Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with Diane Arbus(Nicole Kidman)entering into a park were all the residents resides their are naked.The head person tells her to be like so, if she want to stay their.She asks them to gave her sometime.
Then the story is told as THREE YEARS before.Diane Arbus is an housewife(having two daughters)and as a assistatant to her photographer husband Alex.But this was not the job she wants moreover she also wants to be a photographer.Then Lionel Sweeney(Robert Downey Jr.) a mysterious man(whose body is fully covered )came as their new neighbour.She decides to knew more about him.With the permission of her husband she decides to take pictures of her neighbour but the real reason is to meet Sweeney.They begin to meet together every night at his room.She told him that she want to make a portrait of him. From their first meeting Diane discovered that Sweeney was suffering from hypertrichosis (a.k.a. werewolf syndrome, a disease that causes excessive body hair) Diane feels a great attraction for him and is introduced to the world of freaks and marginalized people.Slowly she begins to love him.Her husband began to notice sudden changes in her and became very upset.On her marriage anniversary Sweeney revealed Diane that he is having Emphysema and will die soon.She became very sad and when they begin to kiss they was interrupted by her husband.At night a fight occurs between Diane and her husband and she promises him that tonight she will end her relation with Sweeney and goes to Sweeney's room.Their she saw him naked with his body full of fur and asks her to shave him.After that, they had sex and slept together,At that time her husband was sticking photos took by her in their room to give her a surprise and to welcome her back to their old life.The next day Sweeney insists her to take his picture for her portrait. Diane was gifted by a cloth made by Sweeney with his fur and took her to his favourite location to the beach.Their in front of her eyes he swims deep into the sea(he dies). A sad Diane return to the apartment with her husband waiting for her.But she decides not to go their and instead she went to Sweeney's room.She was given an album by Sweeney's fiend with all pages left blank.In the first page it is written -"Plate one Lionel " by Diane Arbus and at the last page written -"plate fifty untitled by Diane Arbus". She smiles by looking at it. Then after some time she kisses her daughters and leaves from their apartment.
The film ends with Diane walking naked in the park with others with her camera and their, she befriends a lady.The lady asks Diane wheather she is gonna take her picture.Then Diane said no.
Then Diane asks the lady to tell her secret,then the lady insisted to tell hers first.
Then Diane said OK.

Tags: flashback, home movie

Review:
I've mostly seen Ty Burrell in comedies like 'Out of Practice' and 'Back To You' but here he shows that he can pull off serious roles as well.Not only is 'Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus' a plot driven film, it can be watched as a character piece, a mood piece, a love story and a period piece.
A similar approach was also used by director Steven Sodebergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs with their coolly expressionistic merging of the fantastical and horrific writings of Kafka (1991), with the more mundane, everyday-like tedium of his real life and work.Fur (2006), which makes its intentions clear with the subtitle "an imaginary portrait of Diane Arbus", takes on a similar approach to the films aforementioned; blending elements of personal fact and actual biographical detail with a story that is pure, fairy tale fabrication.
This surprised me for two reasons, firstly; that these intelligent and well-versed viewers were unable to separate the elements of fact surrounding the real life Diane Arbus and her extraordinary body of work from the quite clearly fabricated depiction of grotesque beauty that the filmmakers create through the imagined relationship between our caricature of Diane and a character named Lionel; a mysterious former carnival performer.
Secondly, it surprised me that these viewers felt that Arbus's life would be better served by a routine, by the books Hollywood biopic in which all the facts and back stories are simplified, and we end up with a very simple film about the triumph of the little guy against all odds.Do people really want bland, cookie-cutter, connect the dots cinema; a struggle over adversary and all the usual nonsense that comes with those A-Z, biographical features, such as Walk the Line (2005) and Ray (2004)?
Fur, for me, took us inside the psychological world of Arbus, with none of the black and white moralising or textbook type tedium that often plagues this particular genre; but instead, showing us some of the potential ideas and imagined situations that came to instill her work with such a grotesque sense of beauty.It has a long been said; "every picture tells a story".
This film takes us inside Arbus' world and gives us a beautifully told and imaginative back-story that blends elements of real-life fact with references to Gothic literature, fairy stories, history and the subjective power of the art itself.
You may disagree with the approach, or fail to see the appeal of the story, but for me, Fur is the kind of film that I feel I could go back to again and again and still find a number of things worth raving about.Like one of Arbus's iconic pictures, Fur presents us with something seemingly drab, seemingly bizarre, and allows us to take the time to see the inherent beauty behind it.
Paradoxically, it's the very use of Diane Arbus' name and knowledge to her life and work, that sets this film up to fail on a grand scale.What becomes apparent quite early on with the casting of the beautiful WASPish and glamorous Nicole Kidman as the anti-glamorous Jewish Diane Arbus, is that Shainberg didn't get Arbus or what her work was about (unsentimental realism) and seems only attracted to Arbus on a superficial level through her photographs of circus freaks.What follows is a kind of pretty and trivial Beauty & the Beast fantasy biopic with Robert Downey JR as Kidman's hairy fictional love interest.
However, it's not the banality of the story that is the main flaw in this film, but the director's misogynistic stance that Diane Arbus, one of the art world's most singular and original woman photographers, was incapable of forming her own ideas about her work.
While his previous film 'Secretary' was a study of female masochism, his continued portrayal of the female as submissive spoils this film completely - and flys in the face of the real life Diane Arbus' courage, tenacity and fearlessness in single-handedly exploring the often shady world of outsiders.Imagine an imaginary biopic on pop star Madonna's life with Guy Richie as her Svengali, the man behind her career, and you'll get a feel of how seriously flawed and imaginary this film is: It can only work if you have absolutely no knowledge of the subject, or just choose to ignore all the facts.It's a shame because once you remove all reference to Diane Arbus, this film could have stood up on its own as an interesting study on fetishism and a good companion piece to Secretary.
One day ante litteram desperate housewife Arbus, married with the mild mannered advertising photographer Allan, looking outside the window sees Lionel, their new neighbour: this is the beginning of the most unusual of love stories, around which the whole film revolves.
If you are a fan of Kidman or Downey Jr. you can give a chance to this film: don't expect a serious work about Diane Arbus, but rather a very strange dream, and maybe you'll enjoy it.
What possessed anyone to make this film, which explains her unique artistic vision, as being the result of an (imaginary) affair with a grotesque, yet charismatic hairy freak (played by Downey)?In real life, Arbus broke out of a traditional marriage and woman's role to express herself.
In this movie, Arbus is an ultra-dreary Nicole Kidman whose inspiration is all attributed to a "Beauty and The Beast" devotion to an interesting man.For this reinvention, the film is truly shameful.
Behind the nuanced acting and artful direction lies a simple relationship film that does all it can to overshadow a lack of insight by feeling heavier and deeper then the script allows.Coming across a Gillian-lite, director Steven Shainberg is more preoccupied with atmosphere and weirdness to realistically suggest what actually made this woman tick, while essentially being based on nothing substantially true.
Downey takes things refreshingly low-key and offers up an interesting perspective which could have served the film better, had his name been the imaginary title portrait instead.In effect, no small part of Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus failures remain due to the title itself.
I could have liked this if I didn't like Diane Arbus.Didn't really capture Arbus unique visual aesthetic(as Stanley Kubrick did in "The Shinning", with the twin girls in the hallway, a direct homage to one of Arbus most famous photos, and one with haunting qualities none of this movies images have), and certainly none of her character(outgoing), likeness(thin and Jewish, not wasp Queen Kidman), or life, save some very superficial similarities, she was a fashion who later photographed "freaks" and "outsiders", among many things.
This is done in an effort to understand the inner-vision of photographer and photojournalist Diane Arbus whose most famous work was of societal outcasts.Nicole Kidman plays her in the film, quietly submitting to the oppressive attitudes of the late-1950's.
When Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey Jr.), a mysterious man with hypertrichosis (a.k.a. werewolf syndrome, a disease that causes excessive body hair), comes to live in the apartment in the upper floor, Diane feels a great attraction for him and is introduced to the world of freaks and marginalized people, falling in love for Lionel."Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" is a weird movie, actually a bizarre romance with characters that recall "The Beauty and the Beast".
