[strumming music]
- I like to make work
out in the world.
I find it endlessly
fascinating.
♪ ♪
And I find that
I could never invent
the incredible things
that happen.
♪ ♪
And I love going places
or having experiences
that are not completely
within my control.
♪ ♪
Melissa?
- Yeah.
- I'm right here.
- Feeling good?
- Yeah, how are you?
- Great.
- Good.
- Great.
- Will you move the, um...
Yeah, move that around
a little bit.
- Did you know this is Revlon?
And this is what they
actually wore in the '50s.
It's called, um...
- Hold on.
Let me see.
[grunts]
Just a moment.
I will figure this
freaking thing out.
Sorry, you were saying?
- This is what the movie stars
in the '50s actually did wear.
It's called
Cherries in the Snow by Revlon.
And I wear this.
I love it.
They still make it.
- [laughs] Let me see.
I met Melissa when I was
working in Hollywood,
making photographs.
She was or--and is
a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.
Where are you?
Um...
Okay, I'm gonna
go under this way.
We've known each other now
for ten years.
What era Marilyn are we doing?
- We are doing, um,
"Let's Make Love."
- It's just been this improvisational
whatever she wants to film.
And we've become extremely close.
You know, based around
making something together.
- Ooh, hold that mirror there.
It looks good.
I'm trying to get your...
your eyes in here.
Okay, so...
[rousing music]
So often the picture can be
a gesture,
in a way, of love.
- Okay, okay,
go a little to your left.
But it's also
about being seen.
♪ ♪
I'm from Arlington,
Massachusetts,
about 15 minutes
outside of Boston.
I think I was maybe eight years old
and my grandmother
gave me a camera.
I immediately
fell in love
with observing the world.
[melancholy
electric guitar music]
So, when I moved West,
the first thing that struck me
was just the quality
of the light.
♪ ♪
And so I--so I wandered.
I just wanted to walk around with
a camera and kind of explore.
♪ ♪
I never wanted to just
photograph people
that were unaware.
It has always
very much been about
my wanting
to photograph people
who are interested
in being photographed.
♪ ♪
The light was bright
and illuminating everything,
including the incredible suffering here.
♪ ♪
You know, formally,
I was interested in
a degree of abstraction,
of really stripping away
all the extra stuff,
and only leaving what was
absolutely essential.
♪ ♪
And for me, they've become
like a family album,
remembering
each one of these people,
and what we talked about.
I always imagine them
as dissident soldiers,
you know,
where they demanded attention,
where you could not
avoid regarding them.
♪ ♪
[train horn blaring]
[blade swishes]
I think often that there
might be a perception
that the artist is the author,
when in fact it is so much
more collaborative,
when in fact people
have very strong ideas.
[ambient music]
And in particular when I
when I met Nicole
and started
photographing Nicole,
she was the most fun,
the most challenging.
♪ ♪
At one point we'd been
photographing for a while,
we were very close,
and she said, "You know,
"I don't know,
I just think your pictures
"are a little weird,
you know, a little boring.
"Can we make
some real pictures?"
And, I said, "Well, yeah."
♪ ♪
And I said,
"I'll just lock off the frame
"and do whatever you want."
♪ ♪
She got naked
and was kind of imitating
these provocative poses,
but then almost doing violence to them.
There was, uh, a desire
to have some of that glamour
or, uh, sex appeal
or whatever, and then she
rejected it at the same time.
And I thought,
This is closer
to what I feel as a woman.
♪ ♪
I mean we're talking about what's beautiful.
That's beautiful.
That is raw.
That's generous.
And her
allowing herself to be vulnerable,
is actually a strength.
I'm always drawn
to more difficult material.
♪ ♪
My best friend growing up,
she ended up having
a lot of problems
with--with drug abuse
and homelessness, and
the last time I saw her alive
she told me,
"You know, people don't want
to look at me.
"I know I don't exist anymore."
Um, that people
avert their eyes.
"I'm not even a person.
I'm a junkie."
♪ ♪
And as time has gone on,
the people that
I've photographed,
or the places I've gone have
been completely overlooked.
♪ ♪
I'd been thinking for a long
time about making a film,
or how to make a film,
because the circumstances of
making my photographs are,
in a way,
almost more important
than the pictures themselves,
or as important.
- What's in your hair?
- In my hair?
- I've been thinking
a lot about,
how can I represent or convey
a person's energy,
sense of humor, stories,
what have you.
♪ ♪
There's a lot that a
photograph can do.
But it can't do that.
- ♪ I've made
some bad decisions ♪
♪ In my life ♪
♪ Oh, oh ♪
♪ But it could get better ♪
- This place is, uh...
It's really
something else, man.
- Well, The Nine's
the name of a street.
It's the local name
for South Ninth Street
in the Central Valley,
Modesto, California.
[ambient music]
Everyone shares, [stammers]
you know, a struggle.
And there's a candor and
openness about that struggle.
[on TV]
- It's plain old-fashioned.
- Nobody says you have to like it.
- That's the way it is.
I met a woman
named Vanessa on The Nine,
and she introduced me to
to some other people
over time.
I asked them
if they might be interested
in making a film together,
and they were
really enthusiastic,
and I spent a long time
hanging out,
seeing what would happen,
getting to know people
really well,
seeing what would unfold.
[acoustic guitar music]
I didn't want to make a movie
that was sensationalizing
lives that are
already quite victimized,
but instead
showing how mundane,
how ordinary, how in fact, recognizable,
their lives were.
♪ ♪
- My mama used to say every
hair on my head was counted.
When I met Kiki,
it was really vital that she tell her own story.
♪ ♪
- She said, "Don't be afraid.
"You're worth more than
hundreds of sparrows."
♪ ♪
I don't know, though.
Even one sparrow
is holy to me.
♪ ♪
Let's eat.
Come on, babies.
[chatter on television]
- I'm not a journalist.
I saw us as making a film together.
[ambient music]
I worked with her for five years.
Spent so much time with Kiki.
And at the same time,
I am watching her
hurting herself.
And then I get to go home
to my house in Berkeley.
And what does that mean?
Do I have the right
to be there?
♪ ♪
It's--yeah,
it's--it's difficult,
and it raises
a lot of questions.
♪ ♪
I struggle with
wanting to do more.
Probably feeling a bit guilty,
and at the same time really valuing my friendships.
♪ ♪
I don't know, it'sit's
you know, the fact is,
it's complicated
and it's not resolvable,
and yet to avoid it
is sort of becoming
complicit
in--in not seeing.
[stirring music]
- Is this where
we went last time?
- Um, yeah, this is
the same route we went.
I think what we should do
is wait and get the sunset.
It's rather short, the dance.
Right now I'm kind of at the beginning again.
♪ ♪
And I have lots of ideas.
♪ ♪
I torture myself
'cause I feel like
I never know where I'm going,
but that's what's required.
- This is cool.
I really like all of this.
♪ ♪
- There are these
repeated kinds of
relationships that I have,
which are about
an unexpected collaboration.
[whispers]
Okay.
- What--what
what does this look like?
♪ ♪
- It's all beautiful.
Probably the most
important part for me
is the leap of faith
that we both take
to trust one another.
♪ ♪
Life is a lot more interesting
than kind of remaining
in my studio
or my little
my little bubble.
- Yeah, you know, should we do
the thing with the spotlight?
The--the car lights?
♪ ♪
I guess I wanna be
shaken out of complacency.
I think discomfort is
a really important feeling,
and it might
help you recognize
some of your own limitations
in the way you see the world.
Or just the fact of other possibilities.
[laughs]
I'm sorry.
Hold on.
♪ ethereal ambient music ♪
To learn more about Art21 and our educational resources,
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"Art in the Twenty-First Century" Season 9 is available on DVD.
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