Director Gero von Boehm’s fascinating film includes the famed
fashion photographer’s muses but also asks questions about his misogynist images
The intelligence and even-handedness of this documentary about the provocative fashion photographer Helmut Newton makes a change from the fawning tone you get in a lot of fashion films. It’s a flattering “authorised” portrait, featuring interviews with famous Newton muses Charlotte Rampling, Grace Jones and Claudia Schiffer. But director Gero von Boehm deserves points for not ignoring the “porno chic” controversy surrounding his more extreme fetishistic images of naked women. There’s a brilliant clip of Newton appearing as a guest on French TV alongside Susan Sontag, who accuses him to his face of being a misogynist.
The film benefits from terrific behind-the-scenes footage of Newton on the set of his shoots. “Don’t look poverty stricken. Look incredible!” he instructs a model. Newton himself looks as if he’s just stepped off a yacht in the French Riviera – a mischief-making youthful octogenarian, trim and tanned. He was born in
Germany in 1920 into a Jewish family and fled the Nazis in 1938. In Australia, he met his wife, June, and in
Paris made his name photographing a particular type of
Women – amazonians who projected sex and glamour. Men he had little time for; they were accessories – like a hat or a pair of shoes. Newton died in 2004 in a car accident in
Los Angeles.