Nicole Kidman is impressively beautiful and gives an awesome performance together with Robert Downey Jr. The director Steven Shainberg from "Secretary" presents another unconventional love story  probably his favorite theme.
There is far too much of Robert Downey however, in his role as her mentor/lover/fantasy.Diane Arbus could never have been this vapid and cold in real life, surely.I, for one, was left feeling very cold having watched this murky, fictionalized account of a woman who needs to be portrayed in a far better film than this.3 out of 10..
Diane, whose real-life photographs are famed for challenging accepted ideas of beauty and ugliness, ventures into a dark and mysterious world where she notices jewels to which others are blind.Diane Arbus is played by Nicole Kidman, one of the most accomplished actresses of our generation.
If you can relate to the updating of Beauty and the Beast, or want to see into the mind of a famous photographer (who is still relatively unknown outside of art circles), Fur - An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus is a triumph.
It is about the development of character and personality and is made purely for entertainment, this is executed very well and there is a strange likeness between the real Arbus and the one portrayed in the film.Acting is the strongest point of this film and Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut, The Others) who plays Diane Arbus gives one of the strongest performances of the film, portraying the frailty and emotional battle that Arbus is going through during this movie and I firmly believe that Kidman was in fact snubbed at the 2007 Academy Awards for her performance which was beautifully and emotionally executed.
The editing is well thought out and is used very well in almost all of the film.Overall "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" is an interesting film that leaves you appreciating life and love but above all things is makes you appreciate art and how it can affect our lives and change it forever.
So I have no idea where the negativity of review coming from.It was a pleasure watching this film.It was screaming art every second of it.Robert Downey Jr was good here but clearly this film is a Nicole Kidman best movie....I drove catching the rush hour.
A few years ago,director Steven Shainberg surprised me a lot with the film Secretary,an unusual romantic drama with a very different way of other movies of that genre that try to convince us with clichés and known formulas.Secretary told a romantic story by a way which is not seen too much on movies of that genre.Now,with Fur,Shainberg tries to do something similar,showing a romantic relationship in a conventional and repressive atmosphere.And,by the way,inventing a fictitious biography of North American photographer Diane Arbus.The result is a great movie.At the beginning of the movie there's an advertisement that we are not going to see a real biography of Diane Arbus,but an imaginary story which portraits her spiritual journey.I think this movie reflects a little Shainberg's vision of the world and not Arbus' vision.And I'm not joking.It's obvious that Shainberg took elements of the classic film Beauty and the beast(the version of 1946;not the crap made by Disney)to give his imaginary vision of Arbus.But there's a big difference that makes Fur better:in Beauty and the beast,Belle falls in love with the monster in spite of its physical deformations;in Fur,Arbus falls in love with Lionel because of his unusual physical condition.So,this movie does not show how love can be stronger than anything...that would be very obvious and it's obvious Shainberg is not interested in telling a romantic story on that way.Fur is a celebration of an alternative romantic relationship and it avoids all the clichés.This movie has extraordinary performances.There are actresses who can interpret any character with realism on their expressions and dialogs.But,there are better actresses,who can do the same without using dialogs.Nicole Kidman is one of that brilliant actresses and her work on this movie is totally awesome.Robert Downey Jr. is an excellent actor who is more famous for his scandals than for his performances as an actor.He brings a brilliant performance on this movie,actually.These performances stayed in my mind a long time after leaving the theater.Fur is a great movie,perfectly acted and because it tells a romantic story in an unusual way.Shainberg is a very promising director and it would be interesting to see more films directed by him..
Near the end director Shainberg attempts an 81/2 montage of many of the subjects Arbus would photograph in her prime by parading them through a scene but even this rings hollow in its presentation by sanitizing the moment, especially with her models drained of their monochromatic identity.This over two hour film on the life of Arbus imaginary or otherwise does itself no favor by concentrating almost totally on the disintegration of her marriage and finding of her voice while ignoring her most important period as an artist when the voice projected with some disturbing imagery that went beyond the contrived and manufactured.
despite the fact that i ve never loved the biography -drama genre movies , but this one is done well , i loved it , loved the acting , the unusual script , the whispering plot and the directing i have the honor to be one of nicole kidman' s admirer , this stunning actress , really she love her work i assure of that after i saw that movie , a big star like her never think of that sort of film but a one like nicole who likes to be unique , star with the whole meaning of word , yes she dare to do that and she really succeeded , it will be added to her excellent history,SHE Succeeded TO act the character which has the , whispering , beauty calm , coldness , sensitiveness properties , she had to deserve an Oscar node in my opinion ,good job nicole.
