Bruce Weber is a world famous photographer and film maker having done promotional campaigns for fashion houses such as Calvin Klein and Abercombie & Fitch.
As well as his amazing photography he has also made four feature films; Letter to True, Broken Noses, Chop Suey and Let's Get Lost, all of which are incredibly beautiful to watch, having a wealth of visual ideas. Probably his most well known films are the very well respected Let's Get Lost which follows the career of jazz musician Chet Baker and Broken Noses which follows the lives of young amateur boxers in America.
As with his photography Bruce works mostly in black and white for his films.
Weber's film 'Red Flag Day' is an example of a poetic documentary which follows the training session of a group of athletic American high school wrestlers with sound bites from interviews played over the top.
Another example is 'Tough Guys Wear Pink' which chops footage of South American working class families with stylised images and footage of attractive, carefree American teenagers engaged in recreational activities and has sound bites and on screen text.
I would argue that Weber's feature film Chop Suey can also be classed as an experimental film as it contains hundreds of short edits of images and footage along with documentary footage, old photographs, voiceovers, phone calls and seemingly random music and pictures. Weber also uses colour filters and a mix of black and white and colour images.
As well as the feature films which definitely fall within the documentary genre, he has done many music videos, including the Pet Shop Boys 'Being Boring' video, and many short and experimental films.
I love Bruce Weber's films and highly recommend the Bruce Weber collection. As I love photography, interesting composition and the use of light and shadow (particularly in black and white images and films) I find Bruce Weber's films and photographs interesting and wonderful to look at.
http://www.bruceweber.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment