Ingmar
Steven Meisel lensing last year's best narrative editorial from Vogue Italia starring Toni Garrn and Katrin Thormann. Oh and yes, the shoot is indeed inspired by your favourite movie. Yes, that movie.
Nagisa
In the realm of the seses
Ultimately a tale of sexual obsession, jealousy and destructive love, Nagisa Oshima's cult picture from 1976, based on a true incident that occured in Japan before WWII, depicts the intensified nature of the extramarital relationship between a brothel worker (Sada) and the brothel owner (Kichizio). As the affair grows, so does their insatiability in relation to the other making them uncompromisingly indulge in their lusts, however elaborate and intense they may prove, even going to the lenghts of engaging in asphyxiation play. Sada's obsessiveness consumes them both and it's clear the affair will see only one of the two outliving the other. Upon realising she will never truly be the only woman in his life, she takes measures of nobody else ever having him by dismemembering his privates. In real life it's known Sada Abe was adopted a heroine in the public eye and her case became a media sensation and is supposedly stil to date one of the most famous murder cases in Japan.
Oddly enough, this outing of Oshima's is probably more shocking today than upon its original release, amidst the progressive and bold cinematic scene of the 70's independent and art house features. Indeed, it is not for the faint-hearted and contains explicit material putting even today's provocateur Catherine Breillart to shame. It remains however a powerful, yet somewhat flawed, piece of cinema.
Linda
25 years and my life is still
I'm trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
I realized quickly when I knew I should
that the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
for whatever that means
And so I cry sometimes when I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out what's in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take a deep breath
And I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What's goin' on?
-4 Non Blondes- What's up
Photo: Guy Bourdin*
*Before there ever was a David LaChapelle, there was a Guy Bourdin.
Ryan
Ryan McGinley- I know where the summer goes
"Photography is about freezing a moment in time; McGinley's is about freezing a stage in a lifetime. Young and beautiful is as fleeting as a camera snap--and thus all the more worth preserving."
Nobody does it better. Not even half as good.
When first glimpsing on Ryan McGinely's work one might easily come to think of photographer/director Larry Clark (Bully, Kids, Ken Park) who may well be a distant (word stress) cousin of McGinley's, with obvious similarities extending to youth and nudity. However, while there is a deliberately provocative and exploitive nature to Clark's work on the dismal theme of; Society-gone-fucking-bad-and-when-adults-are-away-kids-will-play, McGinley rather uses nudity as an expression of the freedom tied with being young. There's a certain joie de vivre and sense of wanting to be right in there in every single frame of his, that is so remarkably captivating with Ryan McGinley, not to mention luscious.
When first glimpsing on Ryan McGinely's work one might easily come to think of photographer/director Larry Clark (Bully, Kids, Ken Park) who may well be a distant (word stress) cousin of McGinley's, with obvious similarities extending to youth and nudity. However, while there is a deliberately provocative and exploitive nature to Clark's work on the dismal theme of; Society-gone-fucking-bad-and-when-adults-are-away-kids-will-play, McGinley rather uses nudity as an expression of the freedom tied with being young. There's a certain joie de vivre and sense of wanting to be right in there in every single frame of his, that is so remarkably captivating with Ryan McGinley, not to mention luscious.