It made me feel like I was part of her life, part of the 50-ies, and got this hunger to know more about the real Diane, her work, and in a sense, also would love to know more about the reasons why Kidman chooses the movies she has been choosing the past years.I think that Nicole is a monument, a diva, but also someone who I would not be surprised about to end sadly in her own life.
Don't get me wrong, I wish her all the best, but in some ways I feel as if in some of the movies of the last 5 years, I have seen Nicole herself as she is, and knowing that she portrayed people like Virginia Wolf, and now Diane Arbus makes me wonder.Nevertheless, you may not be an art lover, only a movie fan.
Sadly, I had the same question in mind after I finished half-dozing through Fur.It's about the wife of a professional photographer who is happily married until, one day during a particularly harsh bout of seemingly friendly questioning from a lot of uppity yuppy snobs, she realizes the reality of her low class life-style, and soon finds herself inexplicably falling in love with a man who just moved in upstairs, who suffers from a disease that causes extremely overactive hair-growth over his entire body.The one thing that I appreciate about the movie is that, even though it fails, it attempts to present Lionel Sweeney, the afflicted man, as a real person with thoughts and feelings rather than the freak that society has made him out to be.
The movie tries to illustrate society's unfortunate tendency (and need) to relegate people who are different to the very edges of our communities, fixing them with neat labels and then constructing walls around them to remind them (and us) that we are "normal" while they are, ah, something else.Lionel's brooding demeanor and soft spoken mannerisms are meant to give the impression of someone who has suffered at the hands of the world around him because of a physical disease over which he has no control, but unfortunately, because the encounters he has with Diane Arbus (a real woman whose life is completely and mysteriously changed for the purpose of the movie) are so wildly unrealistic, he comes off as nothing more than a fantasy movie monster, like that giant teddy bear in Labyrinth and why isn't that movie on the top 250 list?
(Unfortunately, Robert Downey, Jr.'s prosthetic pelt is unintentionally funny: he looks exactly like Chewbacca.) Carefully labeled a fiction inspired by the real-life Diane Arbus, the film exploits her photography the way Amadeus uses Mozart's music: to validate the genius of an artist who, without it, would be just your basic weirdo.
Humorously titled "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," the film is a fictional account of the photographer whose suicide and publication, "Freaks" was lauded in the early 70s for its presentation of human anomalies.
It was kind of an interesting movie - mostly because it was strangely perverse.The movie is a fictional account of why real-life photographer Diane Arbus chose to photograph subjects like transvestites, dwarfs, giants, prostitutes and others with a somewhat disturbing atmosphere.In the story, she develops an interest in an unusual and insightful apartment neighbor - a person who has to hide his appearance whenever he goes out in public.You'll have to wait a little over 30 minutes for the movie to pick up - it's pretty flat until then.
I thought the acting in the film was very good and Nicole Kidman gave an especially creepy performance as photographer Diane Arbus.
The title of "Fur" however serves an additional (and very important) purpose  "imaginary" one should pay attention to, because while Diane Arbus (Nicole Kidman) the famous photographer is real, the movie is entirely fictional.Well, may be not entirely, but we will never know.
I do wish there was more background on Lionel that might lead the viewer to understand his interests, his courage, and his love for Diane in more depth and to the completion of his character development.So, I'd recommend the film to those curious about Diane Arbus, though the story is fictional, as far as I understand; as well as to fans of Kidman, Downey, Jr., and Burrell.
In this fictional story Lionel acts as the catalyst that gets Diane more interested in the unusual, a trait she already had, and eventually a love interest.Good movie, and both Kidman and Downey Junior are super in their roles.