William Eggleston DVD

[beau 1664876222]

I just received as a gift a DVD of the film, "William Eggleston in the Real World." It's a low-

budget but intelligent documentary about the man and his photography.

 

The film is highly enjoyable, but then, Egg is a big hero of mine.

 

The best part is all the footage of him walking around and shooting, intercut with the

photos that resulted from each snap. Wow! the guy still has it, big-time. Just awesome

photos. We also see alot of him projecting his slides, him playing piano, him chain-

smoking, him consuming prodigious amounts of bourbon, etc.

 

There's also footage of Egg talking about his photography, which is both amusing and

perplexing because he refuses to be drawn out at all. He's a man of few words -- at one

point he is shown receiving some award at a big event given in his honor, and he gets up

there on stage and makes a speech that lasts about 3 seconds and then walks off - really

funny.

 

Anyway, I highly recommend this film for any Eggleston fans. The guy's a giant in my

book.

[thomas_sullivan]

yeah Beau....enjoyed it the same way you did. Saw it on the Sundance Channel awhile back. will probably buy the DVD eventually.

[Brad_]

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.

 

By the way, just saw How to Draw a Bunny, on Jeff's recommendation. About the life (and

death) of Ray Johnson. Really good...

[robert x]

Hey Brad - I saw this film last year when it was shown in London.

 

Someone tried to talk about this movie in the "Philosophy of Photography" forum, but it got hijacked and has turned into a pointless rant about drinking.......

 

Although he uses a Mamiya throughout most of the film, I can see why you would post this thread in this forum now. I must say I really tried to see what the 35mm camera he was using was, but didn't recognise it. The director said at a Q&A after, in response to the question "what camera does W.E use":

 

"Bill showed me so many cameras that I came to realise it wasn't the camera that was important"

 

Here is a rewording of my comments in the other thread, which has unfortunately gone totally off-topic.

 

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I thought it was absolutely hypnotising watching Eggleston wander about taking photographs. Watching the way he works. I too am a big fan. There is a scene where he talks to a woman in a take-out restaurant where he wants to take some pictures and his touch with her is amazing. He has a beautiful Southern drawl and a lovely polite unassuming manner with folk. His voice is really something special - and what he says, as you point out in your post, is great. He doesn't get drawn in to Almereyda's questions about his "art", just parrying all questions that could lead to pretentiousness with often very funny (to the viewer, not joke answers) vague responses that are very down to earth. He didin't say much at all - seemed quite shy really. He is obvioulsy very fond of his wife and his son. The scenes with them were very touching and they are obviously very comfortable with each other and seem tohave a very lovely life. His wife seems very intelligent and kind. He is a very accomplished piano player, and would evidently rather be playing the piano or designing hi-fi than talking about "art".

 

 

After the showing, Michael Almereyda ended up back at the flat, and we all got pretty drunk. Almereyda was very engaging and interesting and polite. He had met Eggleston at a wedding and made friends and that is where the movie idea came from. He evidently really liked Eggleston. He took one of my pictures and said he would give it to "Bill" as he thought Bill might like it. I was pleased. Doubt it ever happened though cos I emailed him afterwards and got no reply, but it might have and I am pretty pleased to think that one of my pictures might be lying in a drawer at William Eggleston's house.

 

Pretty pleased ? Let me rephrase that, I was on a ridiculous high for about three days ! (Its in my portfolio actually - a tiny woman in a red coat on a cliff top - the print looked nicer and I only showed him about four pictures. I jokingly said "You should take one for Bill"......)

 

 

I have also seen "By the Ways" which is another movie about him, by some french guy, which was rubbish and seems more obsessed with having a good soundtrack (to the filmmakers agenda) and trying to shoot "still" scenes in an eggleston "style" (and failing) rather than actually trying to find anything out. I would go and see "Real World" again as, for all it's failings, you get the impression that it is a film made with no preconceived idea of what would be the product and that turns in a fairly honest result.

 

 

 

robert x

[robert x]

- about BY THE WAYS, it is overall pretty bad, but in the "refusing to be drawn out" department there is a brilliant bit of footage of a German interviewer asking all sorts of "deep" long pretentious questions that W.E just slaps away with "erm, mibbe." or "not really" or similar.... Very funny.

