 PM
Beverly Berning
culturevulture.net
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Shainberg manages the tricky task of showing us how the decidedly strange Arbus [saw] the world.

Full Review | Comment
04/10/07 12:37 PM
Dawn Taylor
Portland Tribune
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Depois do surpreendente Secretária, que brilhava por sua enganosa despretensão, Shainberg tropeça ao encantar-se mais com a própria ambição artística do que com as brilhantes realizações de sua suposta biografada.

| Comment
03/16/07 08:18 PM
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena
Ratings Image

The idea of growth as metaphor truly runs wild in Fur, until the thicketry of meaning and subtext becomes more dense than meaningful, and your attention is stopped, finally, at the surface of Nicole Kidman's placid full moon of a face.

Full Review | Comment
02/09/07 09:26 AM
Michelle Orange
Reeler
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full review in Greek

Full Review | Comment
01/08/07 06:05 AM
Joseph Proimakis
Movies for the Masses
Ratings Image

full review in Greek

Full Review | Comment
01/08/07 06:01 AM
Joseph Proimakis
Movies for the Masses
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Related Forums

REEL_REVIEWER
(2006)-FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS opens in NYC & LA on November 10th!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/16/06


REEL_REVIEWER
(2006)-FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS opens in NYC & LA on November 10th!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/16/06


REEL_REVIEWER
(2006)-FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS opens in NYC & LA on November 10th!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/16/06


REEL_REVIEWER
(2006)-FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS opens in NYC & LA on November 10th!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/16/06
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