[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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