 

Any big Eggleston fan should probably see it, though it ain't as good as "Real World"

 

http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=8469

[oceanphysics]

How did you, or whoever bought it for you, score a copy? Amazon says it's not being released until Feb 14.

[dg1]

Eggleston is a giant in my book too, and perhaps my favorite photographer. I too enjoyed the film and especially what Eggleston "said" by his deflecting responses to the questions posed to him. In Zen Buddhism, (which I usually don't like to bring up in the contemporary pop sense), the teacher will point to the truth, rather than try to describe it. I found Eggleston's comments did that, just as his photos do. It was really fun to watch him and his son work. I loved the part when they were in the grocery store and the manager asked if they were taking photos, Eggleston just says so politely "yes, we're photographers". A lot of precious things in the film. I'm definitely going to have to have my own copy of the DVD.

[35mmdelux]

I'm also a big fan of W.E. I don't agree w/ Szarkowski however that W.E. was one of the first photogs to see in color. I think that conjecture is ridiculous as it is untrue. For instance, as a punk kid I was shooting chromes in the late 60's and early 70's. I would believe that other, more astute, photogs were doing the same thing.

 

I got his book, W.E. Guide, and I think its really good. The only thing I didn't like was the foto of him butt-naked. I mean come on. The book would have been better IMHO w/out his butt-naked shot. It also appreared that he used WA lens in many/most of his shots, but the Guide doesn't eleborate on camera nor lens types. Looking forward to his DVD as well as Ralph Gibson ( if one is ever published).

[beau 1664876222]

I'm pretty sure the butt-naked picture is not Eggleston himself, it's probably the same guy (his brother?) who appears in the graveyard photo and a bunch of others. Eggleston is a very skinny guy, unlike that butt-naked dude.

[beau 1664876222]

"How did you, or whoever bought it for you, score a copy? Amazon says it's not being released until Feb 14."

 

Ocean, the friend who gave it to me is an "insider" of sorts, maybe he got an advance copy or something.

[Nowhereman]

Based on seeing Eggleston's photos only in books, I always had the feeling that his pictures

usually posed the question, "why is this is photograph?" However, after seeing his large

retrospective at the Cartier Foundation in Paris a few years ago, what struck me immediately

was what a great sense of color he has. It's quite remarkable how much better his prints are

than the reprosuctions in books. While this may be true for all photographs, it seems to me

that Eggleston's pictures rely so much on the color quality and sublety that the books don't

hold a candle to the prints.

 

--Mitch/Bangkok

[Nowhereman]

Paul:

 

>>>'m also a big fan of W.E. I don't agree w/ Szarkowski however that W.E. was one of the

first photogs to see in color. I think that conjecture is ridiculous as it is untrue. For

instance, as a punk kid I was shooting chromes in the late 60's and early 70's. I would

believe that other, more astute, photogs were doing the same thing.<<<

 

Obviously in the 60's and 70's there were loads of photographers shooting in color, as

color was the primary medium for advertising photograpjhy and for amateurs taking

family photographs. But Szarkowski's point was that color photographs were not generally

considered as art.

 

--Mitch/Bangkok

[Brad_]

Heh: reprosuctions

[robert x]

Hi -

<p>

I'm fairly certain that the naked guy in the Guide is a friend of Eggleston's who was a dentist in Greenwood, Mississippi. The famous "red ceiling" picture was taken in this guy's house, and he ended up being murdered and his house was burnt down. Even without this knowledge it is a pretty powerful photograph - very disturbing on a few levels. I guess the fact that it is a naked man is one level that disturbs some people. I would say that you should look at it again Paul, and try get around the worry of the guy being naked and look at the other tensions created.

<p>

Apparently there was also a "blue ceiling" photo. The following quote is from the <a href="http://www.egglestontrust.com/ancient_intro.html">intro to "Ancient and Modern"</a>, talking about the red ceiling picture...(this excellent essay also has some interesting comments about his discovery of the dye-transfer process as well.)

<p>

<i>'The Red Ceiling is so powerful, that in fact I've never seen it reproduced on the page to my satisfaction,' Eggleston claimed. 'When you look at the dye it is like red blood that's wet on the wall. The photograph was like a Bach exercise for me because I knew that red was the most difficult color to work with. A little red is usually enough, but to work with an entire red surface was a challenge. It was hard to do. I don't know of any totally red pictures, except in advertising. The photograph is still powerful. It shocks you every time.'

</i><p>To reply to Paul again about the camera/lens info, I have a very odd little book in the "Photographers at Work - A Smithsonian Series" series (?) called <a href="http://www.egglestontrust.com/monographs.html#">"Horses and Dogs - Photographs by William Eggleston"</a>[1994]. Unusually there is technical information at the back. I'll quote it here....<p><i>William Eggleston's equipment consists of more than a dozen vintage Leica and Canon 35mm cameras. He favors lenses in the 50-55mm range, sometimes switching to a 35mm wide-angle. Although many of teh photographs in this book come from Kodachrome transparancies, in the last decade he has shot predominately with Kodacolor negatives, since then he has shot almost always with color negative film. Aware that a C-print usually offers more faithful color, he retains a deep and abiding fondness for the saturations that can only be had from dye-transfer technology"</i>

[35mmdelux]

"Obviously in the 60's and 70's there were loads of photographers shooting in color, as color was the primary medium for advertising photography and for amateurs taking family photographs. But Szarkowski's point was that color photographs were not generally considered as art."

 

Thanks but...Wait a minute, those were not my words, rather a direct quote of Szarkowski. That is, W.E was the "first photographer to see in color." Maybe you're right, but I like to believe that the English language stands on its own.

 

Whether the masses believe that color is/isn't art or that B&W is/isn't art doesn't matter. Given time they'll catch up. Funny thing is that Stephen Shore, the 8x10 photog and Wharhol groupie, claims to be the first photog to see in color!

 

In the late 60s Griffin was shooting lots of color in VietNam.......its beginning to sound like some kind of time warp.

 

Talking about art is like talking about morality: Evrybody has their own opinion, as it were.

[35mmdelux]

Thank you for taking the time to explain/elaborate. It is appreciated.

 

RE: "The Red Ceiling is so powerful, ".....I can tell you that I unequivocally do not like the foto and the fact its butt-naked hasn't much to do with it. Otherwise the book is masterful.

 

I'm not impressed or moved an iota w/ "Red Ceiling." The words scribbled on the wall or whatever rantings remind me more of the schizoid patients on the street. Maybe in middle America this resonates, but not here in this part of town. Talk a look at Liebovitz nudes. No comparison.

 

The issue IMHO is that artist, photog in this case, starts to believe that anything they shoot is art. I have the same opinion about some of the cr--p Wharhol produced.

[35mmdelux]

My apologies for the use of the symbol cr--p regarding Wharhol's stuff. Lets just say I don't like it at all, not then, not now.

 

Thanks

[Nowhereman]

Paul:

 

You wrote:

>>>I'm also a big fan of W.E. I don't agree w/ Szarkowski however that W.E. was one of

the first photogs to see in color<<

 

Now you're saying that Szarkowski wrote "the only photographer". I don't know what he

wrote but, as a matter of English, there is a difference between "one of the first" and "the

only". But, as I said, it's rather obvious what Sz. meant, as color photography had been

around a long time before Egg's first MOMA exhibition, although, as art, the latter was,

also obviously, groundbreaking. I don't really see that there are any issues here.

 

--Mitch/Bangkok

[35mmdelux]

Mitch, Thanks for the fine-tuning. You're right on!

 

Regards from L.A.

 

Paul

[mark_gatehouse]

"Whether the masses believe that color is/isn't art or that B&W is/isn't art doesn't matter. Given time they'll catch up. Funny thing is that Stephen Shore, the 8x10 photog and Wharhol groupie, claims to be the first photog to see in color!"

 

While I was looking for stuff on Terri Weifenbach I came across a Shore video here (and an interesting take on Bill Eggleston)

 

http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/01/stephen-shore-movie.html

 

http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/01/random-quotes-1_03.html